#216: Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith On How Taking A Rest Can Change Your Daily Grind

Life happens, and not always the way we expect it to. Every single day we face change, stress, and uncertainty. What if you could learn to thrive no matter what life throws your way? Resilience expert Adam Markel and his inspiring guests explore breakthrough strategies to fully embrace change and build the resilience required to become change-proof.

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode Welcome to the Conscious Pivot Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Markel, and I feel incredibly honored and privileged to be here right now to just be in a position to have a voice. Not everybody feels as though they have a voice. Not everybody feels heard even when they speak, interestingly enough. And that's both something that's important to be aware of and to note. And this podcast is a way for me to do something about it. And what I love about podcasting actually is I feel like it is A very viable method for anybody that has something you want to say, is curious about, and is willing to put the time and the effort in because it's definitely a lot of effort involved in creating one of these things and sustaining it. But I highly recommend it because it's something anybody can do right now. It's truly a level playing field when it comes to that. There's no government involvement. Nobody's deciding which podcasts people listen to and which one they don't. This is my very unplanned infomercial, I guess, for the podcast medium. And I also feel very lucky because I've got a great guest today and somebody that I'm really excited that I get to introduce to all of you, somebody that has been doing some really remarkable things in the world for some period of time now. I don't want to make her out to be old or anything, but she's got experience. I feel proud that I've got some experience too. So we're gonna have a great conversation. So first of all, Dr. Sandra Dalton Smith is a board-certified internal medicine physician. She's a speaker and an author, also an international wellness expert featured in numerous media outlets, Including Prevention, MSNBC, Women's Day, Fox, Fast Company, Psychology Today, and as a guest on the Dr. Oz Show. She is the author of numerous books, which include insight on 7 types of rest. And this is one of the things I'm very fascinated to talk to her about today. But 7 types of rest that are needed to optimize your productivity, increase your overall happiness, and overcome burnout. It's almost as if, Sandra, what you've been doing in your life and what I'm so fascinated about When I talk to people and when we share information about resilience, those 2 things couldn't be more aligned right now. So first of all, welcome and thank you for being on the show. Oh, thanks for having me. Awesome. So in that bio, just tremendous time and effort that's gone into the things you've done in your life. What's one thing that's not written in that bio that you would love for people to know about you?

One thing that's not written, that I'm a mom of 2 teenagers. I think that should say enough right there. Married for 20 years to the love of my life. And probably the thing very few people know about me is that although I majored in biochemistry for medical school, I minored in jazz dance. I don't think those two typically go together.

Wow, those two things are definitely different. My goodness. So I got a great question for you. What's the connection point between those two things, do you think?

I think it was my stress relief, to be honest with you. I think dance was how I kind of Unwound after all the hours in the lab.

Let's talk a little bit about that. I really love the way we're going to lead into this, but my research and the research that I've read of other people shows that resilience is not about endurance. It's not about winning the night owl award, if you will. It's about recovery. It's not about how you endure, it's how you recover and the process that you have for recovery. And it sounds to me like when you were in medical school, This is— or when you were studying, is that?

Yes, undergrad.

Undergrad, that you had a process for, for regenerating yourself. Tell us a little bit more about that. Did you do it on purpose? It was just something intuitively made sense?

It was completely intuitively because I had no background really with anything having to do with rest or burnout or the things that I do now. I realized that, you know, after hours of spending Doing all of the things required to become a doctor, that there had to be some time when I just kind of let loose and I wasn't deep in the books or doing calculations and all the things that were required. Really, dance was just a time that I could just be myself. I didn't have to think about if I was getting calculations right. I didn't have to worry about MCATs and resumes and all of those different parts and pieces. And I think for me, that was where the restoration came. It's just knowing that there is this thing that I could do that I love doing on top of it. I really enjoyed doing that, had no other purpose other than I loved it. And I minored in that. I think it's kind of interesting now that I look back on it, that I minored in something that I loved simply because it made me happy.

Let's just call out who the burnout kings and queens are, because I was in Japan back last December. I got to travel to Japan to deliver a Fuso talk, which was to this group of executives from Daimler-Benz and Mitsubishi, and I had to break the news to them, to the Japanese, that they are the most sleep-deprived workers on planet Earth, other than only second to Singaporeans. So who are the main culprits? Doctors are burned out, exhausted. Are they at the top of the list? Or like my old legal profession, is it lawyers? Who is it? Yeah.

