# How to Rest So Well You Never Feel Exhausted Again

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Re5MZ9pwbC8

[00:00] You're tired.
[00:00] You clicked the video on how to rest.
[00:03] So, you're probably exhausted.
[00:05] And when you're exhausted for long enough, life sucks.
[00:07] And I'd love to tell you that you should just get more sleep, and you probably should.
[00:09] But sometimes, that's not possible, or it's not enough.
[00:14] For me, I have felt exhausted for almost as long as I can remember, until actually only just the last two or three [music] years.
[00:20] I used to go to sleep tired, wake up tired.
[00:22] Weekend, tired.
[00:25] 2 weeks off, still tired.
[00:26] And to be fair, a lot of it was self-inflicted.
[00:28] I was working full-time while going through medical school and running my business while being a junior doctor.
[00:33] I either worked or studied over 100 hours a week for almost 10 years.
[00:35] And on top of that, I was trying to take care of my family while I was sleep deprived and depressed.
[00:42] And honestly, that's one of the big reasons why I learned so much about productivity and efficiency.
[00:45] But at a certain point, no amount of productivity was really helping.
[00:50] There was a point a few years ago where my YouTube was blowing up, business was growing, and my family and my loved ones needed me more than ever.
[00:59] And during that time, feeling so
[01:02] exhausted, I realized that I just wanted to feel normal again.
[01:07] I wanted to wake up and feel energized.
[01:12] I wanted to feel like staying awake and being present and having emotional reserve was not a struggle every single day.
[01:19] And like I mentioned, the last two or three years, I think I've gotten a lot better at resting.
[01:23] My life didn't get any less busy.
[01:26] I had the same amount of responsibilities, arguably more.
[01:30] But I sleep well, I wake up rested, I have the energy to do stuff that I want and be there for the people that I love.
[01:36] Happily be there.
[01:37] So, in this video, I want to share with you some of the things that I've realized about rest and some of the things that I've learned about the science of rest and recovery.
[01:45] And hopefully, this helps you feel like a like a human again, too.
[01:47] So, the first thing that I want to start off with is this realization that rest is not the same as recovery.
[01:54] So, in my early 20s, I was really busy not just with work and study, but also with hobbies.
[01:58] I was exercising a lot.
[02:00] I was spending a lot
[02:02] of time dancing, which was my main hobby at the time.
[02:05] And I remember feeling really busy and tired, but also energized.
[02:09] I was sort of tired in a good way.
[02:11] Now, as I got older, I started deliberately making more time for rest.
[02:14] I started worrying that I might burn out cuz I was doing so much stuff.
[02:17] I was also now in clinical placement working in the hospital.
[02:21] So, I really made it an effort to fit more time to just sort of do nothing and rest.
[02:25] And what I realized, and I only really realized this a few years ago looking back, is that I think that actually made me more tired.
[02:35] Because by making more time for rest, I actually took away time from recovery.
[02:38] So, here's a little bit of the science.
[02:43] In order for you to achieve recovery, you need to have [music] relaxation.
[02:49] And relaxation in the research is defined as something that has a low level of activity for the system that you're trying to recover.
[02:59] So, if you've been really physically active during the day, then to recover physically, you need to
[03:03] engage in some kind of activity that has a very low level of physical activity.
[03:07] Likewise, if you've been busy at work, doing really heavy cognitive tasks, or making lots of decisions, you know, in the household, in the family, taking care of the kids, that's cognitively draining.
[03:16] So, to recover, you need to do some kind of activity that is mentally really low activity.
[03:22] And so, for me, I back then, I thought that resting was just about not doing anything.
[03:26] As long as I was just not very active, that would be relaxation.
[03:29] And what I ended up filling my time with was just these really low effort tasks, like scrolling through social media, chatting with people, digital window shopping.
[03:43] In my mind, low effort equals relaxation.
[03:48] But, this is actually not the case.
[03:49] Low effort and relaxation are actually not that related to each other.
[03:53] And something like scrolling on your phone is a great example of this.
[03:55] Because when you scroll on your phone, if especially if you're on social media, you're actually at a constant level of baseline
[04:05] cognitive activity.
[04:07] You are constantly being stimulated.
[04:09] You are making all these micro-decisions about what to watch, what to swipe, what to interact with.
[04:12] If the content itself is, you know, emotionally stirring, you're getting these rapid emotional fluctuations as well.
[04:19] And the nature of the apps is reinforcing addiction pathways with these constant dopamine hits, which means that you have inattention and distractibility and restlessness when you're not being hit with those dopamine spikes all the time.
[04:32] And so even though that is an activity that is low effort, it is not relaxing.
