The 7 Hidden Rest Deficits Keeping Women Exhausted (It’s Not Sleep) with Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith

In this Burn Beautiful Episode, Nicole Whitaker and special guest Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith explore:

• Why so many high-achieving women still feel chronically exhausted and depleted even when they’re trying to take care of themselves
• Dr. Saundra’s powerful framework of the 7 Types of Rest® and the hidden rest deficits that may be keeping you stuck in burnout, overwhelm, survival mode, and emotional exhaustion
• The surprising reason sleep alone often isn’t enough and how to identify whether you’re lacking mental, emotional, social, sensory, creative, physical, or spiritual rest
• How to recognize when you’re no longer simply caring for others but instead living in patterns of chronic overfunctioning, overgiving, and constant output
• Simple, practical ways to begin restoring your energy and reconnecting with yourself even if rest currently feels guilt-inducing, uncomfortable, or impossible

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith is a board-certified internal medicine physician, bestselling author of Sacred Rest, and internationally recognized expert on rest and sustainable performance. She is the creator of the 7 Types of Rest® framework, a groundbreaking model that redefines how burnout, energy, and resilience are understood. Her insights have been featured in media such as CNN, TED, Fast Company, and Psychology Today. Drawing from clinical experience and research, she equips high-achieving leaders to uncover hidden deficits that impact decision-making, creativity, and emotional capacity. Through a powerful blend of science and practical application, Dr. Saundra helps individuals and organizations move beyond exhaustion. 

If you loved today's episode and don't want to miss out on Burn Beautiful Season 2, get on our priority notification list here: https://coaching.nicolewhitaker.com/burn-beautiful-season-2-priority-list

Ready to end chronic stress and take back your peace of mind and health, without sacrificing your success?  Schedule your FREE 30 minute 'Get Out of Survival Mode So You Can Finally Breathe' Breakthrough Planning Call with Nicole, here: https://calendly.com/nicole-whitaker/30min

For all services, check out www.nicolewhitaker.com

Are there topics or questions you'd like me to cover on Burn Beautiful? Email them to me and I'll incorporate them: hello@nicolewhitaker.com

🎧 Music Credit:
“Seize the Day” by Andrey Rossi
Licensed via Uppbeat (free for creators)
🔗 uppbeat.io/t/andrey-rossi/seize-the-day
🎟 License Code: Q2SDHQ6PBNCDBXUE

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi, you're listening to Burn Beautiful, a podcast for women ready to step into their divine feminine leadership so they can create a life of joy, health, and impact beyond their wildest dreams. Here, you'll learn how to heal stress from the inside out, reclaim your vibrant health, and master your energy so you can lead powerfully without burning out and actually enjoy the moments that matter most in this one beautiful and precious life. I'm Nicole Whitaker, Burnout and Leadership Coach, founder of Lead Up Health, and creator of the HERS Method. Welcome. Hello and thank you for listening to Burn Beautiful. The episode you're about to hear is a part of a select few episodes I've pulled from our most recent Burn Beautiful virtual event. So you are really in for a treat. Our Burn Beautiful events are truly something special. I gather top well-being, leadership, and burnout experts to help ambitious women who are doing it all to get out of survival mode so they can finally breathe, feel healthy again, and still have the impact that they want at work, but without missing precious time with their kids and that incessant mom guilt. If you want to be among the first to be notified when the next season comes out, check out the link in the show notes today and you can get on our priority notification list right there. And now on to the episode. Enjoy. Hello, everybody. This is Nicole, your host for Burn Beautiful. And I have been so looking forward to today's conversation with Dr. Sandra Dalton Smith because we're going to be talking about the hidden rest deficits that might be keeping women in survival mode. And so throughout our conversation, we're going to talk about the different types of rest. And it is important, as we'll learn from Dr. Sandra Dalton, to understand what type of rest deficit you might be in so that you can identify that for yourself and then you know exactly how to address them. Dr. Sandra Dalton is a board-certified internal medicine physician, a best-selling author of Sacred Rest, an internationally recognized expert on rest and sustainable performance. She is the creator of the seven types of rest framework, a groundbreaking model that redefines how burnout, energy, and resilience are understood. Her insights have been featured in media such as CNN, TED, Fast Company, and Psychology Today. Drawing from clinical experience and research, she equips high-achieving leaders to uncover hidden deficits that impact decision making, creativity, and emotional capacity. Through a powerful blend of science and practical application, Dr. Sandra helps individuals and organizations move beyond exhaustion, which I know if you are listening, we are all interested in learning how to do that. So hello, Dr. Sandra. Welcome to Burn Beautiful. I'm just so thrilled to have you here with us today. It's great to be joining you. All right. Well, I'd love if you would be willing, if you could just share a bit about yourself and what led you to this work, especially the work you've been doing around the seven types of rest.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

