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When was the last time that you felt completely, deeply, rested? What do things like meditation, drum circles, and dance have in common? And what’s going on scientifically when we reach a state of stillness, silence, and spaciousness?
This newsletter is all about rest and restoration (and soothing the stressors that take us away from that state)!
STORY: The science of deep rest
READ MORE: Links and resources to more science and more ways to cultivate deep rest.
BOOK STUFF: We’re talking about Switch: How to change when change is hard, on Thursday, August 29, 4-5 pm!
PODCAST: Episode 11: How to free yourself from impossible expectations just dropped!
GOING FURTHER: Just one week left to find deep rest for yourself at the Heroine’s Journey Women’s Leadership Retreat. Enrollment deadline is August 9th!
STORY: The science of deep rest
When I go on vacation or into the woods or to a new city, my initial impulse is to do all the things! See all the sights! I explore every corner of the house where we’re staying. I make a huge list of all the sights within walking distance and plot a walking path that hits them all on the way to dinner. But then, about 24 hours into our trip, I start to get really sleepy.
My body shifts from GO mode to REST mode. (Basically, I chill the f**k out.) Instead of wanting to explore and run about, all I want to do is curl up with a book or nap. And for the next 24 hours, I take 2 naps in addition to getting a full nights sleep and read a fantasy novel cover to cover.
My body becomes still.
My mind becomes silent.
My spirit becomes spacious.
There’s a physical, mental, and emotional shift from being on alert and buzzing – moving, overthinking, planning, worrying – into being relaxed and at peace. One of the first times I became consciously aware of this still, silent, spacious state was after visiting a Turkish bath in Istanbul.
I chose the Kılıç Ali Paşa Hamamı – a gorgeous renovated bath house from the late 1500’s to serve the Ottoman navy. I intentionally decided NOT to go to the ones in the guide books or nearer the tourist areas hoping for a more local experience.
When I arrived, I was led beneath an exquisite brick dome with a burbling fountain to drink a cool glass of quince sherbert. The edges of the room were lined with white couches with women in towels who had just emerged from their baths sleeping, reading, or chatting in small groups. There was even a pair of mothers letting their preteen daughters beg their way over to the counter where sweet treats and more sherbert beckoned.
I was issued a key to a locker in the changing room where I found a sarong and slippers waiting for me. As soon as I emerged, an attendant brought me to the bathing room. The sounds of splashing water and feel of warm steamy air enveloped me. I was shown to a side room where large stone basins overflowed with warm bath water. An attendant doused me with scoops of water, sarong and all.
From there I was led to the middle of the bathing room and instructed to rest on a large marble slab that was heated from below. All around me, other women rested on the marble, chatting and drinking ice water. Along the walls in niches, women were being bathed by attendants. The light entered through beautiful small portholes scattered across the domed ceiling like stars. It felt timeless and magical.
I lay back on the marble and nearly fell asleep when Asima, my attendant, brought me to one of the alcoves beside a stone basin. She doused me with water then gave me a fabulous head to toe exfoliating scrub down with a textured linen glove. That was followed by being covered 3 feet deep in sweet smelling foamy soap bubbles. To make the bubbles, they dipped a linen pillowcase into a bucket of bubble liquid, filled the pillowcase with air, then as they squeezed the air from the pillow case, an enormous quantity of foamy bubbles was draped across my body. And then came the bliss of a fantastic massage. The closest experience I can imagine is like a young child being bathed by her mother. Ahhhhh.
As soon as I was toweled off and led to one of the white couches, I immediately sank into the cushions in a sleepy, hazy, afternoon daze. Finally… deep rest. Stillness in my body. Silence in my mind. Spaciousness in my spirit.
I thought about that state of deep rest a lot since. What I’ve come to realize is that I can reach that deep rest state in many ways, ones that don’t require a week long vacation or Turkish bath in Istanbul. My favorites are mindfulness meditation, paddle boarding, and qi gong. Last night, I spent an hour painting D&D minifigures with my daughter while listening to an audiobook and found my shoulders relax and my mind go quiet. The other day, I gave myself permission to do nothing but lay on a porch swing watching the clouds float by for 30 minutes. Others find deep rest in prayer, yoga, clay, knitting, drum circles, shaking, sound bowls, a campfire circle, or dance.
We've long known that chronic stress degrades our mental and physical health. Our stress response system is biologically necessary and essential to protect us from immediate threats to life and limb (say a tiger jumping out at you from the brush or nearly getting hit by a car who missed a red light). The way it’s supposed to work is that we turn our stress response system on for a terrifying 3-5 minutes, escape the danger, lick our wounds, tell our loved ones about our adventure by the campfire that night, and return to baseline.