Well, I think honestly, as a physician, I don't think I could have gotten more burned out than I did. When I think about medical school and residency and the expectations, I mean, even just looking back, I'm in my 40s, so it wasn't like residency was that long ago. So 20 years ago or so when I was in residency, it was nothing to expect us to work 15, 16 hours and you were expected to be on the top of your game at that. All-night shifts and then 8 AM grand rounds where questions are being thrown at you right and left and somebody's life's in your hands. So I think it's really interesting that some of the professions and some of the roles that people are in that keep them sleep deprived, but yet they're not expected to be able to have any type of error in their response to the job that they're doing.

Right. They've got to be impeccable. At the same time, from a physical, a mental, emotional standpoint, maybe even a spiritual standpoint, they're depleted. They're not at their optimal best. First of all, how do you think they cope as a physician or the other people, other groups that you've studied? How do they cope, number one? And number two, what's the cost, do you think, in terms of lives, in terms of productivity, money?

Yeah, well, I think the thing that I'm noticing particularly is that people who successfully complete those types of professions, Because lots of people start off pre-med in college and don't become doctors. And so I think those who actually successfully complete it are the people who have a tendency to be high achievers and have a high resilience level. They have learned how to adapt to adverse situations, and they've learned how to be able to— it's almost as if their gifting is able to overcome some of the fatigue. And I think that's what we witness oftentimes. Is that people who are able to function even though they're exhausted and because their kind of adaptability have learned how to push past the fatigue and still produce. Now, are they producing their best product? Probably not, but they are producing. And so compared to maybe someone who doesn't have that same kind of work ethic or that same high achiever spirit that kind of drives them, they look like they are successfully getting the job done, even while doing it from a place of depletion. Now, is that beneficial? No, because what ends up happening, that's when we see very successful people end up committing suicide because they don't feel like their work had any value. Because in that process, you lose a bit of yourself in doing that.

Resilience. It's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And in times of massive change and disruption, the kind of rapid change that we're all experiencing as leaders, as business owners, as entrepreneurs, we have to learn how to not only increase our own resilience, but that of our teams. So right now we have a powerful opportunity for you to find out just how resilient you are. Some years ago, my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilience leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are. You know, we always hear that expression, and it's more than an expression, it's a philosophy, that to give is better than to receive, and that giving, giving, giving is And obviously people that are in many of these professions do go into it because they want to give of themselves. I'm not saying that there isn't business, that there isn't money and all that drives some of those desires as well. But I think in many ways it's about being of service and being selfless on some level. Mm-hmm. And so I guess what I'm hearing you say is that when you give, give, give to the point of your own exhaustion, that at some point— and we've heard this about many very, very successful people. And not people in the entertainment space, all kinds of people. When they're on stage, you know, they look pretty impeccable. They look like they've got it all together, but when the lights are off and there aren't people in front of them to serve, that they are in states of depression or anxiety and ultimately, in some cases, even considering taking their lives. And suicide is a big issue among doctors. I know in lawyers—

It is.

It is as well.

So I think that's the thing, because you're so busy working and producing, and you're doing it like, as you stated, sacrificially, almost to your own health and detriment, that there becomes this point where you start questioning, is this really what I trained for? Is this really the life that I want? That's kind of the point that I got to, and it's where I start off in my book Sacred Rest. I start off on the floor. Basically questioning, why am I doing this? Why am I burning the candle at both ends? And you spend years training for a career. And then when you're in the middle of that career that you thought was going to make you happy and provide all the things that you dreamed for, and you're living the dream, so to speak, and the dream feels like a nightmare, then what?

Take us back if you could into that. I mean, you've given us that description. What was it like to be in your shoes at that point in time? How— where were you? Obviously, you were out of medical school. You did your residency. Bring us back if you could.

