Podcast Advertiser / Host of CVS Pharmacy Podcast (8:23)

Like if you were late for work.

Gemma Spake (8:26)

You are just late for work because you know somebody was sick like you. That was a productivity issue. There was money being lost based on your choices. Once time is measured in that way, we basically as a society begin to learn that there is always some kind of cost to rest or to not working. That, you know, that's time not being spent properly. Properly, and we might lose out if we're not on the go all the time. There is kind of a further social, cultural element to that, to why we panic with not being busy enough or occupied by tasks. And I think that element is that not being busy means we could be out of a job, means that there isn't enough work to go around, means that you are not worth the cost to an employer. Actually, you know, looking back culturally, if you lost out on work, if you chose not to work, like you were generally viewed pretty harshly, you were stigmatized for not doing so and you would suffer. Like your family wouldn't eat. There wasn't as much Social Security. So on a huge scale, and I know this is a psychology podcast, but to get historical like this, our entire structure towards work and productivity and perceived responsibility shifted. It shifted from doing what was needed to doing everything in excess and what was required from you. And suddenly it's also the individual's problem. Work is not being done and money is not being made. Like that's a stressful burden. If we move forward to modern day, you know, we now have unions, we have more adequate workers rights in a lot of countries, you know, a lot of places have weekends off. Holiday pay is another example. But what we now have, that wasn't around back then, that is still contributing to this, is online platforms like LinkedIn and social media. And they are a huge contributor to why you feel bad about resting. What do we do when we have five minutes in between meetings, five minutes in between appointments, five minutes whilst our pastor boils? We pick up our phones and we scroll. And in that moment we can potentially see dozens of other people doing more than us. And this creates competition with how we use our time. And where there is competition, you know, there are winners and there are losers. There are people with greater status and people with lower status. I think I need. I'm going to explain this a little bit better. More so than ever, busyness psychologically has become a status symbol. There is research suggesting that in the US in particular, social perception is such that being busy and having little leisure time now means that you are important. It used to mean that the more leisure time you had, the more, the less like, the more important you were, basically because you could afford to not work. Now it shows that you're in demand, that you're needed. Being busy is the equivalent to having a designer handbag or a BMW. Longer hours, less free time. Again, it conveys social importance. This is as twisted as it sounds because it's like only a particular kind of busyness, right? There's only a particular kind of grind and hustle that's glamorized. People working three jobs to support their kids, people doing 14 hour factory shifts like that is not glamorized the way that a CEO jet setting around the country is. So nowadays we have this shift and your phone is constantly showing that narrative directly into your face and into your life at all, all times. Even if you don't think it is, even if you think you're not picking up on this message, even when you're not actively thinking that you're comparing yourself to others online, your brain is naturally going to do it. Your brain is collecting information on those who are achieving the image, their progress, the praise they're getting and what is considered impressive right now. And this influences your self perception and therefore your attitude towards rest. Even if you're not someone who thinks of yourself as competitive, modern life is set up in a way that pushes you into competition even when you didn't really choose to be there. That is what is happening. So let's switch gears here for a second. There's also this other element that we need to talk about that makes rest feel bad. And it's the again, hyper competitive hamster wheel of the workplace and of opportunity. And if you're in your 20s, you felt it. This idea of like, oh my goodness, I better work really hard. I cannot switch off because if I do, I'm going to fall behind. There aren't as many opportunities as there were 20 years ago. I got to be the one who gets that. You know, the people who are enduring this the most, the sense of competition and this reduction in jobs and this limited opportunities is 20 and 30 somethings. Here's a scary fact. A scary fact from an international wellbeing study published out of Canada found that the most burnt out generation and the most stressed generation about the future is 18 to 34 year olds. 98% of them are reporting at least one symptom of burnout. 2%, 2% of us are not burnt out. The whole system is building us to make. It's building us to make us productive and to make us output machines, which is so ironic because a major push behind the rise of AI, which is something that's making us so stressed and the rise of technology was that it was meant to give us more free time and was meant to make our lives easier and more accessible and you know, give us time off. So why don't we have a four hour workweek? You know, why, why is everybody even more stressed about getting ahead and about getting stuff done? I feel like it doesn't matter how much free time you have at this stage, the guilt doesn't go away because it feels like the opportunities are getting smaller and smaller and that's what's at the base of all of this. We resist actually resting because it makes us feel uncomfortable. From a survival lens. If all your life you have been taught that opportunities are fragile, that progress is really easy to lose, that you're only allowed to feel calm when you're ahead, then rest actually feels really more dangerous than restorative. Like that's a huge psychological risk, like switch up, like putting you. It honestly feels like sometimes when you rest these days, it's like putting your bag down in a crowded place and like hoping nobody's gonna take it. That's what it feels like. Rest feels like giving somebody else an opportunity maybe on a more fundamental level as well. I think it's because again, it's about survival. It's about survival and about the sense of like not dropping the ball and. And then as we've worked harder and rested less, our lives have become emptier. We've ignored a lot of stuff that we probably needed to address. How we've kind of learned that being busy is a form of emotional regulation. It stops us from having to do the uncomfortable inner work that comes with learning to be truly content with who you are and comes with learning to slow down. And it's deeply psychological here that the social, cultural, like these social changes have pushed us into such a hyper vigilant stress state that we literally see rest as a threat and that we also see it as something that's going to be really emotionally revealing, so we avoid it. I think if this resonates with you, it's likely that you've been on this high alert for a long time and that you are filling your time with busyness to keep up a sense of functioning. So really, again, this is all coming down to discomfort and how rest is going to allow your mind to relax enough to maybe question some of these life choices, question the system, and also let the anxiety start to creep in because things get a little bit calmer. So planning and monitoring and not taking holidays and not taking sick leave gives you something to focus on, which is a lot more pleasant than thinking about bad experiences or thinking about how exhausted you are, or thinking about how uncomfortable this is. Rest removes that coping mechanism that has been building up for a while that has been holding you together. So the moment you slow down, like there's a lot that's going to come with it. There's a lot of memories, worst case scenarios, this vague sense of dread that's going to crop up and that is the guilt. That is literally the guilt that we are explaining right now. And if every time you experience guilt when you rest, you're going to learn through association, purely through association, that this is a dangerous thing. And so without even realizing, through this associative learning, you're going to avoid it even more. Okay, we're going to take a short break here, but after this short break, we're going to explore the real dangers of this narrative and how we can start to unlearn these toxic, harmful thoughts about rest that we have been sold and we have been told. So stay with us.