[04:37] It's actually more like low effort agitation.
[04:41] And what I now know at a neuroscientific level is that when you don't engage in a proper reduction of activity, then the neurotransmitters that accumulate in your brain as you're making decisions and executing tasks and planning, these neurotransmitters are never properly cleared.
[04:58] In fact, it actually continues to build up.
[04:59] And so at the end of your rest, you're actually more fatigued.
[05:03] And what I also noticed, and what the
[05:05] research also supports, is that going to sleep did not really cure my cognitive fatigue.
[05:13] And what studies have shown is that while physical exhaustion recovers really well with sufficient sleep,
[05:19] cognitive, mental, or emotional exhaustion does not.
[05:23] Cognitive exhaustion can permeate through into your dreams.
[05:26] It can reduce the quality of your sleep, and it can persist for weeks.
[05:31] And so what I realized is that choosing my relaxation activity based on the fact that it's low effort is a very bad way of choosing the relaxation activity.
[05:42] And that sometimes high effort activities actually produce much more relaxation.
[05:46] For example, when I started giving myself more rest, I also reduced how much I was exercising.
[05:51] And everyone knows exercise is good for you, you know, it helps you to take care of yourself, it keeps you optimum.
[05:55] But I think for me, the issue that I had was that even though I had heard that, I never really believed it.
[06:01] And I only became convinced of how important it was
[06:06] when I ignored it and felt that I was getting increasingly more tired.
[06:11] And then when I actually started learning about what neuroscientifically needs to happen for you to feel more rested and recovered.
[06:19] Which actually brings me to my next point and major realization, which is that it's not enough to just not be working.
[06:22] You have to be able to completely mentally switch off.
[06:29] And this was for me probably the most difficult part.
[06:32] I've really, really struggled with this.
[06:34] One as a doctor, because it's so easy to take the problems of your patients home with you.
[06:42] And number two, as an entrepreneur, where there is no certainty and you have to be thinking about your business all the time.
[06:47] Every entrepreneur will know what I'm talking about.
[06:49] And so not only was it difficult to stop thinking about it because the thoughts just played in my head, but I also didn't feel like I should stop thinking about it.
[06:57] I felt like if I don't think about it, not only am I going to miss something, which is sort of the anxiety talking,
[07:05] but also maybe that means I'm not a good
[07:07] doctor.
[07:09] Maybe it means I'm not a good entrepreneur, because if I really care, I should just be thinking about it all the time.
[07:13] But the issue is that when you have that belief, it blocks you from activating something that's called psychological detachment.
[07:27] Which is pretty much fancy way of saying that you are switching off, where you are leaving your problems at work.
[07:33] And psychological detachment is one of the strongest predictors and factors for effective recovery.
[07:38] And so So, you're coming home from work and you're still thinking about it, and you're checking your messages, and you're checking your email just this once, and you're always planning your next day, and running through the hypotheticals, then you never activate psychological detachment.
[07:53] But, studies have found that people who are able to psychologically detach report more satisfaction in life overall.
[08:00] They are less likely to burn out, and they are just as engaged at work.
[08:02] But, the issue, like I said before, is that I felt like I couldn't and that I shouldn't mentally switch off.
[08:07] And this is actually something that
[08:08] Researchers called the recovery paradox.
[08:10] The recovery paradox says that people recover the least when they need it the most.
[08:15] When your workload is high at work, it is harder to detach from our work.
[08:20] And so, in order to really allow myself to switch off and finally start recovering, there are three things that I had to do differently.
[08:28] The first one is just be really clear and honest to myself that you can't pour from an empty cup.
[08:33] I remember one time I was working a a late shift as a junior doctor.
[08:36] I was with one of my seniors, and we had this, you know, never-ending list of tasks to get to.
[08:42] We'd just finished looking at one patient, and we had a a nurse call us who wanted us to review another patient on a different ward.
[08:47] And I was kind of hurrying to the elevator to get to the next patient, and my senior kind of pulls me along and says, "First, we need to get dinner."
[08:53] And I obviously had this face of like, "But, there's so much work that we have to do."
[08:57] Because he said, "You cannot treat your patients if you become the patient."
[09:01] And that message has always stuck with me.
[09:02] Shout out Dr. Mike Hayes for telling me that.
[09:05] I use it as a constant reminder that when other
[09:09] people need the best version of ourselves, we owe it to those people to preserve the best of ourselves.
[09:17] The person that other people depended on was not the tired, angry, irritable, sleep-deprived version of me.
[09:25] So, that was the first big thing.
[09:27] Just being honest with myself that I'm a human.
[09:29] I'm I just can't keep operating like a machine, no matter how much I like to think that I can.