Well, it was an interesting time because I had everything that I said that I wanted. I had the 2 kids, they were both toddlers at the time, the house, the car, the man, the bank account, had book contracts and media appearances. Looking on the outside, everyone would have been like, wow, she has made it. That is the dream. That is what you aspire to. And I would come home and I would just be so exhausted. And I don't mean like just tired. I mean, I was working probably 50 hours a week. in the medical practice. So yes, I was physically tired, but I was mentally, emotionally, spiritually, every type of tired you could think of. I remember coming home and I would just kind of just lay out because I felt like every ounce of me was just wrung out at the office. There was literally nothing left. And I actually remember telling my husband that one day. He gave me a hug and I was like, I'm sorry, there's— I have nothing left to give you today. And I got the expression on his face, as you can imagine, was like, what? But when you get to that place of just utter depletion, nothing really seems to make sense anymore, particularly when, as I stated, that's what you've been spending your life working towards. That's what you said you wanted, but now that you're living it, it's not really what you wanted.

Right. So tell us about the research as well that this inspired and what the pivot was for you in terms of that, because you could tell us where you're— you've already shared where you sort of your mindset was at the time. I know when I was in that position, I ended up in the hospital thinking I was having a heart attack and it was It was an anxiety attack that was going on, but it was— it created such physical symptoms in me that I thought, I'm going to die. I hadn't gotten farther down the road than that before I started to make some changes. So fortunately for me, I didn't end up sort of clinically depressed or even having the thought that maybe I wasn't long for the world.

Mm-hmm.

I did tell my wife though. I did at one point have a moment like you with your husband, and I said to her, if I keep doing what I'm doing, you're going to be a widow. And that wasn't because I was thinking I was going to take my life. There's no way my body can hold on anymore. I mean, like, I'm— it just was just like, as you say, exhaustion to the point where you can't even explain what that feels like.

Yeah, that really, as a physician, I think it was really weird because for me, automatically I started to kind of treat myself like I would one of my patients if they came to me with that list of complaints. So I did the battery of tests and checked everything from my thyroid to my adrenals to every vitamin level out there. So all the tests, all the studies trying to determine if there was some medical reason maybe that I was feeling this way. And of course they all came back perfectly normal.

And your adrenal function, all of that was normal?

Everything was perfectly normal. Now when I say perfectly normal, as far as medical lab work tests. Now keep in mind, when you're checking your cortisol levels medically, the range is like huge. Within normal range is huge. So—

Is that because we're just constantly producing sort of low-level Responses, anxious responses to things, so our cortisol levels are constantly kind of activated or?

They change also depending on the time of day and so because of that, when you do the blood test, the reference lab, the range that they put is huge because it's covering that change, that natural fluctuation that occurs and so it's very difficult for that. I mean unless someone has a true kind of like Addison's or something like that where the range is just really off the charts, then you're not going to notice a difference.

Yeah.

So all of those tests came back negative for me. Then it was like, okay, so I think I'm probably just sleep deprived because there's lots of side effects from sleep deprivation. And so that's where I started and really just making a point, I'm going to get these 8 to 9 hours of sleep every night, no matter what I have to do to get these 8, 9 hours of sleep. And so that's what I did for about a month. And after a month of sleeping getting more sleep than I had in probably 20 years, I still was exhausted. And I think that's when the bells and whistles went off, is that there has to be something else that's missing that I'm not getting and sleep isn't curing it.

Let's talk about that. I think a lot of people that are listening to this go, man, I would do anything for just this one weekend. Just let me sleep for the entire weekend and I'll be back on my feet and feeling like my old self come Monday or Tuesday. But what you're saying is not so fast.

Yeah, because a lot of people are doing that. I mean, honestly, you can go to any medical doctor and get a list of medicines that'll knock you out and have you sleeping great. You know, we've got all kinds of ways to knock you out and put you to sleep, but that still doesn't necessarily result in feeling rested or restored or refreshed. And that's what I wanted to feel. I was getting sleep, but I still would wake up just as tired as I went to bed. And that's when I started kind of looking at what type of tired am I? What exactly is tired? Because my body didn't feel tired. I felt like I was getting adequate sleep, but I was still having a lot of problems with foggy brain type symptoms, difficulty concentrating, still had very little motivation and wasn't inspired to do some of the things I love. Like I said, I love dance. I love music. I had no desire to do any of those kinds of things. I noticed that I didn't have fun with people anymore. I actually wanted to avoid people. I felt like it was a lot of energy to be around people. And so it was one of those things where I started to kind of piece by piece look at the different areas of my life and what those different areas look like that I was getting exhausted in. And then going back to the research to take a look at, OK, what is this? Is there a name for it? And are other people experiencing this? And I had the benefit of having lots of patients that I could kind of evaluate.