Yeah, the simple answer is I burned out about 20 years ago. Uh as a clinical physician, I was in a traditional internal medicine type practice where I was in the hospital in my office, uh, 12 plus hours most days, six days a week. Uh, and I had two children at the time, both toddlers under the age of two. So it was a full-time job at work and another full-time job at home. And I loved my work. It wasn't that I lost passion for the work that I had, I just didn't have energy for it anymore. And what energy I was pouring out didn't leave energy for my family at home. And I didn't want to have work-life balance. I didn't want to choose for one to be up while the other's down and then play the teeter-totter kind of back and forth. I wanted to figure out how I can be sustainable in both areas? How can I pour out in one and still have some reserves left to pour out in the other when my times ended at work and shifted over more to home life? And so that's where the process began for me. I wanted to, my background's in biochemistry. So I have a tendency when something's complex, my background is to break it down into the molecular level, make it small chunks so it's easier to digest. And that's where the seven types of rest was birthed out of.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Oh, wow. Your story is most certainly resonant to me and to their listeners. I think that feeling of tug of war, especially for us women who it's like, we're like you said, you loved your job, you're passionate about your job. That was similar to me. I was in um educational equity. I was passionate about it. I poured myself into work. And then it's like all of a sudden there are kids. It's like, whoa, we are pouring out all day, every day. And I love what you said. We don't, we don't want balance. We want to be incredible and able to like excel at work, but also not just give our family the leftovers, which for me I felt like most certainly, um, especially in those early years. So I'm excited to learn your nuggets of wisdom today. Um, and I know you teach that not all exhaustion is the same and burnout is actually more complex than simply just being tired or needing sleep. Can you walk us through a brief overview of the seven types of rest and why this framework is so important to understanding being getting out of survival mode or burnout and why so many of us women are just we're misdiagnosing what it is that we actually need.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

Yeah, and that that is the reason why the framework has uh been so successful and so many people have benefited from it because they were doing restful things. They were trying to engage in restorative practices, but their concept of rest was really one-sided. It was very focused either on one specific type or one specific way of resting. Uh, I'll give the, I'll give an example for you. A lot of people on the weekend, they lay around, they do, you know, Netflix and chill, or they they do some type of cessation activity. They stop the normal work that they do from their nine to five Monday through Friday. But then they go to work on Monday and they're still tired. And there's this feeling, well, rest doesn't really work because I rested all weekend. But what they did was they just stopped pouring out. They didn't pour anything back in. And so when rest is only looked at as the cessation of activity, you miss the whole point. Because really, rest is about restoration. It's filling back up the places where you have been depleting yourself.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

Wow. That that distinction of just stopping and thinking that's rest versus like actually replenishing is that's like that's really powerful. Um, so let's go ahead and jump into the different types of rest. The first one, which is probably the most commonly known known, I think is physical rest, right? We know we need physical rest. But I also to your point, I think many people think they're getting enough rest because they're sleeping, but it sounds like that's not necessarily true physical restoration. Could you explain, you know, what is physical restoration and how is that different from, say, sleep?

