The Importance of Rest & Recovery in Artistic Pursuits
Introduction
We all know and understand that rest is important; anyone who has defied their body’s need for rest and stayed up for so long they’ve crossed over into the shadow realm knows that humans were not made for going without sleep. An old idiom comes to mind: “humans were not made to live, they were made to dream”, and what hopes do we have to dream if we don’t rest?
We’re busy people and we don’t take the time to rest, and when we do, we book expensive retreats and we treat ourselves, but the truth is that rest and recovery is such a natural part of our existence, it’s not some extraordinary event and it shouldn’t be a special occasion. It should be something that is part of our weekly routine, even God rested in the week after having created the Earth. Creation takes energy, but more importantly, expression needs space.
Music or a speech becomes unintelligible if there isn’t a pause, and this is true for all artistic expressions. If we don’t set up camp and just continue walking, we eventually become so fatigued or mentally drained that we lose our way; we need to take the time to recover to fulfil the journey. This is true for every part of life, and this text will focus on rest when it comes to creativity and art. Whether it’s your professional life or a hobby, rest is incredibly important not only to the quality of work but also to our personal growth, and we often neglect rest or simply don’t understand what it means.
First, we’re going to detail why rest is important when it comes to art, and then we’re going to outline what it means to recover and how to properly rest. Rest and recovery are important to all aspects of our lives, and it’s such a natural part of our existence that a lot of our problems can be reduced if we learn to use it properly, and to not waste our time of recovery on mindless activities and endless consumption of cultural slop.
Resting properly isn’t a waste of time and a productivity sink. It can help us be more productive and more creative, and if we take the time to rest, we will be both mentally and physically at our best, allowing us to perform any task better and more efficiently. Our creativity is strengthened by boredom, and a relaxed mind is needed to flow easily with the currents of the spirit.
Why Rest is Important
We all run on energy, and almost everything we do takes some of that energy to be done. Energy isn’t ever lost or destroyed, but it is transformed. We have two kinds of energies: mental and physical, both are required to do anything. We recharge our physical energy by eating food and drinking water, nourishment for our bodies. Mental energy is a little trickier and unique to each person; some recharge by being alone and immersing themselves in their interests, while others recharge by meeting friends, and there are many other ways. Resting, however, recharges both energies and is especially important for mental energy, regardless of how you otherwise get your energy.
Rest is regenerative but also generative, and when we rest, we let our minds wander freely. Ever caught yourself having your best ideas when in the shower or right before falling asleep? That’s because you’re not occupied with anything else and your mind is relaxed, and when it’s relaxed, it can move freely, exploring new venues of expression and creativity.
Time of rest doesn’t have to be doing nothing, but it has to be mindful, recovering and meditative. Certain aspects of creative work can be restful in this way. While painting, I find detail work to be quite meditative, and I often find myself drifting off, and I find myself doing it without any effort. This effortlessness saves our energy, and it still allows us to constantly progress and finish creative projects. By choosing the path of least resistance, we save our strength for when we really need it, and no matter the creative pursuit, there will be some heavy lifting eventually. If we don’t take the time to rest and prepare, that pressure can be incredibly damaging and hindering. It leads to burnout, creative blocks and simply an inability to create.
Sometimes when we meet a hindrance, we can try so desperately to get past it, but in reality, it just needs time. It’s important to not only let ourselves rest but also the projects sometimes. Consider the process of making wine. The heavy lifting of the process is done by giving time and space to the microorganisms to consume the sugar to develop taste and alcohol in the drink. Sometimes art just needs time to sit, like a process of fermenting ideas, it will eventually be ready. If we just stress about it, it’s not going to speed up the process, and it only hinders us in other aspects of our lives. It can be difficult to perform well under stress, and to regulate stress, we have to rest.
It’s easy to become stressed out when you’re putting pressure on yourself to perform to a certain degree. If your work is creative, there’s a big incentive, financially, to perform well and to do a lot. You can stress yourself and push yourself beyond your limits to achieve that, but it’s fighting against your natural rhythm and being, and the consequences for that are dire and almost always end in burnout. If you don’t schedule for rest, rest will be scheduled for you. If you keep pushing yourself and neglecting rest, you will eventually be forced to rest and that recovery may be a lot tougher. It’s therefore very important to take the time to fully recover.
What is Recovery?
When we think of rest, we often think of sleep, and while sleep is essential, there are more modes of recovery. Some common ones we think are restful are, in fact, not. Scrolling endless feeds, mindlessly watching videos, and playing video games. These things offer us a quick and easy escape from responsibility and can undoubtedly help us feel better temporarily, but they are not helping us rest and recover. They are indeed draining, and while they’re not 100% bad, we must separate them from the idea of rest and recovery.