Built-in test group, right?

Yeah.

I

don't want to say they were guinea pigs. They were tired too and it was like, okay, so we're all tired, let's kind of attack this thing systematically.

Just to repeat, right? Foggy brain, perhaps lack of enthusiasm to be around other people or even sort of finding yourself not wanting or creating fun.

Yeah.

What else?

That's the thing, when I started kind of going through these, it started kind of pulling apart into different types of areas. So there is the physical part of it where I started noticing I had a lot of like muscle aches and pain. I tend to hold a lot of stress within my body. So I started noticing those symptoms. We talked about the mental part, particularly I would have a lot of difficulty falling asleep at night. My mind would be racing with all these thoughts. It's like my headspace wouldn't clear out and shut up long enough for me to actually get into deeper levels of sleep. I started noticing that the motivation levels were down. I started noticing that I had a lot of issues specifically with just the type of people I was spending time with. I love my patients, but my patients all require something from me. Every relationship that I was in was a relationship that was pulling something from me, and I never really thought about— I don't have any relationships where somebody doesn't need something from me. The patients need answers, the nurses want a call back, the kids want dinner. Everybody needed something. And that's when I started looking at all of these different areas of my life where I felt like I was pouring out And started thinking about how do I restore each of these areas. And out of that came 7 specific types of rest or restorative activity categories that I feel most of us need on a regular basis. But because we're not intentional about getting rest in these 7 areas that we find ourselves with rest deficit. And so then we start feeling tired and can't understand why sleep isn't fixing it.

I'd love to go into those 7 areas if you're game for it.

Yeah.

Beautiful. Let's go. Many people have probably just pulled off the side of the road. They're going to pick up their— they're going to find a pen, find a pencil, or take out your iPad or whatever it is, but start taking some copious notes here. So we're talking about rest and restfulness and how it is that we, despite getting sleep, can still be rest deficit. Let's start with number 1. What's the first way that we can gain rest?

Well, physical rest, I think, is the one most people are familiar with to some degree. Unfortunately, most of us, when we think about physical rest, we're only thinking about the passive form of physical rest, which are sleeping and napping. But physical rest also has an active component. So it's the things that help restore circulation, that helps our lymphatic system, that improve the integrity of our muscles and the flexibility. So it includes things like stretching and yoga and Leisure walk. So things that just improve the flow within our body and help our body actually get back to a healed and restored state. And I think that's important to keep in mind, specifically for anyone who works at a desk, maybe sitting at a desk for long periods of time, because it's necessary to kind of be aware of just even the body ergonomics of what— where you're positioned at during the day and how it affects your energy level. Because sometimes if you're Sitting with poor posture or you're having a situation where at the end of 4 hours of working at your computer, your neck and your back and all of these things are hurting and they weren't hurting before you sat down, you need to be aware of that because there is having a negative effect on your body and just trying to push through it as many of us do, just keep going and then the workday will be over, it is causing a drain and a strain on your system that's unnecessary. It's just going to continue to weaken you, whether it's your immune system or even

Yes, makes sense. So physical being active and passive, not just physically sleeping or resting or napping, but stretching, yoga, other things that would, as you say, maybe cleanse the lymphatic system or create better posture for you. Any number of different things that all clump together under physical. That's first. What's another one?

Mental rest is another. That's a mental rest deficit, is that person who goes to bed at night and they're Thinking about all the things they need to do the next day during their checking off their to-do list, can't get their brain to go to that quiet place. And so what mental rest is, is learning how to make the brain behave. The brain is almost like an unruly child. If you let it kind of run away with whatever it wants to run away with, it's going to do that. Whether that's negative toxic thoughts, whether that's anxious thoughts, whether that's depressed thoughts, it'll run down whatever rabbit hole it is the easiest way for it to go. However, we can kind of train the brain to go back to a quiet place. It's almost like telling it to go back to timeout. So one of the simplest ways of doing that would be— some people call it meditating, but pick a word or phrase or kind of something that you're going to focus your thoughts on so that you're not just letting it kind of run around wherever it wants to go, but you're directing it back to something that is calming, peaceful, and that allows you to kind of get things back into control. And if you're that person who does the mental checklist, you're trying to check off all of the things you want to do the following day, doing a brain dump or having a notepad where you're jotting this information down can be very helpful because then it releases the brain from the responsibility of having to hold on to that information.

