It's counterintuitive to rest, do it anyway.

[00:00:00] You're listening to The Daily Five, an experimental podcast by Aurooba, where I talk about something for five minutes. So let's get to it, shall we? In one of my earlier episodes, I talked about the concept of seasons. Seasons of work, seasons of rest, of relaxation, of fun and how these tend to alternate throughout the year for us, you know, according to our own rhythms and perhaps the climate, all, all sorts of reasons.

[00:00:44] And I am currently in a season of accelerated learning in a very specific niche area, and it occurred to me that [00:01:00] professional development or any kind of learning – professional or no –happens in that same pattern. You have a short sprint where you are learning very quickly, very intensely, and then you have a season of..

[00:01:22] baseline, you know, where you're not very intensely learning. You might be just taking what you already know, and you have just learned, tweaking it, adjusting it for a little while until once again, you find yourself in a new situation that requires you to learn very intensely. Another sprint, really. And in that same way,

[00:01:49] I have been working very hard for the last little bit, and I had not been sleeping enough for sure, [00:02:00] and even when I was sleeping, I was not sleeping well. And eventually my body was just like, well, enough is enough. And I fell asleep and stayed asleep for 14 hours straight, which is not a very common thing for me.

[00:02:20] I am generally a light sleeper and not someone who sleeps a lot, even though I love sleeping. And the really funny thing is, and you know, this is a lesson that I find myself learning and remembering time and time again. I had been dealing with a couple weird problems for the last few days that I had not been able to figure out.

[00:02:43] I could not figure it out, and I kept hitting wall after wall after wall, and then I slept for 14 hours. I woke up, I had some good food, I hung out with my spouse, and then I [00:03:00] solved every single one of those problems just like that without like any apparent effort. It just happened and I was reminded of how important and productive it is for us to rest.

[00:03:19] You know, we know this from school. Our brains, when we sleep, that's when they process everything. That's when you know your subconscious, your unconscious mind, whatever it is, you know, figures out a lot of the things and is the biggest part of our processing, our brain processing power. Um, and often you wake up and you have answers or you have a fresh outlook.

[00:03:47] When we don't give ourselves enough rest, whether that is during sleep, you know, at night or in a season of our year, we are [00:04:00] less productive. We are less effective. We are less efficient, all the things we wanna be, all the things that we think we won't be if we allow ourselves to rest. It is counterintuitive, that's for sure.

[00:04:15] But I know you've had experiences just like the one I described, and that is just proof that when you feel like you cannot rest, that is the time. Very, very important that you do rest. Because that is how you will figure out and fix the issues that you're dealing with right now: by resting and allowing your brain to do what it does best, thanks for listening.

[00:04:47] Talk to you tomorrow.