Chris Stapleton Show Promoter (18:13)

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Podcast Advertiser / Host of CVS Pharmacy Podcast (18:42)

Ever been at the pharmacy counter and the pharmacist has asked you, do you have any questions and your mind suddenly just goes blank? That's exactly why you need to listen to beyond the script from CVS Pharmacy and iHeartMedia. Starting January 14th. Hosted by Dr. Jake Goodman, this podcast brings you real conversations with CVS pharmacists, the health experts you probably see the most answering the questions you wish you'd asked sooner, like which medications might not mix well, what vaccines should you get before your big overseas tr. Even those questions you are sometimes a little bit too embarrassed to say out loud. Each episode busts myths, decodes health trends, and gives you practical, trustworthy advice straight from the people behind the counter. No white coats, no lectures. Just real talk, real answers, and maybe a few laughs. Listen to beyond the script on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or ever you get your podcasts. Your twenties can bring on enough worries, from career decisions to financial stress to choices that feel like they will define your whole future. But have you ever felt like your concerns don't quite stop there? Like you're constantly dealing with distressing, unwanted thoughts? Maybe you repeatedly get stuck questioning if you're in the right relationship, if you've accidentally offended your colleagues, or if you're capable of harming someone you love. Believe it or not, these experiences could be symptoms of ocd. But OCD is treatable, so you don't actually have to live like this. And that's why I want to tell you about nocd NOCD is the world's leading provider of OCD treatment. All of their licensed therapists specialize in ERP, or exposure and response prevention. The most effective treatment for OCD therapy with no CD is covered by insurance for over 155 million Americans. And they provide support between sessions so you're never left feeling like you're facing OCD alone. Don't let OCD keep you stuck whilst.

Gemma Spake (20:54)

Your twenties pass you by.

Podcast Advertiser / Host of CVS Pharmacy Podcast (20:56)

If any of this sounds familiar, go to nocd.com and book in a free call with their team. That's nocd.com.

