Any work out requires a recovery period. Every time you stress your muscles, the tiny tears in the soft tissue form that need to be repaired and in doing do, the body rebuilds them stronger to minimise the risk of them tearing again. You can then go and do the same exercise again a few days later, buy you can push that little bit further. If you don’t give your body time to rebuild stronger, that time to rest, your growth is going to be a lot slower.
Our brains strengthen in a similar fashion to the muscles of the rest of our body. If you never stress it, it never gets any stronger. If you stress your brain it too much, it will won’t strengthen effectively and you may well burn yourself out in the process. Find that sweet spot however, that point just slightly out of your comfort zone and incorporate a time for rest and reflection afterwards and your body will upgrade the synaptic connections in your brain, laying down new myelin which serves to increase the efficiency of your mind the next time you come to a similar task. You can then push a little harder the next time, but only if you’re brain has had the rest required to strengthen these neurones.
It’s been a hard year for everyone, for many different reasons. Those who returned to work after lockdown 1.0 have had a vast array of challenges, physical and mental to overcome. New levels of PPE, new protocols, new regulations, financial challenges and a backlog of patients, clients or customers needing/wanting to be seen as soon as possible.
Those who’ve adapted to work from home have had to completely overhaul their whole style of working and learning which will have caused significant mental strain. What’s more, those who are working at home often haven’t been taking time off. If they’re at home anyway there may have seemed little point in booking time off to also sit at home because of course nobody is allowed to do anything anyway. Worse still, maybe they’ve booked a holiday and whilst sitting at home they’ve decided to just do bit of work anyway. This age of instant access to everyone and everything has created a work environment in the home and it’s incredibly difficult to turn this off.
It’s time to stop.
It’s time to rest.
It’s time to recover.
This will be a Christmas like no other. Christmas is not cancelled, but we are all going to have to spend a lot more time at home and less time travelling to see friends and family.
Maybe this is exactly what we all need this year. For those who can, and I’m aware many of my friends who work in healthcare can’t simply stop over Christmas, let’s take this as an opportunity to just stop for a bit. Let’s give our bodies and minds a chance to recuperate.
Do this knowing that while you are resting, your mind is strengthening those neurones and when you come back to 2021, you will come back stronger and more resilient.
We’ve all been out of our comfort zone this year, it’s time to allow our minds to rest and recover.
The days have already started getting lighter and next year we will be stronger for our trials this year.
Have a great Christmas and a Happy New Year. Many thanks to anyone who's taken the time to read through any my blogs this year. As always, please share this blog on any media channel if any of it resonates with you.
I'll leave you with a few lines from Pink Floyd which you can listen to here. I'm off to find the dark side of the moon for a bit.
And if the dam breaks open many years too soon
And if there is no room upon the hill
And if your head explodes with dark forebodings too
I'll see you on the dark side of the moon
Blog: 36