SPEAKER_01 7:14

Yeah, sleep is definitely important. Don't hear what I'm not saying. But sleep and rest are not the same thing, and that they can't be used interchangeably. Sleep is a type of rest and primarily falls into the physical rest component. But just as we talked about the active and the passive, sleep is a more passive form of resting. It's a cessation type of resting. And the stopping restoration happens at a biological, biochemical type level. However, there's also active physical rest, and those are the things that improve like your circulation and your lymphatic drainage and your flexibility and how your muscles move and all of those types of things. And that can include anything from taking a leisure walk. So for the sedentary person who's doing work from home on their computer all day, that could be a form of the rest they need. Getting up, getting the circulation moving, getting the blood foam moving again so that the body can actually replenish itself. Um, stretching is a form of active physical rest. Using a foam roller, going, um, how taking a hot bath can be part of a physical rest. Even something as simple as evaluating your body ergonomics. How does your body feel after you sit in wherever you do your work? If it's at the kitchen table with the kids running around or wherever you happen to be doing work, how does your body feel when you leave that place? Because that could be a sign of a physical rest deficit. If every time you're at your computer, you're like, oh, what's my neck doing? And you're moving it all around. A part of that physical rest strategy could be let me evaluate the height of my monitors of my computer to make sure that my spine is actually in proper anatomical positioning so that I'm not actually causing a physical rest deficit simply because my posture and my neck uh alignment is off, or even the chair that you're sitting in, whether or not it's supportive of your particular body type and your weight and all of those things. So it's multifactorial when we're looking at even the physical component, because there's so many ways our bodies get used in a day. And for a mom, if you have kids the age of what, five and below, they love being picked up. And most of them weigh somewhere, especially around five, somewhere around 30 plus pounds. If you went to the gym and lifted up 30 plus pounds over and over again, you would say to yourself, I probably should stretch. No mom does that after lifting up her child all day. It's still weight.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

That is such a good point. Also, I'm sitting over here laughing because uh, Dr. Sandra, I have been having neck pain for the whole week. I feel like you were plopped in front of me today to be like, check, check the height of your chair. So thank you for that tip. Um, I think so. That was so helpful to hear. And I think one question that I have as I was listening, I think the way that I have traditionally classified, I guess rest, maybe not, but like taking care of my physical self is definitely the sleep and then the exercise. I didn't hear you say, like, go for a run. So could you help like distinguish between because like we know, for example, that type of exercise is is good in different ways. Is that considered physical rest? I'm assuming no, but I guess like it's not physical rest.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

No, going for a run definitely isn't physical rest because your body's under physical. No rest. Unless, yeah, unless you just have like a marathon like uh attitude and you you run all the time. For most of us, running is taxing, it's physical work. However, running can be a great way to get mental rest. You probably have heard people say, Oh, I need to go for a run to clear my head. And it sounds, it almost sounds stupid. You're like, how does that even work? But that can actually be a type of mental rest because mental rest are the thing or mental rest activities, I should say, are the things that allow your mind to clear itself. And for some, running, cycling, those types of activities that have some type of like repetitive motion, they can actually move you into a state of uh mindfulness. And so, mindfulness, you're usually trying to focus your attention on one or two things clear out everything else, focus in. When you're jogging, you're usually focusing on your breathing and your cadence. So you automatically start clearing out some of the clutter because you're like, I can't breathe. How do I? And you start thinking about your breath and you start focusing on it, and it becomes its own form of meditation. And in that clearing out of all the mind clutter, clarity comes.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

That makes so much sense. This piece about how the physical exercise is a piece of mental rest. And I think it's really interesting. One of the things that I work with my clients on typically do focus on on rest, uh sleep, sorry, rather, is just foundational. And then exercise ends up being so helpful for so many women. I think you explained it so well in thinking of my own experience. Um, I actually started, so I remember wanting to meditate for like clearing my mind. And I just, this was like years ago, I just wasn't there yet. And so I ended up taking up yoga. And it was really interesting. It was, I think for the reason you're describing, I had to think, I had, I was not, I had no, no athletic background. I was not a dancer. So I had to like really think about like, okay, how do I put my body in that position? You know, it's almost like you have no choice but to focus. And I think same when I notice when we're doing something that's quote unquote physically hard, we have no choice but to, we can't think. We can't think about our to-do list, we can't think about that conversation that didn't go so well with our boss. And so is that am I thinking of that right in terms of the relationship between physical fitness and mental rest?