Hold it, remember it. Exactly. Wow. The pace of change over the last couple of years has been rapid. And if you're a leader, a business owner, an entrepreneur, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Every day it's something different, something new. But the one thing that I've learned in performing at the height of all of those roles has been that we must be resilient. In fact, it's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And it's the reason why my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5 business leaders across the globe have taken, and all you have to do to get your own free Resilient Leader Assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are. And this is the old counting sheep thing a little bit too, right?

Yeah, so that meditating part is kind of the counting sheep because you're focusing on something. You're not letting it just kind of, oh, why does she think— say that about— you know, your brain can jump over. We call it monkey brain because it's like your thoughts, you're just swinging from one thought to the other thought to the other thought, and you can't sleep well like that. You will never get into those deeper levels of non-REM, stage 3 and 4 non-REM sleep where the restoration actually occurs in sleep. You'll stay in those lighter phases.

Exactly. So physical is one, mental is 2. Number 3?

Yes, spiritual is one that's very interesting. Really depends on kind of your spiritual background and makeup and belief system. But the way I kind of address it with people is thinking about kind of the bigger picture of all of that. What is it that makes you feel like you belong, that you're accepted? What groups or patterns of living in the world makes you feel like you're a part of something, not like you're just kind of out there on your own by yourself. There's a bit of community and feeling included that actually helps people to feel kind of grounded. And so whether that's with a specific religious system or whether that's with kind of a mindset of that, I think it's important that that be present because for most people without it, there's this bit of kind of disconnecting. And we see it very often kind of when we're thinking about just what I call the human condition, you know, the way the world is, the things people are going through. Look at social media, there's all types of reasons people can be upset. But when we're kind of looking at the fact that we all hurt, we all have emotions, we all deal with joy and pain, and kind of making sure that we stay connected in a way, it's very helpful to kind of make you not feel like you're the only one and that you're alone in the world.

That makes sense. Number 4.

4 is emotional rest, and that has to do with having the freedom to not have to keep your mask on, to be able to just be completely authentic and not carry the What I call the stress professionalism. I find that a lot of people who are high achievers, who have jobs or roles or positions that place them in front of others where they're on display or they're looked up to or they're leading, there is a stress that is associated with professionalism. And it's not that you're trying to be inauthentic, you're just being professional. You're living at the role of that level.

Yes.

But you can't do that all day. There has to be a time when you can just Let your hair down and let loose and be yourself. I'll use myself as an example. My normal personality is a little bit goofy and kind of silly. So, you know, if I'm hanging out with the nurses in the ICU, we could be cracking jokes about all kinds of stuff. Someone comes in with an emergency, it's not appropriate for me to crack a joke when somebody's family's dying on the table. I don't care if there's something hilarious I could say in the moment, which usually there isn't, it wouldn't be appropriate. Right. And so there's a level of professionalism that requires me to kind of stay within that role. When I'm working. And so I have to remember that I don't have to be that person all the time, that I can just be me and I can just say something stupid and not really care if anybody heard me or not because I have those moments of emotional rest where I can just be truthful about where I'm at and what's going on in my life.

Right. You get to be off, not—

Yes.

Not just perpetually on, which again, I totally get that. So 5, after emotional comes

Social. And social rest is the rest we experience around people who are positive influences, positive energy. Most of us spend the majority of our time around people who are negatively pulling from our energy. Not that they're negative people, it's just the relationship is that they are needing things from us. Our clients, our colleagues, our coworkers, our bosses, our kids, our spouse, they're all needing things from us. And, you know, a lot of the statistics show that adults have fewer adult friends now than ever. And this is before all of this 2020 stuff happened.

Or—

Just in general.

Right.

Have fewer adult friends than ever. And that's sad to think about because it's those adult friends who you just like hanging out with, who don't need anything from you, but you just have a good time with each other. And they can kind of pour back positive energy into your life. And there's what we call the power of presence. And that is the thing that I think we have to get back to, the importance of spending time with those people who don't need us, but we just like being around.