These activities still have us engaged on some level, and they take some effort, even if minimal, and they steal energy rather than leave it. Restful activities are ideally effortless and give us energy. Things like meditating and other mindful activities, where we take away distractions and things that require our attention, are helping us recover our energy and creativity. A walk can be restful in this sense, even going for a run can be; this might seem contrary to the idea of rest we have, which includes doing nothing, but this kind of mental rest depends entirely on what our mind is doing and not our bodies. A physical rest may require you to sleep, but a mental rest doesn’t.
In my day-to-day, I either take the time to rest by doing nothing and just sitting free from distractions for a while, observing my mind and thoughts, or I take the time when I do chores. I think it’s easy to want distractions when we do things. Body doubling and shifting our focus from the thing we’re doing is a great way to get things done, but it’s not restful. To truly engage with mindfulness and rest, we have to rid ourselves of distractions and instructions and simply just be present. It’s not easy, and honestly, to a lot of people, resting is very difficult and cumbersome.
Practising rest and recovery means discomfort initially, because we experience drug-like withdrawal when our distractions and comforts are removed, but eventually, as we ease into it, the peace and tranquillity within silences that ring in the ears. From that point it’s easier to move forward, and when we clear our head of all the mental debris we fill it with, it’s actually a nice place to be. The benefits of proper rest are plentiful, but it’s important to remember that laziness is not the same thing as rest.
Don’t be a cruel taskmaster towards yourself, but develop discipline and avoid listlessness. Give yourself time to rest and recover, and minimise time with laziness and avoidance. If you let things pile up, they will just require more and more energy; spend a little time to get them out of the way and save yourself the headache. Approach the small things you can do through mindfulness and awareness, and you can even rest while doing what’s necessary. Disconnect and give yourself space and time.
An hour spent scrolling on social media can give a little inspiration, but an hour in solitary silence will give you so much more. In that rest, you will crack the code to the universe and have absolved all creative hinders. Allowing your mind to relax and be free, it will come up with things on its own. Art can’t be forced, and if you don’t take the time to relax, you will eventually be forced to - that is a non-negotiable fact of reality. You can take an energy loan from yourself and dig yourself into energetic debt, but eventually the loanshark will come knocking demanding what you owe.
Take the time to rest, remove distractions and let your mind wander, and really recover. Don’t waste your time lying to yourself about it and spend your energy on things that drain you. You will be a lot more creative, productive and happy if you take the time to just take it all in. Let the dust settle before you start cleaning things out, if it’s all in the air, it will only come back down once you think you’re done.
Final Words
Rest is important for our well-being and health, and it fills a crucial role in our lives. Most of us neglect it because we associate it with sleep or energy-draining activities, and because of this, we often don’t take the time to truly rest. We don’t take the time to just sit and be in the moment, there’s always some noise distracting us from just turning our minds off. Turning our minds onto the endless digital feed of squelch content isn’t the same as turning it off. Rest is regenerating, distractions are degenerating.
When it comes to the arts, some projects just need time, and that means letting them rest. It can be as important for them to rest as it can be for us; it’s important to give yourself space and time, and your projects as well. Sometimes the more we fight against something, the further away it drifts. A very core principle of Daoism is the idea of effortless action, that we should be so in tune with ourselves and our surroundings that the things we do come as naturally to us as breathing. When we force things, we often end up suffering or doing more harm than good. To go with the stream of life requires us to let go and relax; every strain and tension is us clinging to something.
Resting doesn’t mean distracting ourselves, but it also doesn’t mean doing nothing. If we engage mindfully and effortlessly with things, we can rest while doing other things. When walking, we can let our body do the heavy lifting without spending any thought on it, and we can let our minds wander in another direction. This is great for creativity and art, as we can continue developing and thinking of new ideas. Rest also doesn’t mean being lazy.
There’s a limit to rest, and how much of it we can do. If you get bored, it might be a sign that you have the energy and you don’t need to rest, and if you rest too much, you might be depressed, which can be because of a lot of different things. You have to listen to yourself, to your body and to understand what rest is beneficial and what is not. If you ever find yourself on your days off doing nothing for 12 hours and then feeling tired afterwards, it's no wonder. You’ve either not rested and only distracted yourself, or you’ve overrested. Rest is earned, and it’s earned through work.
Recovery is super important for maintaining our energy and as a source of inspiration, and it’s only beneficial if we use it towards something. Rest alone doesn’t do anything; it’s there to help us do things, and we need to value it accordingly. It’s important to take time for rest, or we will be forced to by our bodies. It’s essential to use that energy and not let it dissipate or waste it on useless things. Take the time to rest and recover, and use the momentum this gives to propel yourself towards betterment and let it fuel your art and your work. Don’t ever let the flame die, but don’t fan them so much that they consume all you have. There’s a balancing act in all things, and rest is no different.
