How Active Rest Can Make You a Productivity Ninja

Active rest is a key element to living a SupawesomeLife.

Just like your SupawesomeLife is personalized, your active rest is based on your personal preferences as well.

Simply put, active rest is spending time doing an activity where your mind, body and soul can disengage from life’s stressors and engage in peaceful surroundings. When active rest is part of your lifestyle, you’re more likely to experience more peace, mental clarity, creativity, energy and discover answers to challenging situations. Needless to say your productivity goes through the roof.

Active Rest is Not Goal Oriented

The secret is not attaching any physical goals to your active rest. For example, I nordic skate ski or roller skate for active rest because my brain gets fresh air, my mind is soothed by the rhythm of the movement and my soul is expanded by nature’s beauty.

While the by-product of skate skiing and roller skating is a physical workout, I do not measure any of my physical activity or count it as a workout because the minute I attach a specific workout goal, it’s no longer rest, and becomes a task. It’s like we have to trick our brains into resting because they are so used to being measured and performing tasks.

How to Engage Your Active Rest

Think of some activities or hobbies you like to do that don’t require a whole lot of motivation to do. Activities that you crave doing or that you get lost in. Those are your innate active rest activities. Examples: play an instrument, draw, hike, walk your Dupawesome, etc.
- TIP: Digital activities like video games, social media, internet research, Netflix binges, etc. are not active rest because they stimulate your brain too much.
If your active rest activity is outdoors, try to pick a soothing surrounding. If your activity is indoors, pick a place where there is minimal external stimulation i.e. TV, people talking, etc. Also, try to find a place with limited clutter as the clutter can overstimulate your brain as well.
- TIP: Active rest produces best results when done alone–social interactions can over stimulate the very part of your brain, you’re trying to rest. The exception is if the person you’re doing the active rest activity with is also seeking active rest…then it works to have social interaction.
Start scheduling active rest into your days/weeks. Some of you are already active resting so maybe you increase the length or frequency. If you’re new to active rest, then start with a short duration of an activity maybe once or twice a month.

Implementing active rest might be a little challenging at first because we’re all so wired to constantly produce. However, active rest is one of these counter intuitive success secrets. It has proven true in my lives and the people’s lives I have mentored and coached. As a matter of fact, as active rest becomes part of your lifestyle, you will find that you not only look forward to your active rest activities but you also look forward to the productivity sessions post active rest because they’re so much more enjoyable with better quality and better output.