But we big-brained humans also anticipate potential stressors that haven’t arrived yet. We turn on our stress response system for 30 year mortgages and workplace drama and bumper to bumper traffic and then don’t turn it off. The stress response system is constantly buzzing, sending off threat alerts, and never fully quieting down. That’s chronic stress.
What scientists are now discovering is that healing activities ranging from yoga to prayer to nature bathing to painting restore us mentally and physically. Why? How? Scientifically, how can such a wide range of activities make us healthier, happier, and more resilient?
Alexandra Crosswell and colleagues from my alma mater UCSF think it has to do with "deep rest" -- the peaceful state of stillness, silence and spaciousness. According to Crosswell, the deep rest state tells the brain and body "you're safe". It completes the stress response. We let go of our vigilance and racing thoughts.
That in turn quiets the brain's stress response system (the amygdala and sympathetic nervous system). Stress hormone levels drop. Your heart slows. Your muscles relax. And we feel at peace, and maybe even a deep sense of connection to yourself, others, the world, or a higher power.
When that happens, all the individual cells in your body enter housekeeping mode. They clean up debris like reactive molecules. They fix the natural wear and tear on organelles like mitochondria. They can even repair the tips of our DNA, the sections known as telomeres that famously grow shorter as we age and as stress chews away at them.
It's this ability of our cells to finally enter housekeeping mode that causes all the health benefits of deep rest.
Isn't that so darn cool?!?! The science nerd in me is utterly in love with this synthesis of stress science, cell biology, and contemplative practice. Love love love!!!
So where might YOU find a state of deep rest? What activity/activities might allow each of your cells the opportunity to enter housekeeping mode?
READ MORE: Links to more science and more ways to cultivate deep rest
You can read Crosswell’s original research here or check out the more “restful” layman’s summary in UCSF Magazine.
If you don’t know about my honors thesis advisor, Dr. Robert Sapolsky yet, then you’re missing out. Here’s a super short video of him talking about the stress response system and how our big brains get in the way.
And for even more on the science of healing, destressing, and mindfulness, check out this older blog post called “What’s the opposite of overwhelmed?”
Finally, if you’d like a short 7 minute centering practice to begin finding deep rest for yourself, here’s a guided meditation that I recorded just for you. (Guess what Episode 12 of my podcast is about… centering!)
BOOK STUFF: We’re talking about Switch: How to change when change is hard!
Join us we discuss Switch, a book full of examples about how different organizations or people were able to implement change.
The Heath brothers start with the three-part framework on how to achieve change:
DIRECT the Rider (the rational side of people’s brains)
MOTIVATE the Elephant (the emotional side of people’s brains)
SHAPE the Path
Whether you've read it or not conversation around the book may prove helpful to your personal exploration...
Investigate what’s working and clone it
Pinpoint specific behaviors or items that are critical to achieving the goal / change that we want to achieve
Set/be clear about the destination
Break down the change into small steps in order for people to have “small wins”
Cultivate a sense of identity and instill the growth mindset
Change the situation / environment
Build habits by setting action triggers
Spread the positive behavior
PODCAST: Episode 11: How to free yourself from impossible expectations just dropped!
Other people's expectations are often one of the biggest things standing between us and deep rest. When we’re held to unreasonable standards or impossible expectations, silence and stillness seems unachievable. Well, the newest episode of Leaders' Playground offers a fun, science-filled ride to help you manage social norms and expectations. (Yes, fun and science belong together!)
We'll explore the myths we've all bought into - from the "ideal worker" (hello, 24/7 email responder!) to "ideal mother". We'll chat about cognitive biases, listen to America Ferrera's brilliant monologue in the Barbie movie, and even draw our own "ideal" selves (spoiler: mine looked suspiciously like Legally Blonde's Elle Woods).
Often, by fully recognizing the “ideal” in the room, we can finally come to terms with it.
Find the Leaders' Playground on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
GOING FURTHER: Just 1 week left to join the Heroine’s Journey!
If you or a woman in your life is needing some deep rest so you can restore every cell in your body and return to work fully rejuvenated and reenergized, please consider joining Tutti and I in Mendocino Sept 13-16 for our fourth annual women's leadership retreat. Two women joined this week and three others are in the process of requesting funds from their organizations to invest in their leadership. PM me for details ASAP. Enrollment closes August 9th!
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