SPEAKER_01 12:49

Yeah, for a lot of people, that is a way of them being able to clear their mind. And it tends to have to be something that does have a level of uh consuming your energy. For example, going for a leisure walk, great for physical rest. I mean, you're getting the circulation going, but most of us, when we go for a leisure walk, our mind is overactive. It's like plenty of space for the brain to go playing around in. However, when you up the ante a little bit and you're like trying to jog, all of a sudden now there's not so much room for the brain to think about that because it's preoccupied with other things. So I find that especially when someone says, you know, I can't get my mind to quiet down, physical activity that is kind of closer to the zone three, zone four range has a greater impact for clearing the mind. Doesn't mean you have to do it for prolonged periods of time, particularly for women. Strength training is such an important thing, I think, for women of all ages, particularly if you're my age, just so you don't start breaking bones. So when you start trying to lift any weight of any size that gives that forces your muscles to engage, your brain will disengage from whatever thought you were thinking. And it will focus in on lift, find power, figure out a way not to drop this on your head, you know, whatever it is. You really start focusing in, and that actually tends to help with some of that mental um overwhelm that a lot of us experience.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

Yes, that that makes so much sense. And I I love how you added that part about how it doesn't have to be this long thing. Well, what would be is are there any quick physical things? Say, you know, we have five minutes between meetings. Is there any, and our mind is just like all over the place? Anything quick that we might be able to do to get in some of that mental rest?

SPEAKER_01 14:39

Yeah. So one of my favorite ones, I there's so many ways that people describe this. Some call it a brain dump. Uh, I like to call it sometimes a parking lot list. Uh and I call it that because the brain is not very good at um storing information, and especially now with the way our lives are, it has a tendency to want to just ruminate over things. It doesn't know how to like file and organize stuff around in there, not automatically. And so if you find that there's certain thoughts that keep popping up and prevent you from being able to go into deep work, I'll give an example. As a as a parent, sometimes I'll have these thoughts of like, don't forget this is coming up at school. Don't forget this that tomorrow's pajama day. Don't forget, you know, and it's like I I don't really need to hold that thought through every meeting, through every activity I'm doing that day. I can have just a post-it note that I call my parking lot list, and I'm gonna park that thought. I can come back to it whenever I need it, pick it back up, ride it home, or whatever I need to do with it. But I I offload it onto that list in that brain dumping activity. And this can be really helpful for those people who at bedtime, you lay down and your brain won't shut up. You're like and you're thinking, what is going on? How do I go to sleep if all this noise going on? Having that brain dump time or just five minutes just to take a moment to offload whatever it is you're thinking about, your brain recognizes the information now as safe and it will release it so that you are able to then go into those deeper levels of sleep.

SPEAKER_00 16:15

I love that. And I can imagine how it's uh first of all, I'm just imagining like more room opening up in the brain and in both the just the physical act of writing that out and getting that out of your brain onto paper. And then for me, I'm always like, I hope I'm always what I'm gonna forget it, you know, and it's like, well, it's written down now. So you can you don't have to worry about that.

SPEAKER_01 16:33

And you can put it on your phone. I know some people are like highly digital, yeah, right. In a little note section. What's paper? So yeah. So you can do it on your device. I know a lot of people, you know, click their what is it called, voice memo, or if you have a smartphone, you can tell it to put it in a note for you. But there are multiple ways to accomplish that.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

Yeah, that's a great strategy. So then help help us to understand. So that's mental fatigue. Help us to understand the difference between mental rest and emotional rest. Because I think sometimes it's easy to get those two mixed up, and emotional rest is almost a new-ish concept for some people.

