Latest / Behind Every Great Man / EP 55: The Truth About Resting: Why Sitting on the Sofa Isn't Enough
Transcript
- Jessica Zubchevich: Behind every great man is a great confident exceptional woman. Hi, and welcome to Behind Every Great Man. I am Jessica, your host. Behind every great man is a great woman who knows what it truly means to rest. Without knowing each of you personally, I know that you carry a lot of weight in your life. I know that you have a full life, everyone does at varying degrees. I know that you are juggling. Twenty things at any given moment. I know that you have fifty open loops in your brain or on your notes app. I know that you are constantly scanning and analyzing and preparing and anticipating not only things for yourself, but for your family, your children, your husband, things at their schools, things socially. You hold it all up here in your dome. And I know this about you. What I don't know about you is if you know how to rest, and if you truly do take time to rest. And you could say, Jess, yes, of course I do. After a long day, I sit on the couch and I watch a show, or I scroll on my phone, and I would say to you, You're not resting. That's actually not resting. And that's what this episode is about. Do you truly actually take time to rest? And the definition of rest is the word rest most commonly means to stop physical or mental activity to relax. Do you take time? To mentally shut it down. But you could be sitting on the sofa, but your mind is still running a hundred miles a minute. And I know this because I do it every single day. I'll enjoy sitting on the sofa, like, okay, I'm done. I got my son home from school. I made him lunch. We're gonna chill and relax. But that's my time to make my lists. Get on Instacart, order my groceries. What am I making for dinner tonight? Plan out the recipe. I'll bring my recipe book on the sofa and I'll just be going through getting things done. I'm answering emails. I'm answering text messages. I'm having conversations that I needed to close. I'm I'm closing the open loops as much as I possibly can. And that is not. Me resting, if I'm being honest. I know that it's not. Research on mental fatigue has found that when the brain has been working for a prolonged period of time, we become less flexible in our thinking and become worse at planning. In one study, it says mentally fatigued people were more likely to get stuck in the same response, and it took longer for them to plan their next. Move. That really stood out to me because when I'm mentally tired, I may think I just need to push through. I just need to grind this out. I need to keep going. And what this research is saying is that is exactly what we're not supposed to be doing. Because the very part of me that I am relying on to be sharp, to make good decisions, to communicate well. To parent well, to problem solve, to be patient is tired now. It's fatigued. So now If I would have taken time to let the mental fatigue subside and actually rest my brain, I would be more patient. I wouldn't feel like if I have one more thing that happens, it's just gonna send me over the top, or I just need five minutes. Please don't leave me alone for five minutes. Those moments, it's because we are so mentally fatigued that our cup is just completely full and we can't take any more. Sometimes even affection can feel like it's just somebody needing one more thing from you. And that is a problem. It is on us to prevent that from happening. So resting during the day, or resting, or taking the time to shut it down. Is not this indulgent, luxurious thing. It's essential to be on your game, to stay sharp, to continue to operate on a healthy level. For our mental peace, our mental wellness, our mental health. It's essential. So it isn't Did I rest today? Because on the surface it can look like you're resting. But did I rest my mind today? Did I allow my brain to stop, to turn off, to shut down? Just the other night, I was laying with Keith and Jude, and they fell asleep before me, and it was seven o'clock. And I'm like, okay, what am I doing? I'm not ready to go to bed at seven o'clock. Keith works very long hours. That was a huge day for him. He was totally exhausted, and I was not surprised that he passed out. Me, on the other hand, I was not ready to go to bed. So I went to grab for my phone and do what I do, start in on the lists. And I stopped myself. I looked over at Keith and Jude, and I just took them in for a minute. Keith was out cold, sleeping peacefully. Jude Sleeping like an angel. So cute. And I just stopped and I said, no, I'm not gonna jump into the managing and the planning and everything right now. I'm gonna take this moment in. I'm just gonna stare at my boys and just savor this moment. Allow my brain to. Slow down, to calm down, to shut down, and just breathe in this moment. And I'm so glad that I did. It was a beautiful moment. And the question for me was: did I really need to grab my phone and shoot off two emails versus be here in this moment, appreciating it at the end of the day? I don't do it as often as I need to. And that's a big reason why I did this video because this is challenging for me. It's challenging for wives. It's challenging for mothers to shut it down when so much is asked of you at any given time. When so many people rely on you and it's a beautiful thing. I wouldn't want to have it any other way. I want to have this responsibility. I handle it very well, usually. But we need to not work against ourselves and give our body and our mind a much needed break and rest that it deserves. So I would ask you, when is the last time that you know of that you just sat and didn't think about what needed to get done, what needs to be done, who needs you for what? When is the last time that You sat somewhere at a park or just in your home on your porch