[09:36] The second major change to support that was building in some really key routines.
[09:40] Relaxation and exercise became non-negotiable in my routine.
[09:45] I would protect it fiercely.
[09:47] And I'll also give you some tips later on on the types of routines that were really helpful for me that I was able to fit into a busy schedule.
[09:55] And the third and final major thing, which I didn't do, but I wish I had done and I recommend that you do, is to take some of the pressure off yourself.
[10:03] Some problems are easier to solve than others.
[10:07] For example, if you're spending hours every evening reading through documentation instead of relaxing and
[10:10] you're banging your head against it
[10:12] because you know that a week from now
[10:14] you're not going to remember what you're reading anyway, but you also don't have the time and mental capacity to learn how to learn more efficiently
[10:22] you can solve that problem
[10:24] very easily, for free, with only 3 to 5 minutes of reading sent straight into your inbox.
[10:31] Yes, we're talking about my free weekly newsletter.
[10:33] Sure, you can watch my videos, and please do, but I've got hundreds of them.
[10:38] Wouldn't it be awesome if some of those key transformative insights, maybe like the ones that you're hearing right now in this video, could be distilled and delivered for you straight into your inbox.
[10:49] So, you don't even have to think about what to learn next, what do I need to focus on?
[10:52] You just get an email sent from me that I write up with my hands using my brain saying, "Hey, this is what I think you should know, and here is the practical thing that for this week you should work on."
[11:04] And if imagining that fills you with the sense of relief, like this burden has been lifted off from
[11:10] your shoulders, remember it hasn't been lifted off your shoulders yet.
[11:14] In order for that burden to be lifted, you need to go check out the link in the description below to sign up.
[11:20] Okay, now to be serious, switching off when the stuff that's bothering you is related to work is already an easier problem to solve.
[11:26] And as I said, I will give you some tips on the types of routines to implement that are really helpful for you.
[11:32] But, what if the stress, the thoughts are related to life?
[11:36] What if it's about your kids, family issues?
[11:39] For me, a few years ago, there was a lot going on family-wise that I couldn't switch off from.
[11:46] In those situations, how do you activate the psychological detachment that is so necessary for recovery?
[11:50] And to answer that, I actually want to refer to this really great piece of research that was published by two researchers, Sonnentag and Fritz.
[11:59] Uh Sonnentag is like one of the the most prolific researchers in the sort of rest and recovery space.
[12:05] I actually only discovered his work recently as well.
[12:08] But, they published four different dimensions to recovery.
[12:13] already covered two of them.
[12:14] The first two is actually relaxation and psychological detachment.
[12:18] But, they also have two other dimensions,
[12:20] which is mastery
[12:22] and control.
[12:25] And when I learned about these two extra dimensions, a lot of things clicked for me.
[12:31] So, mastery experiences are about when you're learning something new.
[12:34] There is a sense of progress.
[12:36] So, for me, going to the gym, feeling like I'm getting stronger, that was progress.
[12:40] Getting better at the different lifts that I was doing, that was mastery.
[12:44] I'm getting better at something.
[12:45] Dancing, I was learning to dance better.
[12:49] Even something like doing a jigsaw puzzle, where there's that feeling of progress.
[12:52] And the thing is that when you engage in a mastery activity,
[12:56] it also triggers psychological detachment.
[12:58] It becomes easier to mentally switch off, and it helps to activate that relaxation.
[13:05] But, it also has a compounding effect, because as you get better at something, it also builds a new hobby, and that hobby becomes a relaxation asset for you
[13:15] moving forward in life.
[13:16] So, for me, today, exercise provides me a lot of very powerful recovery.
[13:21] But, the only reason it's so easy for me to use exercise as a recovery mechanism is because I have been engaging in the hobby of exercise for over a decade.
[13:29] Some people like, uh, you know, like fixing up their home, renovating stuff.
[13:33] It could be cultivating entire forest of indoor plants, maybe learning a new language or a new instrument.
[13:40] Do those things that you've always wanted to do, and don't let the fact that it takes high levels of effort be the thing that stops you.
[13:45] Because engaging in that high effort activity is actually going to allow you to recover more, which will make you feel more energized.
[13:54] That exhaustion and tiredness that tells you, "No, you shouldn't do this because you're already so tired.
[14:01] You're barely hanging in there with just what you're doing now.
[14:03] How could I ever do more than that?
[14:05] That's not true.
[14:07] The reason you can barely hold on with what you're doing now is because you don't have enough of these recovery activities.
[14:13] But here's an
[14:15] interesting question I started asking myself a couple of years ago, and you might be thinking this right now.
