True relaxation has taken a hit.
We track our steps. We optimize our sleep. We listen to podcasts while we cook dinner. We’ve got apps for everything now, metrics and methods to track every human activity: always with the intent to be more productive. We often find we have hardly a minute to relax anymore. It doesn’t have to be this way.
Sometimes your mind and body just need to be. Consider this thought: you have value for who you are. What you do is secondary.
Rest is not wasted time. It’s when some of the body’s most important work gets a chance to happen. If you lift weights for example, or climb a mountain, that is half the process. The second half comes when you relax, and take in nutrition. “Rest and digest” as the expression goes.
Your nervous system loves the down time, too.
Have you ever taken a moment to pause, and noticed how tense your body was?
This is one of the most delicious pleasures of massage: there is nothing you need to do.
You don’t have to stretch farther. You don’t have to improve your technique. You don’t need to beat yesterday’s massage score. You don’t even have to be good at relaxing. Just lie there, and your professional will take care of you.
There’s a reason people sometimes get onto a massage table talking a mile a minute and, afterward, can barely assemble a sentence. Given a quiet room, a comfortable table, and an hour in which nobody expects anything from you, the body is surprisingly willing to take the hint.
Of course, doing nothing all day every day probably isn’t the road to peak physical condition. Our bodies are built for motion. They like walking, lifting, stretching, playing, lifting, working and they love a challenge.
But recovery is part of that process.
So, for a time this week, consider putting nothing on your schedule.
And if you’d like to get really ambitious about doing nothing, book a massage. We’ll do the rest.
|
