In a global pandemic that has lasted more than a year, I’ve found I cannot tell myself not to worry, to just let go because there are real worries and tangible concerns facing us all.

You may be experiencing sleepless nights, being overworked, lack the support systems you used to rely on, full time parenting and juggling an overabundance of tasks. Many people are facing months of social isolation, job loss, sickness, loss of relatives, and loved ones.

It feels as if there is no escape. However, I believe you can take time and space to nourish your physical, creative, social, spiritual, sensory, and mental rest. Through intentional ritual and a little time each day you can carve out a safe space to replenish, because although sleep is a part of rest, I find rest is more complex than merely the hours you sleep each night.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith discusses seven types of rest to describe when you get sleep but are still feeling tired and exhausted. She describes that “rest should equal restoration is seven key areas of your life”: physical, creative, spiritual, social, mental, emotional, and sensory.

SEVEN TYPES OF REST

Physical rest is relieving your body of physical tension and fatigue, through sleeping and napping, as well as through stretching, yoga, exercise. Physical rest can look like relaxation practices, massage, and deep breathing.

Flower essence suggestion: Blue vervain

Creative rest is the idea of letting the wonder and awe of nature fill you up, as well as engaging in creative practices that feed your imagination. This can include talking a walk in nature, reading a book, playing, dancing, writing poetry, for me I find this through photography as well.

Flower essence suggestion: Columbine

Spiritual rest involves connecting to a sense of purpose, acceptance, belonging, and involves connecting to something more than your self. Many people find this from tapping into spiritual beliefs or a higher power. Prayer, meditation, and being apart of a larger community achieves spiritual rest.

Flower essence suggestion: Passionflower

Social rest comes when we can identify which relationships are nourishing our energy and which deplete us. We can find social rest by feeding those relationships which nurture us like connecting with an old friend or taking a break and creating boundaries from people who don’t feel positive for our well being.

Flower essence indicated: Pink Yarrow

Mental rest comes when we can quiet out anxious minds and refocus on the most important things. Taking short breaks throughout your day to slow down, when you are feeling irritable or forgetful. Journaling or writing a to-do list to help quiet the mental chatter.

Flower essence suggestion: Lavender

Emotional rest is when you feel capable of expressing your true feelings and can cut out actions to please others. Offloading your emotional baggage through release. Therapy, journaling are ways to find emotional rest.

Flower essence suggestion: Chamomile

Sensory rest is unplugging from devices, screens, and bright lights to come back to center. Finding time to close your eyes, embrace silence, and go within.

Flower essence suggestion: Cosmos

MANTRAS FOR REST

I can find safety in silence.

I can speak my truth.

Calm is available to me.

I give myself permission to rest and be still.

I can lean into peace.

Nothing is required of me in this moment.

I can trust my needs.

I can rest without guilt.

I am worth a pause.

Chamomile Flower Essence: Helps release emotional tension in the solar plexus. Good for calming emotions, thoughts, moodiness and irritability. Chamomile flower essence is calming and aids with sleep.

Lavender Flower Essence: Calms an overactive mind. Slow down to have access to a more peaceful state. Lavender helps bring awareness back into the body when there is excessive mental activity, overestimation from stress and electronic devices. Lavender essence helps soothe frayed nerves.

Nasturium Flower Essence: When you feel your life force is depleted, Nasturium brings you back into your body. It filters excessive energy out of your head redirecting it to your heart and body.

Blue Vervain Flower Essence: For those who can be too focused on work, so much so that they ignore their physical bodies. Blue Vervain is for the person who is overworked and needs to find a sense of calm, relaxation, and serenity. It is also useful for those with tension in the head, neck, and shoulders.

Passionflower Flower Essence: An essence that is bright and expansive, passionflower connects one to their higher self. Channeling messages from the spirit world to bring peace, clarity and spiritual connection.

Cosmos Flower Essence: When one is overwhelmed by too many idea, Cosmos flower essence integrates ideas and speech into a more cohesive whole. It harmonizes an overactive mind.

Pink Yarrow Flower Essence: For those who are a sponge for others emotions, absorbing the energy of others, for better or for worse. Pink yarrow helps you establish loving and necessary emotional boundaries.

Columbine Flower Essence: Columbine helps you express your creativity. When you find yourself unable to take social and creative risks, Columbine flower essence creates the conditions for you to take inspired action and using your voice in the world.

MEDITATION

Required items, a journal and a quiet place. Optional: a blanket, flower essence, eye pillow.

Find a quiet place. Get into a comfortable position either sitting or lying down. If it feels safe to do so, close your eyes. Take a grounding and cleansing breath. Inhale from the belly for three second holding for one second on the top of the breath and exhale for five seconds. Repeat this breath three times before returning to your normal breathing patterns.

As you come back to your breath, scan your body. Do you feel tension? Where? Where are your thoughts at the moment? Allow yourself to follow your body to gather information about where you are without judgment? If you have been on your feet all day, do they ache? Are you tired? Anxious? Just observe but do not attach to your fact finding mission.

We are using this time to check into our bodies to understand a little more about our needs. Once you feel complete, return to the conscious breathing, inhale deeply from the belly for three seconds, pause, and exhale completely for five breaths. Return back into the room you are in and open your eyes, if they were closed.

With a pen and paper, record your observations. Write down physical sensations in your body, any mental activity that came up, anything you felt in your heart space. Write down five things you think your body, heart, mind and spirit might need right now, without judgement. Write down five tangible ways or steps towards meeting those needs. For example, after the meditation I noticed my chest was tight, I miss my social interactions. I can address this need now by reaching out to a friend and letting them know I feel sad or lonely. If I realized i have taken a deep breath all day, maybe I can take five conscious breaths and go outside for some air.

You can try this short meditation before and after using one of the flower essence blends and note if there any differences.

I hope this guide helps you reframe rest in these trouble times. When you are feeling off, it might not just be sleep you need to feel replenished. i’ve found personally, incorporating facetimes with friends, 15-30 of intentional movement everyday, time off from screens, more greens + water, and unplugging earlier in the evening as well as incorporating intentional herbal support to have been wildly helpful. please share in the comments below any questions or what you are doing to find “rest” these days.