The Value of Taking a Break: Why Rest is Essential to Flourishing

We live in a grind culture. There’s constant pressure to maximize every waking moment by working relentlessly so that you can leave your mark on the world and find success. But that’s no way to flourish. Taking a break can actually be highly productive and can greatly enhance your flourishing. In this episode, I talk about the value of rest and make an important announcement about Live Well & Flourish.

Welcome to Live Well and Flourish, where I help you understand what it means to live a flourishing life. I'm your host, Craig Van Slyke. If you're ready to think beyond material and external success, if you're ready to take control of who you are and the kind of life you live, if you're ready to flourish, this is the podcast for you.

“Idle hands are ​​the Devil’s workshop.” If you grew up in the United States, you’ve probably heard this saying more than once. I don't know, maybe there are similar sayings in other cultures. Although I get the idea behind the saying, I’ll counter with this, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”

Or how about something more serious as a counterpoint. Like a muscle, a mind that never rests, never grows. Growth, and flourishing, require time for rest, rejuvenation, and reflection. Unfortunately, modern society promotes a grind culture that values constant busyness over prudent rest. The idea of constant work as a virtue goes back a long way; it’s really not a modern invention. The constant, always connected, always on pace of current life just magnifies the idea that being idle is a bad thing. But that sort of thinking is wrong-headed and counterproductive.

Before going further, I want to acknowledge the deep irony of me doing an episode on the benefits of rest, especially since I’m preparing the episode on a United States holiday. Tracy is constantly telling me to take a break and relax a little. I’ll admit, constant work seems to be in my DNA. We joke that I’m all border collie; I’m not happy unless I have a job. But, as I’ll talk about later, even border collies need a rest from time to time.

There’s dignity in work, but non-stop labor has a bunch of negative consequences such as

- Stress

- Burnout

- Reduced physical health

- Depression

- Anxiety

- Fatigue (obviously)

- Less time for reflection and “strategic” thinking, and many others

Those are all a little obvious, but I want to talk about a less obvious problem that comes from non-stop work. This one's kind of insidious, it sneaks up on us. Sometimes busyness is a crutch. We feel like being busy can solve whatever problems we might be facing. We try to stay busy because we don’t know what else to do. After all, doing something is better than doing nothing or so we think. But often THIS IS NOT the case. Sometimes the BEST thing you can do is nothing (kind of). Busy does not always equal effective.

Here’s the bottom line. Everyone needs a rest from time to time, even you and even me. You simply cannot flourish as a human being without rest. You cannot grow without periods of rest and rejuvenation. I really like to draw parallels to building muscle. Back in the day, I used to run and lift weights religiously. But too many days of running or lifting in a row and muscle growth and endurance suffer. Muscles grow not just from work, but also from rest. In fact, both are required. All work or all rest and there’s no development. Your flourishing works the same way. If you’re constantly working and never resting, you don’t grow and you don’t flourish.

Philosophers and religious texts have spelled this out for thousands of years. Many religions have a day of rest such as the sabbath. Indigenous cultures often align with the seasons, with some seasons emphasizing labor and others rest. Daoism promotes the idea of non-doing. The list could go on. I want to talk about two of these in a little more detail.

Ecclesiastes 3 from the Bible is famous for saying that there’s a time for everything. The first eight verses of this chapter are the most famous (you may remember the bird son) … a time to be born and a time to die, a time to weep and a time to laugh, and so on. But I want to focus on some less well known lines that come later. Verses 12 and 13 read,

I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live.

That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God.

Verse 22 says:

So, I saw that there is nothing better than for a person to enjoy their work, because that is their lot.

Here’s the thing: If you never take a break from your toil, from your work, you never have time to enjoy the fruits of that work. In essence, then, (the way I read it) you’re ignoring a gift of God. The gift isn’t the work, it’s the satisfaction and enjoyment of what you have accomplished. Finding this satisfaction occurs during the breaks from your labor … no break, no enjoyment and no satisfaction.

Aristotle gets at the value of rest through the concept of scholé (skoh-LAY), or leisure. A life totally made up of labor isn’t sufficient for eudaimonia, or flourishing. Remember Aristotle's concept of the golden mean; virtue lies at the mean between the vice of deficiency and the vice of excess. Too little work is a vice, but so is too much. And constantly working without breaks is solidly on the “too much” end of things.