SPEAKER_01 17:12

Yeah, the the the brain is so complex. Um, and when we say like like we use the term mental health, we're usually referring to emotional health, not necessarily brain health. Right. So when I talk about mental rest, sometimes people get a little like mental health, and it's like, uh, in the way that you know mental health, we're probably talking about emotional rest. Emotional rest is looking at how we process our emotions and how our emotions can drain energy, specifically in how most of us engage throughout our day. Um, there's a lot of emotional energy expended in the suppression of emotions. And that this has become very common in our culture that we suppress emotions for professional reasons. You know, if you're working in customer service, you can't yell at people just because they're jerks, you have to keep a smile on your face, or at least be in some type of way cordial and professional throughout the exchange with your kids. You might be struggling with something as a parent, maybe bills or finances or whatever, and you don't want them to know. So you suppress those emotions so that the kids don't get stressed out themselves. There's so many ways that we do this, and there's energy expended in that. And it's not that it's bad to have emotional labor, is what I call that, especially in your profession. There's levels of professional emotional labor that are demanded by certain jobs. Who wants to walk into the hospital and see me in there in the ICU crying over their situation? That's freak everybody out, right? Right. So no matter what my feelings are in that moment, I've got to suppress that and do the work that I'm there to do. And so we recognize that as part of the norm of living. But then there has to be a place where you release it. Because you can't keep stuffing stuff into your emotional backpack because eventually it becomes too heavy for you to keep carrying. And so then emotional rest is looking at who are the people where you feel safe to release. You don't feel like you're going to be judged by those emotions. You don't have to censor the emotions. You can just speak truthfully and honestly and uh and vulnerably and authentically about whatever that is. Um it could be a counselor, a therapist, a trusted friend. If you don't like talking over with people about these things, it could be a journal that you process in. My son and a lot of people process artistically. They have a creative release. You know, honestly, I I went to medical school in Nashville. Most of the people succeeding in Nashville with those songs, that's how they get emotional rest. That's why those songs sound so emotive. They are processing whatever the feelings were. That heartbreak is being processed through in music. And so I think we each have to determine what that looks like for us. What's an authentic way of processing our emotions where we can do so without censoring and even without judging the emotion, just letting it simply exist.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

Oh wow, you've said so many things I want to get into here because this is I I have found just in my personal life as well as working with others, but my personal life, this has been a huge piece of letting getting out of survival mode, letting go of that constant feeling of stress. And I'm curious, I guess I have two follow-up questions for you. The first is I I thought that piece that you said was so interesting about how you're right in some professions, like you can't, you're absolutely right. If I walked in and the person who's about to perform surgery on me was crying, I'd be like, Can I get a new doctor, please? Uh but but also as you were originally talking, I was thinking about this um about showing up authentically at work and this like authentic piece and about how, depending on who you are, what body you're in, the degree to which people, the phrase is like show up as yourself at work, right? And how depending on your identity, you know, like a white man versus a woman or a woman of color, we're gonna have different degrees with which we in certain circumstances might feel like we can sh quote unquote show up as our authentic selves. And so I'm just curious, I this is not necessarily in like the doctor field, but I'm just curious, what are your thoughts on um being able to show up that authenticity piece? Like, how does authenticity tie into this um need for emotional rest while still balancing that piece that you said, which is so true in some professions and in some situations, you do in fact need to um not just show up as your angry self or upset self if that is how you feel at a given moment.

