How is your body humming?
A counter-cultural perspective on the art of rest
When you think about rest, what comes to mind?
A good night’s sleep is usually up there, but do you think about rest as part of your daytime activities too? Or does that sound like an oxymoron?
When I ask people what they do to rest and unwind, there are some recurring themes I notice.
One of these is the ‘I need a holiday’ theme.
Our culture seems to sanction working yourself into the ground for 48 or so weeks of the year, and then holidaying for the remaining 4 (less in some countries) and imagining that this will miraculously top up the tank.
There can be some deeply restful moments when we’re on holiday – gazing at a sunset, diving into the ocean, walking in the forest. But many times, these are sandwiched in amongst a whole heap of planning, organising, packing, travelling, long road trips, crowded airports, almost-missed connections, strange beds, and disrupted time zones. It can all be pretty taxing to the nervous system. We are often draining the tank as fast as we’re topping it up, and even if this isn’t the case, a couple of weeks is unlikely to be enough to counteract a whole year lived at a frenetic pace.
The other theme I often hear when I ask about rest is the ‘Netflix and chill’ theme.
We sit in front of blue-light devices, receiving flashing light, loud noise, tense plotlines and stories specifically designed to take us on an emotional rollercoaster – and imagine that because we happen to be horizontal on the couch, this qualifies as rest.
From a nervous system perspective, it most definitely does not.
The body can only rest and fully heal and repair itself when the nervous system is calm (the ventral vagal state, which I have written more about here).
My clinical experience and day-to-day observations tell me that most people are not accessing this state often, if at all. It’s just not how most of us do life in the West.
What if rest was not so much something to be scheduled, but more a way of showing up in life?
What if a state of rest can be accessed almost anywhere if we understand our body chemistry enough to know how to get there?
What if there are micro-moments of rest we can return to throughout our day?
When you get still and quiet for a moment, and perhaps close your eyes, it’s possible to feel the underlying vibrational tone or hum of the body. Sometimes it’s cycling very fast, buzzing away like a fridge, other times it might feel lethargic and deadened, barely moving at all. But there’s a sweet spot in the middle, where the rhythm feels steady and solid, and where we can experience a calm, grounded, spacious, connected inner rhythm of aliveness and vitality. This is the ventral vagal state.
Many of us only know the two extremes – the wired buzz or the deadened lull. It’s a revelation to discover what else is possible.
In this sweet spot, the body finds its harmony. The digestive, cardiovascular, respiratory, hormonal and reproductive systems are optimised. The cells of the body radiate vitality.
This is rest.
It’s very hard to live full-time in that place, but we can learn to visit it more often, to show up in many different situations in our life from that place, with less efforting, less striving, less activation of the nervous system. And when we do so, we experience more health and equilibrium in mind and body.
We can make a practice of tuning into our own hum and learning what nudges it towards harmony. Sometimes just the awareness is enough, other times breath work or body work might take us there. Time in nature, time away from screens. Slowing down.
As you become more accustomed to tuning into your own hum, you will start to hear the hum of others. Everyone is humming to their own particular rhythm. When we experience connection and resonance with someone, it’s often the felt sense that we are humming at the same vibration, and we have a tendency to sync our rhythm with those around us.
The ‘hum’ is often the first thing I sense when a client walks into my room. There’s the nervousness of a first session with a new therapist, Auckland traffic, finding parking, but once arrived, I’m curious - Can they settle? Can they sync with me? Pausing long enough to receive a response, to see and feel the other person in the room? There’s no judgement in this. I know this struggle in myself, but it points towards a big part of the work, the journey we will take together. It points towards a big piece of where the healing and transformation can happen.
True rest and healing is found in the still moments, the quiet spaces, the gaps. Not the slumps or the checking out, but the moments of pure presence. We sometimes avoid these moments like the plague because these are the spaces where we run into ourselves. Where we feel our underlying emotions. Where we may meet fear, grief, disappointment, unease. Where old memories or regrets may bubble to the surface. Where we may come face to face with what’s not working in our lives.
We live on the run. But there’s a cost to drowning ourselves out. We lose touch with our inner wisdom, our intuition. We can’t hear what needs tending to in ourselves. And our bodies are strung out, inflamed and chronically tired.
When I’m sufficiently rested, I feel spacious. I feel well. Creativity flows. I have compassion for others. I can see the humour and the beauty in life. When I’m not rested, there are two versions of me. One is jagged, impatient, critical, tense. The other is flat, uninspired, struggling to move from the couch. Too much time in either of these two states can lead me down the path of illness.
Learning the art of rest gave me back my health after a long journey with autoimmune disease. When resting becomes part of daily life, not something that happens separately, or just once or twice a year, we begin to create the conditions for healing.
To rest is to pause
To rest is to breathe deeply and fully
To rest is to focus on just one thing at a time
To rest is to notice, to open our senses to the here and now, to take time to smell the flowers
To rest is to go against the grain of our frenetic culture
To rest is to have spaciousness in our mind
To rest is to hear ourselves, and in doing so, become able to hear others
To rest is to listen to the whispers of the body
To rest is to engage with life with less striving and efforting
To rest is essential to our wellness and sanity
To rest is a radical and revolutionary act
Tell me, what is your relationship with rest? What helps you slow down and sense your underlying hum? Do you think of rest as part of your daily life? Or just something to dip into when the tank gets low? As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts. (If you’re reading this in an email, click through to the website to join the conversation).
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Well said.
I have become very interested in rest since getting older (turning 82 in two days) and needing it more, or at least more visibly. My husband taught me to just lie down for ten minutes on the bed and that is surprisingly refreshing.
But I think one gets rest from all sorts of semi-passive activities. I have a very small garden but it is full of bushes and I love going out with my pruning shears and cutting things back. Very restful. Sometimes it is the wrong time of year and sometimes I prune too much (or too little), but the professional gardener who pops in on occasion forgives me, because he knows it's good for my soul.
I always do a few sudokus before going to sleep and I can literally feel my body winding down, because my mind is focussed on only one thing of absolutely no emotional significance.
So many ways to rest, I think (although I have no idea about my physical state at the moment), it seems a pity that we don't learn them much earlier in life. Perhaps rest should be taught in school and in all those 'keeping healthy' sites, along with good nutrition and exercise.
Absolutely love this post, especially, “ As you become more accustomed to tuning into your own hum, you will start to hear the hum of others. Everyone is humming to their own particular rhythm…. True rest and healing is found in the still moments, the quiet spaces, the gaps. Not the slumps or the checking out, but the moments of pure presence…. We live on the run. But there’s a cost to drowning ourselves out. We lose touch with our inner wisdom, our intuition. We can’t hear what needs tending to in ourselves. And our bodies are strung out, inflamed and chronically tired.”