I'm also in my mind just wondering why it is that with the advent of social media and so much connection or supposed connection, I guess, there would be that trend that adults, that we have fewer friends as we grow older.

Yeah, interesting point because with social media, What I saw mostly with the social rest aspect of it is that the presence part is kind of the key, because if you can see someone's facial expressions and their mannerisms and hear their voice inflection, all of those things kind of play with how a person is received and the energy that you get from a person. However, on social media, you don't have that most of the time. A text message, you don't have that. And so you find that people have a tendency to be extremely rude, extremely blunt, can say things That you're just thinking, how could you even say that to another person? Because they don't have that presence to kind of keep us in check with the humanity part of it. You can be as horrible as you want to be to somebody when you don't have to see how your words hit them. So I think that's actually keeping us at a level of disconnect, even though we are technically connected, but we are disconnected because we don't have the presence part there.

Right, you're not getting the cues. Or being able to really empathize because you don't have to. You can say what you like and as you said, you don't see where it lands and how it impacts someone, how it affects somebody.

Yeah, you even see it like if you write an email to a friend and you know, they don't write you back for like a week and you're like, what? You know, are you mad at me? What happened? Well, you said— well, I didn't mean it like that. I was being funny. Well, they didn't know you were being funny. They didn't hear the sarcasm in your voice. They just saw the rudeness on the email. So You know, you have to be mindful of that. I personally prefer if you're gonna say something that's questionable, then you probably should do it on some type of video chat session so that they can see kind of what it really is you're trying to say.

Exactly. So we've got physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, and social. And number 6?

Sensory. Sensory rest is just like it sounds. It's kind of downshifting all the sensory input that we have in our lives. It's all our gadgets. The notifications on our gadgets, the lights, the blue lights, all of the things that we use that are supposed to make our lives easier, but in the process also increase our sensory overload options— opportunities. So many of us stay kind of chronically sensory overloaded and aren't really aware of how much sensory input we're getting within a day. TVs playing when no one's watching, bright lights throughout the day, not having our computers kind of go into dark mode when night comes. Having our clocks on by, or even our cell phones on by our bed with the light shining in our face while we're trying to sleep, then wondering why we can't sleep well. You know, so many sensory inputs going on that we just have to be aware of it and get back to an appreciation of silence and darkness and making sure that we are having time in our day when we are doing that. Even if it's as simple as if you're working on your computer to take a 5-minute break just to close your eyes. I mean, when you close your eyes, you automatically kind of get this sense of calming. just from that momentary sensory deprivation. And if you have the benefit of like a sensory deprivation tank that you can try out sometime in your city, it's quite the experience. I would say go slow with that because it can actually feel like a panic attack if you've never been in the darkness by yourself with all your thoughts. But as you kind of gradually increase your level of sensory deprivation, that can actually be a really amazing experience.

Yeah, I've heard this statistic that We are touching our phone or actively engaged with our gadgets, as you said, more than 150 times a day. And there's a term they call it constant cognitive arousal. Have you heard of that? And it's just shocking when you think about just adding up how much time alone is spent in that activity throughout a day. It's hours and hours and hours.

Yes. And the strange thing with that is, is that when I first started as a physician in residency, they gave us a pager. I was all excited. You know, I had a pager. I'm a real doctor now. And so every time the pager goes off, you know, my heart rate would go up, my hands become sweaty. I'm like, oh, something's happening. I've got to jump and get ready. Well, people are having the exact same response now every time their phone notification goes off.

Yes.

I mean, it wasn't healthy back then and it's still not healthy, particularly now that it's all day, every day. The number of notifications from social media to emails to news alerts, you can get notifications, like you said, 100 times a day. And do you really need to be startled And

they are like alerts. It's like Pavlov's dogs, right? The way in which in that study dogs would salivate when they would hear this bell ring. When we hear our notifications going off, we have a different kind of thing happening that's sort of producing this alert response from us, which is cortisol and adrenaline and other things flowing in our bodies, which are fine when we're actually in need of that response, but not so fine when it's perpetually producing low-level low-level anxiety throughout the day when we don't actually have any anxiety. There's nothing really to be anxious about.