SPEAKER_01 21:46

Yeah. It's interesting you asked that question because that was the um you mentioned my book Sacred Rest. That was the conversation I had with myself that led to my most recent book, Being Fully Known. Oh, interesting. Because that is the what I find with a lot of people who struggle with emotional rest is that they struggle to be true about who they are in situations because they don't feel like they will be accepted. They don't feel like they'll um that they'll belong to the group or that they'll fit in uh in those situations. And there is a type of rest in being fully known where as you allow yourself to see belonging in a different light. That let me kind of summarize what what the what the book is about. Um as you begin to allow yourself to see belonging in a different light and the way that I I kind of position it, too often we see belonging as fitting in. So when belonging is looks like fitting in, it means I then have to conform myself to the norm, which is its own stress. And it's what I see oftentimes when people say, I I just I don't know where I can be authentic, is because there's a part of them that is seeking the fit-in model of belonging. True belonging is where you're no longer trying to find where you fit in, but you accept the ways in which you uniquely fit. And so the difference between that is if I as a black woman walk into a room and every and this happens often, sure, everyone in the room is does not look like me in certain situations, male, female, but they're they don't look like me specifically, or the only one percent looks like me. And so I feel like do I really fit in here? Probably not. I don't look or act or you know, speak or any of those things like anyone else in the space, but I can completely belong in that space because I'm bringing what is missing. And if I accept the fact that I am showing up when I show up in true authenticity, I get to fill the space that is missing what I bring. So, what does that look like in action?

SPEAKER_00 24:00

Like what feel like, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:03

So in action, I show up in a room, and maybe I'm the only doctor in the room, and we're brainstorming an idea, and everybody else is sharing their ideas, and all my brain can think about is biochemistry because that's what my background's in. And I'm like, this nobody's gonna get this. This is not gonna make sense to anybody else. But my belonging says that I bring the authenticity of who I am into the situation. So I share what I know that that is authentic to my experience into that situation and contribute. Not caring if anyone else has the same idea or or sees it the exact same way, it fills the gap for what's missing there.

SPEAKER_00 24:48

That makes so much sense. And I feel like that that requires a couple things. I think one, knowing yourself really well and being confident in what you bring to the table. A personal example that was coming up is I tend to be more of a big picture thinker. And so I, you know, and it's true sometimes, and everyone has their own gifts and their own, you know, natural talents, and they're gonna bring different things to that meaning regardless of their identity. But sometimes it's true. It's like when the whole group, you know, it's a group of five and four of them are going this way, and the back of your mind is thinking, well, wait, what about this point? And I think sometimes we tend to just like push it aside, like, oh, I'm no, no, you know, let's stick with what they're saying. They must know what they're talking about. But it's that piece of really having that self-trust and saying, no, I've got this is what I have to bring to the table, and I'm gonna say it. And that piece that I think is so hard is like, and then letting it sit, not worrying, not caring, not thinking, ooh, you know, what is it that they that they think?

SPEAKER_01 25:44

Well, the thing I find though is in that when you speak from a place of authenticity and truth, when you speak from a place where you are sharing at the very core level of who you are, there's a freeness, a uh freedom that comes with that. It builds your own confidence in who you are, your own voice. It keeps you from feeling as if you are people pleasing because a lot of us live in chronic people pleasing. You recognize that everyone doesn't have to agree with you, that your voice, your thoughts, your um, your way of seeing things has value and can contribute. And I find that the more someone practices this, the the more they open themselves up to more opportunities. Because what happens is you stop backing down from situations that look threatening. You recognize that you can trust yourself even in moments when you don't know how the situation is going to work out.

SPEAKER_00 26:40

That makes so much sense. That's really powerful. And then the second question I had, and I I know we're spending a beat more here on this because I think this is so such a big one, is this concept of, you know, you mentioned how to release your emotions. And I'm curious, I read somewhere that an emotion actually only lasts 90 seconds, but the ruminating on, you know, when we ruminate and return and this and that, that's what kind of keeps us quote unquote stuck. And I'm curious as to how much there have you heard of these rage rooms that exist now? So, you know, I so you know, it's where people can go. Those of you listening, if you're not sure, you can go to this rage room and just literally break things and let your rage out. So I'm wondering how important it is to like viscerally experience an emotion when you release it or let it out, you know, like when you're you, you know, the the I guess the difference being between like having a conversation and being like, you know, I was so angry, this happened, versus like punching a pillow and like physically letting those emotions out. Is there research around or do you do we know about is one more effective than the other? Are they both effective?