Cindy Crawford (21:05)

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Gemma Spake (21:40)

I kind of feel the need to remind us at this point that rest is literally a biological requirement. The same way that food and water is a biological requirement. Cannot deprive yourself of that. You can push through for a while. You can negotiate your way out of needing rest and needing recovery. You cannot outrun it. It's just not possible. Sleep is, like, one of the clearest examples we have of this. It's so measurable. So researchers often focus on it as a way of measuring rest. Obviously, that's not the only way to rest, but researchers at the center of Sleep and Respiratory Neurobiology at the University of Pennsylvania, they conducted a chronic sleep restriction experimen with 48 participants aged 21 to 38. And they basically put them in these different conditions where they either restricted rest and sleep to 8 hours, 6 hours, or 4 hours. And this was maintained for two weeks. Then the people either didn't get any sleep for three days or they were allowed to sleep for three days. Honestly, at that point, I'd probably be hallucinating. So I hope these subjects got paid some cash. But what they found was that those who had either four or six hours of sleep a night, their cognitive performance day after day got so bad to the point where their level of impairment was the same as being drunk, like, as if they had consumed multiple beers, multiple glasses of wine. The scary part is that people often, and a lot of these people were like, I don't feel any different. So they walk around, they think, cool, it's okay for me to drive and I'm paying attention at work and I'm paying attention in class and I'm making good decisions and they're just not because they haven't restored their minds. And again, this is exactly what participants in this study also reported. They found that those who slept for six hours or less, we're also kind of experiencing this as well. And you remember those people who didn't sleep for three days. The cumulative effect of sleeping six hours or less, five, four hours for two weeks and not sleeping at all for two days was the same. So that I'm fine feeling a is a lie. You're not fine. You need to rest. It's also a way of us allowing this habit of like pushing rest down to continue. If you don't feel dramatically worse, you assume you can keep going and going. But what of course like studies like this is showing us is that you are just pushing the like the problem further down the line.

Podcast Advertiser / Host of CVS Pharmacy Podcast (24:25)

And you've got to pay, you've got.

Gemma Spake (24:27)