[14:20] I was thinking about this.
[14:22] Every time I feel tired, drag myself to the gym, do a workout, good, bad, whatever it is, by the end of the workout, I always feel better.
[14:29] I'm always more energized.
[14:31] I'm in a better mood.
[14:33] So why has my brain not learned that exercise is something that I should just do and look forward to?
[14:40] Why is it that when I feel tired, it's always a challenge to drag myself to the gym?
[14:46] And it's not just exercise.
[14:48] I notice that when I'm exhausted, I don't want to do anything.
[14:51] I just want to be a useless potato rolling around on the couch.
[14:57] And I know it's not going to make me feel better.
[14:58] And for a really long time, that uh, gave me a little bit of stress and frustration and sort of disappointment in myself.
[15:06] Like this feeling of guilt that I'm not doing the things that I know I should do.
[15:09] And as I was looking into this just a couple of years ago, what I learned was that as your day goes
[15:16] on and those neurotransmitters build up inside your a like I talked about before, that part of your brain that's involved in decision-making and planning and self-regulation starts getting fatigued.
[15:27] This is the prefrontal cortex.
[15:29] And when it's fatigued, it's less able to make those high-effort decisions that require a lot of planning and coordination.
[15:36] Finishing work, getting changed, [music] thinking about dinner timing and getting to the gym before and after and, you know, whether I'm energized enough.
[15:44] This takes a lot of coordination.
[15:46] It takes no coordination just to give up on life and just sit on the couch.
[15:50] [music] And what I learned was that our brain thinks differently when we're tired.
[15:52] Our ability to make decisions when we're tired becomes impaired, [music] and we become biased towards making decisions that require less planning and less effort.
[16:03] And this effect is actually so profound that this is one of the most accurate ways [music] to reliably assess your true level of fatigue.
[16:13] Instead of just self-assessing and self-reporting how tired you feel
[16:18] like you are, which is wildly inaccurate.
[16:23] the better way is just to note the types of decisions you tend to make.
[16:27] When you tend to make decisions that are more low-effort and require less planning, even when you know those are probably not the best decisions to make, that is a very strong indicator that your prefrontal cortex is in a state of fatigue.
[16:39] And so the way that I combat that these days is that I just remove as much planning as possible.
[16:44] And there are two things that I do for this.
[16:46] The first is I always decide in advance.
[16:52] I go to the gym twice a week, decision on when I go is scheduled into my calendar a week in advance.
[16:54] So that's one decision removed.
[16:56] The second thing is I have to go post very close.
[17:00] I do not think about what I'm going to do at the gym.
[17:02] I don't think about how hard it's going to be.
[17:04] I don't think about, you know, how long I'm going to be there.
[17:07] All I care about is getting changed and getting there.
[17:11] And that means all the planning and decision-making that I would normally be doing up front that adds that burden and makes me want to I up, that's gone.
[17:16] I don't have to think about any of that until just before I start.
[17:17] And I apply
[17:19] these two principles for anything that I know is good for me, that I should do, but I know requires a lot of effort and I'm going to be too tired in the moment to bring myself to do it.
[17:27] But even then, sometimes it's not enough.
[17:33] Schedules change, things come up, there's always competing responsibilities.
[17:37] And this is where this fourth dimension really comes in.
[17:40] That is control.
[17:42] Control is talking about how much control you have over what you do during your non-work time.
[17:48] And what it says that if you spend that time doing something that you intentionally decided to do, just by the virtue of the fact that you were in control of your time, makes it a recovery experience.
[18:03] And even 15 to 20 minutes of self-directed activity that you chose to do and you wanted to do it, can be beneficial for recovery.
[18:10] You are giving yourself permission to take control selfishly of that time and just do the thing that you want to do.
[18:17] For me, I believe that this is one
[18:20] of the reasons why, despite working so many hours, I wasn't as burnt out as I maybe could have been,
[18:29] because my business, learning about learning science and coaching people and really understanding how to be a great learning coach as well as run a business, this was really fulfilling for me.
[18:40] Like I wanted to get good at that.
[18:42] That was taking the box for me in terms of mastery, but it was time spent in the way that I wanted to spend it.
[18:46] And even on my busiest days, just 10 minutes after dinner, let's just go for a walk.
[18:54] I'm going to write in my diary.
[18:56] I'm going to read a book or listen to an audio book.
[19:00] Just paying attention to what you really want and what you need and letting yourself have that little bit of time.
[19:04] Personally for me, that was a life-changer and I know that for a lot of people, they never let themselves do something just for themselves.
[19:14] And so, let me wrap up these four dimensions, uh my personal insights, everything I've talked about into sort of like my final set of tips for how you can really start
[19:23] to feel more rested and energized.