SPEAKER_01 27:48

Well, I don't know any specific studies on that, but what I will say is this I do feel like it's highly individualized based on personality types. Some personalities just tend to be you you've probably heard of the what do they call it, the five love languages.

SPEAKER_00 28:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:02

Some people are moved by words more, some people are moved by action and touch and feel and and the kind of the expression of things more. And so I and all of that boils down to personality and the ways that you individually function and interpret and um evaluate situations and information. So I think that there's space for both. That some people they don't need the physical release of that. That that doesn't necessarily serve how they are put together. Whereas other people talking about it may not be the way that they can actually get a release. Maybe they need to be the one who is doing art or doing something else or raging in a room. I know um one particular physician friend of mine who who is a surgeon, but actually has a habit that he can't express his emotions in the moment, no matter what you know is happening uh with a patient. It's always composure. And so a couple of times a month, he goes out on his boat. It's a fishing boat. He does not fish. I don't even think he knows how to fish, but he goes way out in the middle of nowhere on this boat and screams at the top of his lungs. He says, I scream till tears are rolling down my face. He goes, and I mourn every patient that got lost on that table, every patient whose cancer had already spread, every family that I had to look them in the eye and said there's nothing more we can do. He goes, I can't express any of that in the moment. But if I don't express that, I'm not gonna survive my career. And I thought, what wisdom. Yeah. What if more of us did that, knew ourselves well enough to say, you know what? I'm a mama and my kids tick me off, and I get and I all of a sudden I'm lashing out at them, and it's not really them. I'm just wound up because of whatever else I've suppressed throughout the day. And if I took a moment and went to this rage room and threw plates around like a mad woman and came back smiling, good for you, girl. Go for it. Because that that might be the very thing you need to keep your family healthy.

SPEAKER_00 30:06

Yes. Oh my God. That image of I don't even know what your um calling looks like, but of that man screaming in the late uh the boat for some reason gave me full body chills because I just think that that is such an incredible picture of just knowing yourself really well and doing knowing yourself well and not being ashamed or embarrassed or unwilling to do what works for you to get that emotional rest. That's what a great example. Yeah, such wisdom, such wisdom. So I you also mentioned, or you work, your work also um discusses social rest. And so this is this is a really interesting one because I this has to do imagining with relationships. And so could you share a bit about this concept of social rest and how relationships could drain or restore us and how do we recognize the difference?

SPEAKER_01 31:00

Yeah, social rest is looking at um how relationships pull on our energy. And so the majority of the relationships we have are negatively pulling from our social energy. They have demands on us, they have expectations, they have specific needs, we are um doing work for these whoever it is, doesn't mean that they're negative people. Usually they're people that we care about. So our kids, our family, um, you know, colleagues, people that we um clients, all of those things. Oftentimes we're negatively pulling from our social energy. And then we have to take a look at who are the people who are pouring back into us socially, who are the ones who are life-giving, spending time in their presence actually fill us back up. Now that can still be your family, but you have to look at which bucket does it pour into more? Oftentimes we'll find that certain people in your family may constantly be on the negative and never switch over to the life-giving positive aspect of it. I mean, especially if you're not gonna be able to do that. Sure, we can all think of that person right now. Right. Try not to. And but I think it's interesting that a lot of the studies show that adults have fewer adult friends now than ever. And this was a study long before COVID. So COVID just made it worse. But we don't go spend time with people just for the sake of enjoying time with people outside of our family as much as we used to. And depending on if you're an introvert or an extrovert, does play into that. All people need both time alone and time with life-giving people. Everyone needs that. Extroverts need more time with life-giving people because that's actually feeding part of their social rest and their social energy. Introverts get fed more from the time alone in time and solitude. So you have to kind of judge based on again who you are, your personality, the self-awareness of what fills you up and what depletes you, the amount of that, the ratio of people and away from people. And then make sure that when you are with people that you have some time that is socially filling and that it's not always socially draining.