To pay the sleep debt eventually. You've got to pay your sleep tax, your rest tax eventually. Now sleep is like the ultimate form of rest. It's like an emergency maintenance. It's emergency maintenance for your brain. It's consistent maintenance for your brain to clear out clutter, to restore itself from damage, to store memories. And we have a whole episode on the psychology of sleep, if you're interested. But there's also more broader rest that that's needed in your life. Resting, if you want a definition, is like when you don't have to fix your attention on anything, when your body can unc clench and you're not in a state of vigilance or hypervigilance. When you are in a state of vigilance, you are not resting. When you're in a state of alert and attention, you are not resting. That is the state that I'd say the majority of us are in all the time. So when you work for long stretches, especially on cognitively demanding tasks, you are spending natural reserves that have built up over time of you build like you're using your natural reserves of attentional control, working memory, emotional regulation. You are taking, taking, you're going to hit zero. Those systems get tired, they get way less efficient. That is why you can sit at your laptop for an extra two hours and get less done than when you first started in 20 minutes or if you were to come back, you know, the next day. A 2022 I think meta analysis that looked at taking micro breaks and micro rests throughout the day, actually found that this is one of the best things you can do for your wellbeing. It's going to make you feel so much better, less fatigued, more vigorous. Doing 30 minutes on of work, 10 minutes off, doing an hour on, 20 minutes off works so well for our brains because it gives us these micro doses of rest that it needs. Your brain is calling, begging, asking you to give it a break. It was not made to sit and stare at a screen for five hours. It was not made to sit and look at an Excel spreadsheet for five hours or canva for five hours. If you rest, you actually make yourself smarter in a very specific way. And I think this is the important thing because half the reason we don't rest and we don't take breaks and whatever is because we again think we're going to fall behind. We think we're going to get less done, we think we're going to be less efficient. What I'm going to say to you is that if you want to be smarter almost immediately, you have to counterintuitively rest more. And that might sound like a lie, it might sound like a farce, might sound fake. There is so much evidence to this. It's like honestly ridiculous that people don't talk about it more. This is the best example I can give. Have you ever been stuck on a problem and then you go shower, you go walk, you know, do something unrelated and like the answer basically pops into your head? That is a documented effect. That is what rest does for you. Researchers in a 2009 paper found what they call a positive incubation effect. When you step away from a problem, when you let your brain rest and then you come back because it allows you to have more open ended creative thinking. You will literally waste less time by taking time away. You will be able to like rejuvenate cognitively by not forcing your body and your mind to do these long stretches of productivity. Like that is one of the easiest and most counterintuitive life hacks. You could try today and you would see results. And I think most people won't do it because it seems so contrary to what we've been taught about hard work. So the big question we kind of been running up to this whole time, this whole episode, you and me, is how do we actually do it? We know it's important to rest. We can tell it's going to make us smarter. How do we stop the guilt, the guilt from coming in? I have four Key shifts for you, starting with this one. Stop treating rest like it's a reward. When you treat it like it's a reward, you put it at the mercy of your mood and your to do list. Your to do list is designed to win. It's literally endless. If you're a long time overworker, high achiever type, you will always find something to do. I know people like you, I am somebody like you. You will always find something to do, even if it is the stupidest thing ever, like clean Tupperware or suddenly decide you're going to do your taxes. If you have an empty space, you're going to take it and you're going to do something productive with it. We can think of it as an asset. We can think that it's great, like sometimes it's not. The first tip is to start treating rest not as a reward, but as an investment in the future and in future you. If you treat rest as an investment like putting money away in a savings account every single week, it becomes part of how you run your life. I say investment because I think the brains of high achievers, overachievers, like that language more. And how you speak about rest is important language towards rest. Rest matters, I think in minimizing guilt initially because it cognitively reframes its importance to you. At the beginning, as I know it sounds bad, but as a productivity additive, almost. So if you're just trying to firstly just rest without feeling guilty, yes, you can think about it not as reward. You can also think about it as an investment in you. And that I think changes your emotions towards it. It's not something you do when you're good enough. It's not something you do because you deserve it. You do it because it's like maintenance. You are building a successful life. It is a non negotiable. It is a smart non negotiable. The second cognitive shift is to think of rest as being as natural as the seasons. When you rest, you are honoring the small winters of your life and you can't have the summers and the springs without the winters. Rest is as important as the seasons are to earth and you are part of earth. And feeling that it's really sinking into how natural it is to honor that and to honor the system and to not disturb the system by honoring the seasons of life has really helped me, I think, in such an important way. Basically how I've started to think of it is that some parts of life, like I said, are summer. There are going to be natural seasons where I grow, I expand, I am full of light and energy. I am up all the time. This autumn, that's like the shedding. There's spring, that's the work. And you have to have the winters. You have to have periods of hibernation and rest and just preparing for the next season. Every single cycle in your life requires a winter. You require consolidation, you require rest to be able to keep going. The problem is that we often demand summer output across all seasons, especially in our winter seasons. And I'm not actually talking about seasons here, I'm talking metaphorically. But you know, we treat ourselves like a machine where the setting is going to stay the same the whole year round. Humans simply do not work like that. Like the cycles that the earth operates on and that you operate on are incredibly important and designed to make you the best version of yourself and designed to be the system that you work on. Just because you have stuff to do doesn't mean you can override nature. It doesn't mean you can override your natural settings. So if you want your physical health, your mental health to be great, to be amazing, your cognitive health to be amazing, you have to acknowledge that there are so many factors that are going to contribute to when you are going to be forced to rest and when you are going to be able to be productive. You will be more productive if you follow what is naturally set for your humanness and what is naturally set for your body and for your mind. Now here is the unsexy part that makes all of this actionable. Throughout all this, these tips, you actually need to start scheduling rest. Like I said, it's a non negotiable. You cannot wait for it to naturally happen because you'll usually end up resting when you're sick. So it's just about recovery, not about like deep nourishment. I want you to look at your to do list right now and I want you to look at your diary and I want you to plan one day a week, one afternoon a week where you don't do anything as your scheduled rest day. I like to do this thing with my friends on Sunday mornings called the Dilly Dally. This is my, my rest. This is how I like really restore my mind and like allow. I hate saying the word aloud but like help myself get into it where me and my friends, I live for my dilly dally days. We all get together on a Sunday, we pick each other up, phones down and we just potter along. We go to the markets, we get a coffee, we walk around the grocery Store when we come together. Like we don't have any plans, we don't have any plans, we don't have any agenda. We just get to do whatever we want. We dilly and we dally and that's a non negotiable for me. And I used to not have those things in my diary. I used to want to keep as much time open to be productive and to work and to do the podcast and whatever. And like now I know that that is an investment, that is my time, that is something that I do for myself. The final tip of the day. I actually have some homework for you. You can schedule rest, we can do all these things. But there is an expert on this who I just think is incredible. And it's a book I'm putting on the psychology of your twenties syllabus called Laziness does not Exist and concept that I want us to get like drill into our brain. This is a book by Devin Price. It was gifted to me, ironically by my family. So they were definitely trying to send me, send me some not so subtle hints. But I adored this book and I adored the theme and there was one section of it that stood out to me, which is that calling someone lazy or calling yourself lazy is a moral judgment, not a diagnosis. And moral judgments, social judgments change. It is a socially constructed insult that is applied selectively. This is what this author says. He's like, when you call somebody lazy, we apply that selectively to disabled people, chronically ill people, neurodivergent people, poor people, and marginalized groups. When, you know, when they resist overwork, when they remember their limits. Like before we were talking about this, expectations around productivity. Productivity are deeply unequal. Like when somebody who's rich and famous works really hard, we're like hustler, so good. Like they're so motivated. When somebody who's poor works really hard, it's like, why are you neglecting your children? Like, what is wrong with you? Some people are praised for rest and for having boundaries. Others are punished for the same behaviors. The myth of laziness that I want finish on is basically like, this is a tool to make people feel bad in order to reward others and in order to work harder for others. When you separate yourself from those narratives, when you realize laziness doesn't exist, that's just a moral judgment. You get to live life the way it was really intended. Honoring the winters, honoring the down times, doing what is needed and not excess stuff that isn't. And in that way, you really experience human productivity in a much more nourishing way in a way that is sustainable. Sure, you might have less output. Sure, you might lose the competitive edge, but when you shift into this mindset, the things that you were competing for, you don't really care anymore because you realize, if I had to give up all that makes me human for this and all that was enjoyable to have this, what's the point? I work so hard so I can have an enjoyable life. But if I didn't work hard right now, I'd have an enjoyable life. Anyways, that's really the thing I want to end on. That's what I'm hoping you take away from this episode. The guilt you feel may not feel optional right now, but it is entirely socially conditioned. You have no reason to feel guilty for rest. Your ancestors didn't feel guilty for rest because they knew it was necessary. It doesn't make you a bad person. It is also not sudden to undo hours and hours of hard work. Think about Simone Biles. Like best athlete of all time. She literally took two years off and she came back and won a bunch of gold medals. Like, it is an essential ingredient that you cannot neglect. And it is something that I think really incredible, successful people have learned how to master and learn how to honor. You need to be one of those people. So if you've made it this far, thank you for sticking around. You have made it to our secret part of the episode where I give you an emoji to comment below to prove that you made it to the end. Our emoji for today is a little clown. I think that's a nice rest symbol. I appreciate you listening to the whole episode. I hope the message rings loud and clear in your mind the next time you want to take a day off. The next time you find yourself sitting on the couch with nothing to do, here is your permission slip. You are allowed to do that. As always. Thank you to our researcher Libby Colbert for her contributions to this episode. She is incredible. And until next time, stay safe, be kind, be gentle to yourself. We will talk talk very, very soon.