Yeah, exactly. Our fight-or-flight response is needed. Someone's chasing you with an axe, okay, you might want to run. There are times to go into fight-or-flight mode, but someone's texting you to let you know that pumpkin spice lattes are back at Starbucks, not so much.

Maybe not, yeah. Okay, so luck number 7,

7 is creative rest. And I think that was the one with the least amount of research that kind of took the most kind of pulling out the pieces of what that looks like. But it's the one that I think most of us intuitively have already been doing. And we've been downplaying it because we didn't really appreciate what it was doing for us. You know, since creative rest is the rest we experience when we allow ourselves to experience kind of the beauty of nature, the beauty of art or music or The symphony, theater, all of those things where you kind of have the awe and wonder awakened inside of you. One of the areas where most people experienced this was with bodies of water. And so a lot of the research had to do with bodies of water and how people respond— their brain MRIs responded with looking at the ocean or looking at a lake or something like that. And so, you know, you hear a lot of people say, well, I feel restored and refreshed when I'm around these natural type settings. Well, I think what was really interesting to me is that the same response happened in the MRI of brains when people were looking at images of it. They weren't actually at the beach. You know, a lot of us think, oh, well, I feel great when I'm at the beach or, you know, in the woods, but it showed that they had the exact same response. So that's— I think that with creative rest was the part that was really interesting because many of us can't just jump and take a vacation every time we need to feel restored. But there are things that we can do to help restore that creative part of ourselves because we are using it throughout the day. You know, a marketing person, they're having to be innovative and stay on top of the game and try to make sure that they're coming up with new thoughts and new ideas. That's creative. Same as with the physician. You're having to figure out how to treat this person's high blood pressure when they have 10 allergies and this person's who, you know, doesn't really want to take the pill. So you're having to creatively think of ways to kind of do the same thing with different audiences. And so I think it's important to realize how much creative energy we use as a society and that that too has to be restored.

So even looking at pictures of water, you say, has scientifically similar results to going to the beach and walking along the shore?

Interesting thing was it was not just pictures of the water, but the colors of the ocean. So they actually did like, you know, if a room had like aqua-colored Like a wall that was aqua-colored. We see a lot of this now in like these places, like these Silicon Valley type offices where you'll see they have these beautifully colored walls. That's the logic behind them, is that people who need to stay highly inspired need settings that are inspired, and that is the creative rest aspect of it.

I really hope you're enjoying this episode of the Change Proof podcast. If you've not yet gone out and gotten your own copy of Change Proof, it's not too late. You can get your copy right now by going to changeproof.com and not only getting the book and all the bonuses there, but getting access to our proprietary resilience assessment tool. It'll just take you 3 minutes It's something that will really help you to utilize the book even more effectively to create practices and rituals and habits that will increase your mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual resilience for the long term. Again, go to changeproof.com to get your copy today. Would you remind us the name of the book where you expand on much of this? I would assume—

Yes, so the book is Sacred Rest: Recover Your Life, Renew Your Energy, Restore Your Sanity.

Beautiful. And so when did this book come out? Is it a couple of years ago already?

It came out a couple of years ago in the hardcover version of it and audiobook version and then was re-released in the paperback version last year.

Beautiful. Yeah. And so when you were Let's say a guest on Dr. Oz, you were talking about REST. That was the reason you were there, right? So has your research now begun to evolve? And what's sort of new on the horizon for you at the moment?

Well, you know, right now I think the biggest thing that I'm finding that people are having questions about has all— and it's always been this case— has been, how do I know which of these 7 is the one that I need most, that I really need to focus on? And that's where the REST quiz came from. That's where the kind of current research is being extrapolated from with people taking the REST quiz And getting the results from there and it's really simple. It's at restquiz.com. Takes about 5 or so minutes to do the quiz and then you get an email that tells you which of the 7 you have the highest level in and then you can focus your attention on getting more restorative activities in that one area or 2, but you don't have to try to get all 7 because honestly most of us are automatically getting some of these without even thinking about them.

