“Every person needs to take one day away.  A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future.  Jobs, family, employers, and friends can exist one day without any one of us, and if our egos permit us to confess, they could exist eternally in our absence.  Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for.  Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us.” Maya Angelou

My friend, how regularly do you take a rest?

I mean taking a day away as Maya Angelou said.

I know, all of us are busy forever and we never find time to rest and retrospect.

Some said that, we all sleep regularly and that too 8 to 10 hours hence no need to be lazy by resting!

Do you agree?

We often use ‘Rest’ and ‘Sleep’ similarly.

But they are different.

Rest

My guess is during ‘rest’ we relax our body. The mood is a bit calm.

One may even close the eyes with a few thoughts happening in between.

Here the brain is fully active.

One is also conscious of the surroundings.

Most of the times ‘rest’ is much shorter than sleep.

In rest, dreams don’t happen.

I put the ‘vacation’ as a kind of rest when not much physical activity is undertaken.

Animals too rest after hunting.

What if the mind is restless during rest?

My friend, I have no answer for this.

I am under the impression that ‘rest’ conveys the meaning of cessation of physical activity and not mental activity.

Remember other than during sound sleep, the mind is always busy and in many, it is restless.

Nothing you can do about this.

You have to live with it.

“We humans have lost the wisdom of genuinely resting and relaxing. We worry too much. We don’t allow our bodies to heal, and we don’t allow our minds and hearts to heal” Nhat Hanh

Sleep

In sleep, there is an altered state of consciousness.

In sleep, the individual’s perception of the external world is significantly reduced.

The body shuts down and said to refresh and rejuvenate later.

In sleep, one can dream.

Sleep is the Natural way of rest.

The main difference between Rest and Sleep

The sleeping period is part of the ‘resting period’.

All the ‘resting period’ is not part of the ‘sleeping period’.

What about Nap?

Nap is said to be a short period of sleep, anywhere between 10 to 20 minutes and during the daytime.

Sleep experts advise having napping before 2.00 pm.

Napping is said to improve mood.

“I got 99 problems but I’m gonna take a nap and ignore them all” Unknown

How to tell if someone is resting or sleeping?

My friend, always I admire you for asking such questions.

I don’t have a ready answer.

But I remember the idiom… ‘you can never wake a person who is pretending to be asleep’

Please share your thoughts.

Thank you.

Namaste 🙏🙏🙏

Philosophy Through Photography

Image by © PTP-2021 All Rights Reserved

This post is part of Debbie Smyth’s One Word Sunday- REST photo challenge