Podcast Advertiser / Host of CVS Pharmacy Podcast (38:35)

Ever been at the pharmacy counter and the pharmacist has asked you, do you have any questions? And your mind suddenly just goes blank? That's exactly why you need to listen to beyond the Script from CVS Pharmacy and iHeartMedia starting January 14th. Hosted by Dr. Jake Goodman, this podcast brings you real conversations with CVS pharmacists, the health experts you probably see the most answering the questions you wish you'd asked sooner, like which medications might not mix well, what vaccines should you get before your big overseas trip. Even those questions you are sometimes a little bit too embarrassed to say out loud. Each episode busts myths, decodes health trends, and gives you practical, trustworthy advice straight from the people. People behind the counter. No white coats, no lectures. Just real talk, real answers, and maybe a few laughs. Listen to beyond the script on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your twenties can bring on enough worries, from career decisions to financial stress to choices that feel like they will define your whole future. But have you ever felt like your concerns don't quite stop there? Like you're constantly dealing with distressing, unwanted thoughts? Maybe you repeatedly get stuck questioning if you're in the right relationship, if you've accidentally offended your colleagues, or if you're capable of harming someone you love. Believe it or not, these experiences could be symptoms of ocd. But OCD is treatable, so you don't actually have to live like this. And that's why I want to tell you about nocd. NOCD is the world's leading provider of OCD treatment. All of their licensed therapists specialize in ERP or exposure and response prevention. The most effective treatment for OCD therapy with no CD is covered by insurance for over 155 million Americans and they provide support between sessions so you're never left feeling like you're facing OCD alone. Don't let OCD keep you stuck whilst.

Gemma Spake (40:47)

Your twenties pass you by.

Podcast Advertiser / Host of CVS Pharmacy Podcast (40:49)

If any of this sounds familiar, go to nocd.com and book in a free call with their team. That's nocd.com.

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Gemma Spake (41:54)

All of that available@meaningful beauty.com hello my lovely listeners.

Podcast Advertiser / Host of CVS Pharmacy Podcast (42:00)

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