Right. How nice to just be conscious of it and aware of What you could be doing even more of when it's working. Good, it's working if you don't know it's working, but even better, I think, when you do know this is how I take care of myself. So totally fascinated with this. Love the fact that we'll have show notes as always with links to the book, links to the rest quiz. And I was thinking as you— right before you were saying that, I go, oh, I hope she has like a quiz or an assessment or something like that. We have an assessment on our website as well because those assessments, especially when they're short, 3 to 5 minutes, you can get in So many insights from it when the questions and the processes set up really well, which I absolutely believe it would be in this case. So I would like to just sort of end with one question to you, which is, what's the one thing that you do on a ritual basis that you know is your go-to? It's like if you got to pick one thing to develop your own resilience for that day, you feel like you're depleted in some area, what's the one thing you go to?

The one thing I do every morning, the second I roll out of bed, I ask myself, on a scale of 1 to 10, how energized do I feel?

Hmm.

And depending on what that number is determines kind of what I do that day. Because if I automatically feel like I'm at a 5, I'm evaluating where do I need to do restorative work? Because I found for myself, you know, I've— I spent a long time working out of my emptiness. And although I can produce at that level, It is not my best work. I don't want to live like that. I want to live where I'm producing my best work. So I evaluate and then I determine what needs to be worked on. And then from there, I determine where I'm going to pour myself out at.

I love that. I just absolutely love the way you describe that as working out of my emptiness. I haven't heard it languaged in quite that way before. Sandra, I so appreciate you. Thank you so much for being a part of what we're doing here. And it's a lot of people really getting Tremendous value out of what you've just shared with us and a very tangible way to approach resilience. The rest component, I think, is something that we're often either told overtly or it's just implied that if we could just sleep a little less, do a little bit more with our days, be a little bit more productive, work a little harder. I mean, it's a lot of people who talk that language out there into the space, right? That just, hey, start your side hustle at 7 o'clock at night and keep going until 1 or 2 AM and you'll be just Just get up and start the day over again. Work your day job, do your side hustle. And I really feel like that is such dangerous advice to give to people. And because long term, it isn't going to produce what will result in a life and healthy and peaceful and joyful. You want to use the word happy. Mm-hmm. You want to use the word balance. But a harmonious life does not come from that kind of excess. And so to perpetuate that, it's like screaming, yelling fire in a crowded theater. To me. And so I really appreciate your perspective on all this, and thank you so much for being a guest on the show.

Thank you. It's been a pleasure.

I will remind myself, as I say every end of one of these shows that goes so quickly, I wish they didn't, but I remind myself of the ritual that I use each day just to wake up and be awake. And so it's 3 parts. First one, wake up. 2, in that waking moment, right? Because You're laughing because isn't it true, right, Sandra? We don't have a guarantee we go to sleep tonight, we're going to wake up tomorrow.

That's true.

So, okay, well, I'm waking up. Isn't it possible the first thought you have could be gratitude for the fact that you are in fact opening your eyes for another day?

Yeah.

And that's 2. And 3 is, what are the words that come out of your mouth? I really do believe we speak our lives into being. And so much of what we experience in life is what we say we're going to experience. So if you start out with your aches and your pains and your complaints and your, you know, any number of other ways that you can start the day, or with nothing in particular in mind, you sort of have random things show up. For me, my experience, when I start out my day in a very definitive way, the way my grandmother would say, start out on the right foot, what is the right thought? I go, okay, what do I want to have come out of my mouth at the beginning? And I gave a TED Talk about this one thing. It's, I love my life. That's it. 4 words. Start the day, always say that same thing.

I love that.

Well, you can try it tomorrow morning.

I will. I love that.

Way cool. And all of you out there, you try anything out that you want and let us know what you love to say when you start your day. Let us know whether you've got some rest deficits and how this talk really helped you, because I know it was just wonderful to be a part of it. So I'd love to get your comments. adamarkel.com/podcast to leave a comment. Subscribe if you haven't. Let somebody know, if you know somebody that could really benefit from hearing what's been shared here about rest and a lot of this other conversation, please share this episode with them and let them know that we are here as well to support. Again, thank you so much and have a really beautiful, blessed rest of your day.

You too.

Thank you so much.

Thanks for listening. We hope you now have even more tools and greater insights to build resilience and And become change-proof. Remember to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, and you may be featured in an upcoming episode. For more resilience tips and strategies, including support for building change-proof teams, visit adammarkel.com. To get your own free resilience assessment, go to rankmyresilience.com.