or something, and you didn't use that time to catch up on stuff. Can you remember? I bet some of you don't know the last time that you did that. I think so many of us live this way on a daily basis that we don't even realize that we're doing it, that we haven't actually Taken time to truly rest our body and minds unless we're sleeping. Like this is just what being a woman looks like. This is just what motherhood is. This is just what being a wife looks like. This is just being responsible. This is having a full life. Yes, life is full. And there are women that are walking around that are overstimulated, overworked, overwhelmed, edgy, ready to freak out at any moment. Impatient because their mind and their body are constantly on. And then let's go one step further. Then we can be hard on ourselves. Why am I so on edge? Why am I so irritated? Why am I so bothered by this right now? Why can't I handle this better? Why am I so irritated? It's that our system has been taking on so much information. And responding to demands all day long. So it does not take a lot to push us over the edge. And this is where nervous system regulation comes in. And I know that phrase has been used a lot and maybe even overused, but there's a reason why. And I don't want to overcomplicate this. When I talk about regulating your system, I'm talking about being aware of what. Is overstimulating you, what is overwhelming you, what gets you worked up, what gets you triggered, and knowing how to bring yourself back down, knowing how to regulate your system. Not eliminating stress, that's not even possible. Life is going to continue to do life things. It's going to continue to apply the pressure. That's not going anywhere anytime soon. We still gotta send the text messages. We still have to send the emails. We still need to have the hard conversations. We still need to show up for everything in life. We can't drop all the balls that we're juggling. The point is to have more choice in what you do with what you're feeling. There is a researcher at Stanford named James Gross, who has spent decades studying emotional regulation. And one of the big ideas in his work is that emotional regulation is really about influencing an emotional response instead of simply being carried by it, allowing it to take over. And one of the strategies he's studied extensively is called reappraisal, which basically means changing the way you understand a situation so that it changes your emotional response to it. Research has repeatedly found that reappraisal tends to be more effective than simply suppressing what you feel. What this is saying is that regulation gives you a space between what happens, an event, and how we respond. That's the benefit. It keeps us grounded so we don't. Fly off the handle or get impatient or irritated or overstimulated or overwhelmed. It puts the power in our hands to not be carried away by stressful moments. It gives us the power to say, wait, wait a minute, before I respond, I want to understand this clearly. That is such power. When somebody's able to do that, And able to emotionally regulate themselves and control that, especially as women. We are so highly emotional and feeling, we feel so deep to be able to have that regulation. I find that to be so inspiring. And how useful is that in motherhood? How useful is that in your marriage, in your parenting, in the way that you communicate to people in conflict, when you are triggered. When things are going on that aren't going your way, when you need to have hard conversations in your marriage, when something hits a nerve with you, when your husband says something that you don't like and your first instinct is to fire back those moments. It's time for our weekly pause. If you hear people talk about regulating their nervous system and you're like, What are they even talking about? I have no idea what that is. That's what we're gonna do today. If you can, put your phone down. If you're driving, just listen, be safe. If you can, close your eyes. Take a slow breath in through your nose and Breathe it out slowly. weak and slow breathen. Long breath out. One more deep soothing breath in. I want you to notice three things in your space. Just name them to yourself. What sounds do you hear around you? Notice the feeling of your feet on the floor or your body against the chair. Are your shoulders tense? Let them drop. Are you clenching your jaw? Lisa. Are your hands tense or tight? Let them go. Take another slow breath. and breathe it out. Now ask yourself What am I mentally carrying right now? What am I trying to stay ahead of? What do I keep replaying in my mind? What am I worrying about that hasn't even happened yet? What am I carrying that is not mine to carry? What if anything actually needs my attention right now? The rest sit for a minute. You do not have to solve tomorrow right now. You do not have to finish the conversation in your head. You do not have to remember everything at once, sister. Take another breath in. Breathe it out. Just be in this stillness for a moment. Nothing to fix, nothing to figure out or get ahead of. Just here. Let's all take one last inhale together. Let it out and open your eyes. Sister, life is gonna continue to be full. It's going to continue to apply its pressure. It's going to continue to ask so much of us. But we don't need to match its pace. We can take that power. We can take back control. We can ground ourselves and give our body and our minds the rest that it needs. Behind every great man, Is a great woman who knows how to truly rest. Thanks for taking the time to join me on this week's podcast episode. You can find more episodes of Behind Every Great Man on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And if this spoke to you, please share it with a friend and subscribe. Thanks again, and I'll see you next week.