The Magical Rhythm of Rest Habits

 
Allergic to the dogmatic 
Addicted to the soul-soothing
Few understand
But in the sweet spot of Sunday
I exhale

Just a few months ago, I was under the mind-destroying effects of Metrodol, a synthetic version of the stress hormone cortisol.  When the body has excess stress, and cortisol levels spike, other, less vital areas of the body stop working, so that we can run away from the lion or play dead in the tribal war.  If you get eaten by the lion, it won’t matter if you had a good libido or not.  It won’t matter if the hippocampus, frontal cortex, or any of those other great things we use all the time, are helping us to think.  It’s get out time.  It won’t matter if you were digesting properly.  It won’t matter if your immune system was fighting off a minor threat.  That last part is the key for people with autoimmune conditions.  With food allergies, the body starts an immune response to a protein, even a microscopic amount of a protein, belonging to a major food allergen class, like peanuts, milk, or seafood.  So, any time I accidentally eat seafood, my tongue enlarges, eyes redden, and throat swells shut.  My immune system goes into overdrive, and the only thing that can suppress it back to normal levels, is cortisol.  Magic!   After an accidental exposure, an epi-pen will dilate my throat muscles for air to pass through.  Metrodol or another corticosteroid can be used to suppress this immune reaction and keep me alive for a few weeks as the protein fully leaves my body. 

After my last reaction, I was put onto a super high dose of Metrodol.  Extra prevention, I suppose.  But the intense, stress fog of that cortisol, literally shutting down essential areas of my brain, was not exactly productive for a first semester in graduate school.  I used to be good at stress management, back in the day.   I also used to be quite religious.  Now, not so much.  I did a lot of self-help.  Got into my writing.  But mostly, I just tried to plow through the mountains of work as much as possible, every waking moment.

And on the seventh day, he rested.

Flashback to 2007.  Honduras.  I was living in an orphanage run by Seventh Day Adventists.  They were mostly vegan, Christians, socially progressive, and had an interesting habit around Saturdays.  Like ancient Israeli societies, everything would shut down on Friday evening, until Saturday at sundown.  They had a biological rhythm set to this schedule.  Every Saturday, just like me with Sundays back home, they would reflect on things like how they treat people, whether their purpose on this planet was amounting to something good, and examining the motivations behind their own actions.  I learned so much in those few short months.  My last day in Honduras, I wisped my eyelashes up with the small amount of mascara I had with me, and brushed a bit of pink onto my nails.  Te pintaste!  Eso no corresponde con la voluntad de Dios!  A four-year old girl scolded me.  I tried to joke, “God’s uniform looks different back home where I am going.”  Dogma was alive and well in the USA, too.  Aspects that were purely cultural, or even contrived, slipping their way into church as commands.  Vote for the godly candidate this Tuesday, you know, the one who realizes economic policy and social welfare are mandates of the church, not government.  Ah, it became too much for me.  I attended less and less.

But as I left, I continued one habit.  Every Sunday, even as I completed my most difficult capstone courses at the university, I would meditate, write, walk in nature, and reflect.  I tried to think of what I was grateful for, even when at times, my health would fail for reasons besides the allergy.  I would bask in the sun, sitting on dunes, looking over the darkest of blues in Lake Michigan.  I would do nothing at all, sometimes, not bothering to get out of bed.  Not because of depression or some pathology.  But simply because, one full day each week, my body needed to rest.  Sometimes, that meant staying past 10 p.m. in the library, on a Saturday night.  But I was never alone.  Yes, there are many of us nerds out there.  But it was always worth that rich reward that would be waiting for me on Sunday.

And on the seventh day, she rested too.

Graduated, a year of AmeriCorps under my belt, a full-time job…  And my schedule was not as busy as in university, but almost there.  I filled it with volunteering, (trying at) being a good partner, yoga, and of course, working hard at my job.  American dream.  It was a good life.  Then I wanted more adventure, found it, went to China, went to Italy. Enter the Metrodol.  