Aristotle, and many others, recognized that you need time to rest, rejuvenate, and reflect. Constantly work doesn’t allow time for any of these and therefore keeps you from living an excellent life. An interesting aspect of Aristotle’s concept of scholé (skoh-LAY) as I understand it is that work is a means to an end, where scholé (skoh-LAY), leisure, allows us to engage in activities that are ends unto themselves. This is an important distinction, I think. The point of rest is to rest.

Rest has a bunch of important benefits. It enhances creativity through the incubation effect. Basically, rest gives your mind a break so that your subconscious can work on various ideas and problems. Rest is also important for improving mental health, especially by reducing stress and anxiety. Taking a break also gives you time and space for processing your emotions, which can lead to increased emotional regulation. Rest is also important because it allows time for reflection and deep contemplation, both of which are central to living an excellent life. I could go on, but you're smart, you probably see my point. Rest is a beautiful thing.

OK, so taking a break is good. Well, it’s time to take my own medicine, which brings me to the second purpose of this episode.

It’s time for me to take a bit of a break from Live Well and Flourish. To be frank, I’ve been finding it harder and harder to get motivated to produce episodes of this podcast. GIven my passion for the use of practical wisdom to live an excellent life, the lack of motivation is a sure sign that I need a break. I’ve been doing Live Well & Flourish for just over three years, most of that time as a solo podcaster. Each episode takes countless hours of thinking, writing, and editing. Even though the episodes are short (or maybe BECAUSE they’re short), putting everything together is a lot of work, especially given my considerable other obligations.

So, for a variety of reasons, I’m going to take a break from LW&F. A break seems necessary not just for my mental health, but also for the content of the podcast.

Here’s the plan. Over the summer, starting with next week, I’m going to re-release classic episodes from my back catalog of over 100 episodes, sometimes with new commentary, sometimes without. Many of the topics I’ve covered are kind of timeless, and even if you’ve listened before, you may find new insights from old episodes. After all, you’re not the same person you were when the episodes first aired. To paraphrase Heraclitus, you cannot wade in the same river twice, it’s not the same river and you’re not the same person you were when the episode first aired. To paraphrase Heraclitus, you cannot wade in the same river twice. It's not the same river, and you're not the same person. So, I hope you’ll wade into the re-broadcasts of some old episodes. Let me know which episodes were the most meaningful for you and I’ll consider re-releasing them. Just email me at livewellandflourish@pm.me or use the contact form at https://www.livewellandflourish.com/.

My plan is to come back with new episodes in September. During the hiatus, I’ll be pondering the future of LW&F. Should I keep going down the same path or should I make some changes? I’d love to know what you think. Again, email me at livewellandflourish@pm.me or use the contact form at https://www.livewellandflourish.com/.

Be sure to stay subscribed so that you won’t miss the new episodes when they return. You’ll also get all of the re-released episodes. If you’re not currently subscribed, what are you waiting for? Subscribe, like, follow or whatever term your podcast app uses. The easiest way to follow is to go to https://www.livewellandflourish.com/follow/. I promise, you won’t be sorry. I really think you’ll find listening to the re-released episodes worthwhile, even if you’ve heard them before.

OK, what else can you do this week to put the ideas from this episode into practice?

First, if you find that you’re constantly busy, ask yourself, are you effective or just busy? This is a critical question. If you’re busy because you don’t know what else to do, stop, take a break and let your mind rest. You may find that you come up with much better paths forward.

Second, if you aren’t taking regular breaks, why not? What’s keeping you from taking a break? Is it a feeling that resting is somehow a bad thing? If so, remember Aristotle’s golden mean. Too much work is just as bad as too little. If you feel like the only thing keeping you afloat is constant work, reconsider. Maybe a break is exactly what you need to be more productive and more effective. Seriously, rest is an investment in future effectiveness.

Third, schedule breaks on your calendar. Put them in as important, inviolate parts of your day (or maybe schedule whole days of rest; there’s an idea!). Some of us are programmed to follow our calendars, so scheduling breaks may be an important and useful mental trick to get you to actually rest.

Here’s a bonus. Take a nap. Be like my pups. Play when it’s time to play (they don’t work, the lucky beasts), and rest when it’s time to rest. You’ll be amazed what a 10-15 minute cat nap can do. Not that the pups would like being compared to cats, but you get the idea.

I’ll close with words often attributed to Socrates, “Beware the barrenness of a busy life.”

Until next time, get some rest my friends.

I produce Live Well and Flourish because of my dedication to helping others live excellent lives. I don't accept sponsorships and I don't want your money. The only thing I want is to help you and others flourish. If you've received some value from this episode, please share it with someone that might also benefit from listening. The best way to do that is to direct them to livewellandflourish.com

Until next time.