Hello darlings!
I hope everyone is doing absolutely amazing in this last week (WTF) of January!
I’m coming to you from overwhelmedville, USA. It turns out that when you say “I’ll do that in January” to a thousand things, they all need to happen in January. What the fuck, past Mirya? In what world did I think it was a good idea to organize a workshop a week after classes start? Why did I give myself approx. 1000 deadlines in December? And then missed them all??? and now they all needed to be met in January????
When I’m overwhelmed, my very first instinct is to give up on rest. Work all the time! Sleep less and work more. Wake up earlier and work! Work through dinner! Work through dessert! Say no to fun so I can work work work work. This is the problem with our lives, right? We are so optimistic about our future selves that we utterly fuck everything up by overcommitting over and over and there is ALWAYS WORKWORKWORK to be done.
What a bunch of utter bullshit. The system wants you to feel like you never have anything so you have to work hard to get anything. But scarcity does not result in abundance.
Here’s what I’m telling myself as I combat these impulses:
Rest isn’t a reward
At some point in my life, I had rewards set up where I would get ‘extra’ time off when I reached particular goals. I never reached them. Why? I was setting myself up for failure from the beginning. Rest is not a reward for hard work. Rest and work are two components of life and the reward for rest is more and better rest and the reward for work is cake and champagne. Those are the MHAWS rules.
Seriously: don’t hold rest out as a carrot for completing some piece of work or some routine. Center rest as an essential piece of your life.
Here’s what I’m doing: I get a star for every night when I go to bed before 9:45pm. 5 stars = an ice cream or a fancy coffee drink.
Rest is routine
The most effective rest is regular and routine. You have to train your body and brain to rest just like you have to train it to run or pickleball or do fancy math. But the more you do it, the easier it becomes for your body to understand how to rest. But if you are only used to anxiety and being tired and worn down, then rest may feel uncomfortable!
What can you do to go to bed by X time every day? Can you institute a nap practice in your lives? Can you take a fucking vacation? Like, a lot of vacations? Can you reward yourself for taking all your PTO or booking that time off? Maybe you need the rest deck? A new pillow? A sleep machine? A blocked-out nap time on your schedule?
Here’s what I’m doing: put “go home” on my schedule. Set up a nighttime schedule on my phone so it turns to grayscale at 9am (I hatessss it). Write a newsletter about rest so y’all hold me responsible. (ugh)
Rest is ritual
If you having a hard time figuring out how to take a fucking break, can I suggest goal setting (does a bear shit in the woods?). But seriously! How can you create a bedtime that works for you? What are the ways that you can train your body to rest?
Here’s what I’m doing: drinking a cup of tea and doing a calming mediation at 9pm.
Rest is real work
Your brain needs rest. Like, a lot of it. We each have a different level of required rest, but we ALL need rest. And if you don’t give it to your brain and body, your brain and body will eventually take it from you by burning out, crashing, or getting ill. So don’t let yourself get there. Schedule some goddamn rest.
Here’s what I’m doing: reminding myself that I don’t really matter. (huh? Sorry, it’s what works for me.) There are NO POLITICAL SCIENCE EMERGENCIES. (political? sure. science? uh, maybe? political science? no). At no point is anything that I’m hustling so hard to do going to change the world.
Rest gives you a return on your investment
If you need a very practical way of thinking about the need for rest, here it is: you will be a better academic, writers, researcher, teacher if you have real rest. Rest allows our bodies and minds to process our ideas, become unstuck, and find errors. Rest lets us recognize patterns, make connections, and see the ‘forest’ from all the trees that we spend our days amidst.
What I’m doing: going for walks without my phone to think. Laying down for 10 minutes when I get frustrated. Giving myself a short break to read when I feel myself freaking out.
How can you rest, my babies?
XOXOX
Mirya
Rest is not reward for hard work, but both are components of success and life.... this stuck with me. We need rest to win.
Also if you know of any early career researcher such as Post-Docs, PhDs, and Students(current and aspiring PhD and Masters students) please send them to subscribe to my newsletter as I have a lot for them in their career moves: https://gradinterface.substack.com/
Right on the money!
My rest routine: After lunch, lock the office door, put out a sign declaring that I would be back an hour later, pull out the bed out of the closet, have a 30-40 minute siesta. It always works for me.