why resting might be the most loving thing you can do

this week, we’re slowing down because rest is a form of self-love. in week seven of the #selflove100 , i'm sharing reflections on recharging your mind and body, learning to listen when your body says “pause,” and remembering that taking care of yourself sometimes looks like doing less, not more.

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Transcript

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This is the perfect spot for this episode. It is week seven. Welcome back to the Self-Love 100, 100 Days of Loving Yourself More, and I am sitting nice and cozy on my couch today because I have the perfect episode, the perfect week for sitting on my couch. Week seven is all about resting. Resting and recharging is such an important thing. I, I think I've said that in every single video. All of these things are so important. A lot of these things that we've been talking about in the self-Love 100 and, and taking it kind of day by day, week by week, all of these. Habits and tasks and things that we should be weaving into our routines or creating into our routines and creating foundations around are so significant in just making us feel better. And when we feel better, we have the opportunity to love ourselves more. So today we are talking all about resting and recharging coming from the queen of pulling all-nighters. Not anymore, but the queen of pulling all-nighters. Many moons ago, welcome or welcome back to the Self-Love Archives podcast. I'm your host, Julia Salvia, your self-love Bessie, and I am nice and cozy on my couch right now so that we can talk all about resting and recharging and how incredibly important it is for your body to do just that. So that we can do everything else that we wanna do in this life. I used to pull all nighters. I'm talking like I'd stay up till 5, 4, 5 am in the morning. I then go to sleep, wake up at 11:00 AM and do it all over again. And it was so not good. I always got told, oh, it'll catch up to you. Oh, you can do it right now because you're young. And I realized that it didn't matter if it. Caught up to me, or if I was young, what mattered was that I wasn't in those moments providing my body with adequate amount of resting and recharging. We live in this world of believing that it's not cool to rest. It's not cool to recharge ourselves, that we need to go, go, go and keep working. Keep doing this, keep doing that, that there is no time in the 24 hours that we have each day to rest. But dare I say that when you get the adequate amount of rest that your body needs, you can do more. You heard me right? If you provide your body with resting and recharging and give yourself the time that your body needs. To actually rebuild itself. To charge itself, that you will have more time, that you will have more time to do all of the things that you wanna do. I am living proof of this. I always believed that when I was pulling these all-nighters, I was getting more work done, when in actuality I wasn't. Because when you're pulling an all-nighter, or you are overexerting yourself to the point where you are not allowing your body to rest, you're going a little bit slower at getting the things that you need to get done because you're not giving yourself rest. And then when you finally get the chance to get rest, your body needs more of it. Or when you finally get the chance to pause a project, stop a project, or move on from something, you're like, oh, all right, fine. I can finally relax because I just went crazy on getting this thing done. What's your body gonna do? It's going to backtrack. All of that rest that you did not give it those days prior. You see when we sleep? We're allowing our bodies to rebuild itself to kind of literally recharge like a battery. And when we don't provide our bodies with that rest, it is going to catch up to us. We are going to fall into this state of, you know, all this adrenaline is gone. It's, it's gonna catch up to us, to the point where we're not waking up to our alarms. We aren't in the mood to do anything. Our hormones are all outta whack because we're not providing our bodies with the adequate amount of sleep. Now, rest goes beyond sleep. This go, go, go mentality and this mentality that we need to earn rest is so incredibly toxic. You don't need to earn rest. You need rest. You need to recharge. You need to allow your body, your brain, your mind, like you need to allow yourself to recuperate, to fill up your cup. Again, there's no earning rest or deserving rest. You just need rest. That should be a foundational element in your day today. That should be something that you provide to yourself just because that is the bare minimum of existing. So this idea that we put into our heads that we need to keep on going to the point where we are depleting ourselves below empty, we're not doing that anymore. Mm-hmm. This week is all about providing yourself with rest. Giving yourself a chance to recharge, and that is your focus for week seven. REST is not something that should be questioned. Rest is not something that is optional. Rest is something that you need and I promise you that if you give that to yourself, you will get things done faster. You will feel a ton better. So here is your goal this week. There are tons of different types of rest. There is the rest that your body needs, like sleeping at night and the recommended amount of hours of sleep. Is six to eight hours if you are cycle sinking or trying to figure out why your body might be tired in certain parts of your cycle versus other parts of your cycle, like the ovulatory phase versus menstruation. Your body needs more rest during your menstruation phase and your luteal phase than it does in the follicular and ovulatory phases. Your body has a lot more energy due to a spike in different hormones where your body is actually breaking down different hormones during the luteal menstruation phases. So your body is working a little bit harder during those phases, which is why you might feel more groggy, more tired, and needing more sleep, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Give your body what it needs. We've been listening to our bodies throughout this series and listen to your body when you need rest. Be self-aware of, okay, what are the cues that my body is saying? Hey, hey girl, I need a little bit more rest this week. Hey, chill out. This is like the fourth night in a row that we are going out. Maybe go home early. You need rest and you need time to yourself. You've heard me talk about this before, but sleeping in 90 minute intervals, that doesn't mean waking up every 90 minutes. That just means that you allow your body to complete a sleep cycle at night. Our sleep cycles are about 90 minutes long, so if we can sleep for an hour and a half, three hours, four and a half, six hours, seven and a half, nine hours, we are waking up. After a sleep cycle has been completed, so we're not jogging our body awake in the middle of REM sleep. When we complete a sleep cycle, we wake up feeling way more rested. And that kind of goes for naps too. If we're needing, if it's one of those days where we need a nap, sleeping under, taking a. Under 20 minute nap or taking a full hour and a half nap so that we're neither starting a full sleep cycle, or we're actually completing a full sleep cycle can make you feel a lot more well rested from a nap or allow you to feel like you got an even better amount of sleep. So your task this week is gonna be a little bit about rust. A little bit about boundaries and a little bit about self-awareness. I want you to be a lot more self-aware of the things that make you tired, the things that urge you to maybe need a little bit more time for yourself. For example, that one coworker, that just having a conversation with them absolutely drains your battery. And that is a different kind of rest and recharge that we need from those conversations with that person or a project that you're working on that's really straining you and asking for a lot from you, maybe it's time to set some boundaries. Maybe going out for four days in a row is just too much for you right now. Maybe it's less about. How many times you're going out and the people that you're spending that time with, the length of time or the places that you're going. Look at what drains your energy, look at what urges you to need more rest. Be more self-aware with how certain places, things people make your body feel, especially. When you are getting the adequate amount of rest for your body at night. So take this week to be a little self-aware, to push yourself to set some smaller boundaries like going to bed at a certain time so that you can get those full seven and a half to nine hours of sleep. Remember, resting and recharging is not optional. It's not a want per se. It's not something that you earn. It is something that your body needs. It's something that your body needs so much so that it cannot function without it. So this week, give your body what you needs, rest and recharge in the ways that you know how to best set boundaries in the areas of your life that really pull energy from you and make you feel tired. Whether that's physically, emotionally, mentally, put a boundary on it. Say, not today, not this week. No more. Bring yourself back to you. Be more self-aware of the environments, the people, and the tasks, and certain things that you do throughout the week that really take a lot of energy out of you and make you tired. Maybe those are the places where you have to set some boundaries this week. Either way. Love yourself a little bit more. Give yourself the rest and the charge that you need. And that's it for week number seven. I am going to go to bed myself, so I will see you next week at 12 o'clock. Eastern Time for week number eight. Part of the Self-Love 100 Journey. 100 Days of Loving Yourself More on the Self-Love Archives podcast. Bye.