How To Rest More Efficiently (Yes, Really)

We’ve talked before about how to recover more quickly after a workout, especially if you overdid it. There are a lot of tips in that article, so by all means check it out if you didn’t catch it at the time!

That was very specific to recovering from exercise, though. Today we’re looking at something a little different, a little more holistic.

You’re busier than you think

Maybe your life is an obvious blur of busy-ness. Maybe it’s not. But either way, you’re almost certainly busier than you think. Especially on a cellular level.

Your resting metabolic rate (RMR), or how many calories you burn while at rest (i.e., calories used just to keep you alive) will depend on various factors including age, sex, weight, body composition, and other things.

That said, it’ll probably be between 1000 and 2000 calories per day. You can get a rough idea of what it might be for you, using this calculator:

How Many Calories Do You Burn a Day at Rest (Doing Nothing)?

So if ever you wonder why you feel so exhausted, despite having done nothing, it could be that your body was busy:

• Metabolizing, generally (did you have a big meal?)
• Fighting an illness (bacterial or viral infection, for example)
• Fighting an imaginary illness and creating a real one in the process (stress, inflammation, etc)
• Recovering/rebuilding from something you did yesterday or even before that
• Thinking (your brain is your largest organ by mass, and consumes the most calories by far)

Your brain does not get a free pass on being part of your body! Just like if a certain muscle group were working out constantly for 16 hours you’d be feeling pretty tired, the same goes for the organ that is your brain, if it’s been working out constantly.

Your body is a composite organism—take advantage of that

Dolphins can shut down half of their brain at once, to let each hemisphere of the brain sleep independently in shifts. We (except in the case of split brain patients, where the corpus callosum has been severed) can’t do that, but we can let different parts of the organism that is our body work in shifts.

This is the real meaning of “a change is as a good as a rest”:

If you’ve been doing cognitive work (at your desk perhaps, maybe managing a spreadsheet, say), then taking a break to do crosswords will not, actually, give you break. Because you’re still sitting manipulating letters and numbers. As far as your brain (still having to do work!) is concerned, it’s basically the same. Nor will checking out social media; you’re still sitting examining a screen.

Instead, time to get physically active. Literally just doing the washing up would be a better break! Some yoga or Pilates would be perfect.

In contrast, if you’ve been doing a vigorous bit of gardening, then for example taking a break to lift weights isn’t going to be a break, because again you just switched to a similar task.

Better to pick up that book you’ve been meaning to read, or the crosswords we mentioned earlier. Or just lounge in your nicely-gardened garden.

The important thing is: to not require the same resources from the body (including the brain, it’s still part of the body) that you have been.

For more specific tips than we have room for here today, check out:

How to Take Better Breaks at Work, According to Research

Give your metabolism a break too

Not completely—you don’t need to be put into cryostasis or anything.

But, give your metabolism a rest, in relative terms. Intermittent fasting is great for precisely this; it lets your body rest and reset.

See: Intermittent Fasting: we sort the science from the hype!

So does the practice of meditation, by the way. You don’t have to get fancy with it, either:

Check out: No Frills, Evidence-Based Mindfulness

Enjoy, and rest well!

The first trick to exercising with bad joints is to have better joints.

Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean you can take a supplement and magically your joint problems will be cured, but there are adjustable lifestyle factors that can and will make things relatively better or worse.

We say “and will”, because you don’t get a choice in that part. Everything we do, every little choice in our day, makes our health a little better or a little worse in some aspect(s). But we do get a choice between “relatively better” and “relatively worse”.

With that in mind, do check out:

• Avoiding/Managing Osteoarthritis
• Avoiding/Managing Rheumatoid Arthritis
• How To Really Look After Your Joints

Ok, you have bad joints though; what next?

Let’s assume you’re doing your best with the above, and/or have simply decided not to, which is your call. You know your circumstances best. Either way, your joints are still not in sufficiently good condition to be able to exercise the way you’d like.

First, the obvious: enjoy low-impact exercises

For example:

• Swimming
• Yoga (much more appropriate here than the commonly-paired “and tai chi”)*
• Isometric exercises (i.e. exercise without movement, e.g. squeezing things, or stationary stability exercises)

*This is not to say that tai chi is bad. But if your problem is specifically your knees, there are many movements in most forms of tai chi that require putting the majority of one’s weight on one bent leg, which means the knee of that leg is going to suffer. If your knees are fine, then this won’t be an issue and it will simply continue strengthening your knees without discomfort. But they have to be fine first.

See also: Exercising With Osteoporosis

Second: support your joints through a full range of motion

If you have bad joints, you probably know that there’s an unfortunate paradox whereby you get to choose between:

1. Exercise, and inflame your joints
2. Rest, and your joints seize up

This is the way to get around that damaging dilemma.

Moving your joints through a full range of motion regularly is critical for their maintenance, so do that in a way that isn’t straining them:

If it’s your shoulders, for example, you can do (slow, gentle!) backstroke or front-crawl or butterfly motions while standing in the comfort of your living room.

If it’s your knees, then supported squats can do you a world of good. That means, squat in front of a table or other stable object, with your fingertips (or as much of your hands as you need) on it, to take a portion of your weight (it can be a large portion; that’s fine too!) while you go through the full range of motion of the squat. Repeat.

And so forth for other joints.

See also: The Most Underrated Hip Mobility Exercise (Not Stretching)

Third: work up slowly, and stop early

You can do exercises that involve impact, and if you live a fairly normal life, you’ll probably have to (walking is an impact exercise). You can also enjoy cycling (low-impact, but not so low-impact as we discussed in the last section) and work up to running if you want to.

However…

While building up your joints’ mobility and strength, it is generally a good idea to stop before you think you need to.

This means that it’s important to do those exercises in a way that you can stop early. For example, an exercise bike or a treadmill can be a lot of use here, so that you don’t find you need to stop for the day while miles from your house.

If you get such a device, it doesn’t even have to be fancy and/or expensive. This writer got herself an inexpensive exercise bike like this one, and it’s perfectly adequate.

Fourth: prioritize recovery, even if it doesn’t feel like you need it

Everyone should do this anyway, but if your joints are bad, it goes double:

Overdone It? How To Speed Up Recovery After Exercise (According To Actual Science)

Fifth: get professional help

Physiotherapists are great for this. Find one, and take their advice for your specific body and your specific circumstances and goals.

Take care!