[19:25] Number one, make a list of things that you think would be relaxing.
[19:29] Anytime you think of an idea that you think could be fun to try, could be relaxing, you might be interested in it, could become a new hobby, just write it down.
[19:37] Just write it out.
[19:37] Have a list of ideas you can browse through it another time.
[19:39] Number two, plan some key anchors of relaxation throughout your week.
[19:44] For me, those two anchors are exercise, twice a week.
[19:48] These are the two activities that take a little bit longer, but provide this really big amount of recovery that allows me to stay maintained throughout the week.
[19:56] Number three, pick just two or three of those things from your list of relaxing activities and put aside a little bit of time, 10, 15 minutes in the evenings here and there, to just start working on it.
[20:06] Preferably something that involves a level of progression, so that we're ticking that mastery aspect.
[20:09] You don't have to get good at it, you don't have to commit to it.
[20:13] There's no minimum or maximum amount of time that you need to do it for, but if you've always wanted to get into painting, buy the canvas, buy the paint, have it set up somewhere.
[20:24] Now, at least it's there. Maybe you only
[20:25] get to brush on it for 5 minutes every
[20:28] now and again, but it's there and it's
[20:30] developing into a hobby asset. For me,
[20:33] one of the biggest blockers I think in
[20:34] committing to picking up like a new
[20:36] hobby is the sense of having to commit
[20:38] [music]
[20:39] to this whole new thing and all the
[20:41] planning involved and how do I get
[20:43] myself there and how long am I going to
[20:45] do it for and is it worth the time or
[20:47] the money or there's all this kind of
[20:49] planning and again, like I'm already
[20:51] fatigued, I'm already exhausted, so I
[20:53] just stop. But the unlock isn't
[20:54] realizing you can't screw it up. There's
[20:57] no right way or wrong way of doing it.
[21:00] As long as you do it, it's providing the
[21:03] value for you. And just remember that
[21:05] even if it takes a bit of effort, that
[21:06] effort will be rewarded back to you with
[21:08] even more energy. Now, if you are so
[21:10] exhausted [music] that you can't even be
[21:12] bothered thinking of all of that, you
[21:13] can't be bothered thinking of your own
[21:15] hobbies and relaxation things, and you
[21:17] just want me to tell you one thing to
[21:19] do. Even though there is no magic pill
[21:21] for this, if you want just one thing to
[21:23] do,
[21:24] find your nearest spot of nature and
[21:27] just exist in it for 30 minutes.
[21:29] >> [music]
[21:29] >> There may be no magic pill to just
[21:31] suddenly feeling energized, but if there
[21:32] was, it's nature. Several years ago I
[21:34] did my first overnight hike in the bush,
[21:36] no cell phone reception, completely off
[21:38] the grid. I came out of that hike like a
[21:40] feeling like a like a whole new human,
[21:42] like I'd been reincarnated. There is
[21:44] this deep neurobiological connection
[21:47] between humans and nature. Some
[21:49] researchers call it soft fascination,
[21:52] uh which is quite a unique mechanism
[21:54] that's only really been observed with
[21:56] nature, where you are
[21:58] effortlessly engaged by like just the
[22:01] things in your environment that helps to
[22:03] renew your brain's attention and energy
[22:05] and also your working memory capacity.
[22:08] Now, the research guidelines on how much
[22:10] nature produces the strongest benefit is
[22:12] around 30 minutes of exposure in a
[22:15] single session or cumulatively about 120
[22:18] minutes per week. But more exposure than
[22:20] that can have [music] uh better effects.
[22:22] So, if you can't be bothered thinking
[22:23] about anything, just find the nicest
[22:26] nearest nature that you can find, go and
[22:29] just sit there for 30 minutes. This is
[22:31] one of the reasons why I still live in
[22:33] New Zealand because I'm pretty much like
[22:35] a minute away from pretty good nature no
[22:37] matter where I am. So, for me,
[22:39] understanding actually how to properly
[22:41] rest and recover has not only made me
[22:43] less exhausted, but also has made me
[22:45] more confident in handling exhausting
[22:48] situations. Because I know that when I
[22:50] rest, I will actually feel rested at the
[22:52] end of it. And I hope with this, you can
[22:54] feel the same way, too. If you're
[22:55] interested in a few more tactics on how
[22:57] you can feel a little bit more energized
[22:59] in your evenings after work and use that
[23:02] time a little bit more effectively, then
[23:04] you might also be interested in checking
[23:05] out this video here. But otherwise,
[23:07] thanks so much for watching and
[23:09] have a good rest.