Somehow, I forgot about the rhythm that has kept me alive all these years.  Thinking I was on endless four-month marathons which culminated in three-week breaks, I never stopped.  After Christmas, I went back to class.  Finally, the Metrodol effects had worn off and I was feeling better.  But no sooner than the first week had ended and the next Monday of class rolled around, I felt exhausted.  Then, I had a thought.  I had forgotten about Sundays.  About biological rhythms.  I knew I needed to go to bed and wake up at approximately the same time to sleep well.  But I had discarded the equally important weekly rhythm of rest.  As an experiment, I worked hard, without limits (except little breaks to eat or go walking), six days of the week, and went back to using Sundays for reflection and rest.  The cards fell into place.  Where I used to be too tired to think positively in the face of seemingly impossible tasks, whether doing my taxes from abroad or using algebra to figure out financial projections, I suddenly could deal with my issues “con calma” as they like to chide, here in Italy. 

There are times, people pressure you away from this.  They argue, if your sacred day was during the local work week, no one would accept it.  But that’s the thing, it is a rhythm.  I moved from the USA to China, with a twelve-hour difference in time zones.  Three weeks, typically, is all it takes to adjust the rhythm, if you are self-disciplined with it.  In Honduras, I changed to Saturdays.  In China, honestly, the work schedule was not that demanding and I could take off pretty much Friday afternoon through Sunday all day.  Now, I simply had to get into the Sunday one again, as that pretty much works in places with the Christian calendar.  If I were to live in Dubai or somewhere else, three weeks, easy peasy, it can be on Fridays.  As long as there is one, delicious day to soak in what is right with life, soul search a bit, and truly, rest!  Hang up your hat, take off your boots, and sit by a warm stove reading.  Lay down a blanket, open some wine, and smell the sweet flowers in the field.  Binge watch a series.  Do whatever, hedonistic thing you like.  Maybe think a bit.  Make sure your day-to-day matches your true beliefs and values. 

When the day is over, fold up that energy, store it in your closet, and leave it there.  The next six days, be good, work hard, have a sense of humor about things, and remember, you have one, sweet day waiting for you at the end of all that.  Four months is too long to wait for a full day’s break.  A lifetime, it can pass by so quickly.  Stop time once in a while.  Get into a biological rhythm that has a rest habit.  You won’t regret it.

FAQs
1.)  But Amanda, this is really difficult to do.  Isn’t it?
A.)  This is not rocket science.  B.)  It is mental health and self-care 101 with a bit of my snark added in. 

2.)  What if someone is dying and I am the one who can save them?
A.) This is not rocket science.  B.) That is not work.  C.) Save the person.

3.)  What if no one else understands my rhythm and everyone wants to work that day?
Check if your day falls within Monday through Friday in most Western countries, Saturday through Thursday in Middle Eastern Countries, or in places with a high Adventist population, Sunday through Friday.  Yes?  Then probably you have to have some mental flexibility and switch your day.  This is not dogma; it is anti-anxiety medicine that doesn’t require a prescription.     

4.)  Should I switch my day around each week depending on everyone else? 
I don’t have all the science, but in my experience, no.  It is a seven-day rhythm and for me, doing that makes the habit impossible to keep.  The week after a switched day, I just get back to the exhausted, less pleasant version of myself that I am trying to avoid (we can’t even make eye contact without it getting really awkward).  If other people can’t understand, and you have already explained it a bit, you do not owe them an explanation of the value of mental health.  Honestly, you don’t.  And if they cannot accept you having a boundary, it is probably because they themselves lack boundaries.  Boundaries are key to reducing anxiety, and there is science on that.  So do not let yourself feel pressured by people who have not yet taken the time to learn to manage their own stress.  The only other explanation for their lack of acceptance is a lack of empathy, which is a nice way of saying they are being an asshole.  In which case, refer to 1.A above.    

5.)  I don’t like that you said on the Seventh Day, she rested too.  The seventh day is Saturday. 

You misunderstood the poetic and anti-dogma point of this whole entry.  

6.)  Should I tell you about this if I try it out?
Yes, because writing on the internet is not very rewarding.  Haha.  I do it for free and for the 5 or 6 out of 300 readers who sometimes write me and say my stuff helps them in some way.    

7.) So, like, do you have the links for the sciencey parts?   
Of course!  In my brain!  Just kidding.  I'd suggest the book Boundaries which is life-changing, but if you prefer a video, here's a good Ted Talk that just covers some of the neuroscience I talked about.  Comment below if you have other resources!  www.ted.com/talks/daniel_levitin

Good luck, loves!