SPEAKER_00 33:07

And would it be fair to say, as you were talking, I was thinking of, you know, again, you know, mothers and how both the relationship with the partner changes, of course, when you have kids, but also um the different roles that the parents play with the kids. And so I am wondering if sometimes within your family, you actually have to create certain structures so that that same relationship can actually be um social rest. So, you know, the date night with the partner versus like constantly helping each other navigating, you know, the logistics of family life life, but also with kids and how often, you know, I remember this is when we were first figuring things out, but I remember um feeling like I had to be the one to like prepare the bottles or do this or do that. And then my husband got to be the one getting that kind of social rest or filling up on the fun stuff with the kids, or like I had to manage the tantrums. And so, and we have since kind of worked so that, so that, you know, I get to have that like life-giving experience with my kids as well, versus like the just taking care of. So, is it fair to say that within the same relationship you could actually be proactive about shifting things so that you can also experience like social rest versus am I thinking about that right?

SPEAKER_01 34:22

Yeah, absolutely. You're you're directly on the right track because that that is part of what is required to get to a place because kids in family life in general lends itself towards a negative social rest pull. You're you're caring for people, you're nurturing, you're you're doing all the stuff, right? And so there's a natural pull to stay in the negative um with social rest with those that you love. So there is a level of intentionality that has to happen with social rest and with all of these types of rest, but particularly with social rest to make sure that you are getting the type of social rest that you need to stay uh in healthy relationships. With couples, I find that it's very helpful to have some type of interaction face to face that is not related to family life, that is just related to relationship. You know, one of the statistics um showed that a lot of couples, the only time that they're face to face is when they're arguing. Oh gosh. It's like that makes sense though. I mean, it does face to face, looking in each other's eyes. It's like they're in the same space and they're, you know, communicating with each other, but oftentimes their eyes are directed towards other things. They're looking at their computer while they're talking, they're looking at their plate, they're talking while they're eating, you know, they're they're looking elsewhere. There's not this direct eye-to-eye contact. However, when you fell in love, that's all you did.

SPEAKER_02 35:52

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 35:53

Sit there and stare at each other, right? That's all you did was look eye to eye. Right. And so the more time you spend not looking eye to eye, the more apart you feel from each other. So a simple social rest, um, just um kind of tactic to begin to increase social rest is having dedicated time where you're looking eye to eye. Now you don't have to make this weird, like looking you know, eye to eye with you. But when you go on a date night, it reinforces that because you have that time, you know, when you are uh at a restaurant with your children, you're even if the food's not there, you're probably looking at the kids. Are they getting quiet? Are they throwing, you know, are they about to tilt that milk onto the floor? Right. All the things are running through your mind. When it's just the two of you, you can actually look eye to eye again. That's part of the benefit of things like date night. It takes you back to some of the behavior that built the social rest that undergirded the relationship in the first place.

SPEAKER_00 36:51

Wow. That makes I never heard that statistic around the eye contact and arguing. And wow, that makes so much sense. Fascinating. Um, I know you also talk about creative rest. I would love to, I mean, I I love I my mind never would have gone to like creative rest together. So I'd love to hear from you. I think it's probably overlooked. Um, I guess what is it and why is it important, even for us non-creative folks?

SPEAKER_01 37:19

Yeah, creative rest is um the rest that helps us stay inspired, that helps us with innovation, that helps us think outside of the box. And so for those who are using any kind of creative energy, and I'm not just talking about artists and musicians and those people, creative energy is used every time you problem solve, every time you have to think outside of the box. So if you're a mom getting two people from um one has to get to soccer by this time, and the other one has to get to cheerleading by the same time, you're using creative energy trying to figure all of that out. And so, however, you're processing creatively, what do you do to pour back into your creative reserve? And so for a lot of people, creative uh rest comes in the form of appreciating nature, whether that's you know, flowers or looking at the trees, or maybe you have a lock screen on your phone of your favorite beach location, or some variation of kind of filling yourself with natural beauty. For some, it's uh through man-made beauty, things like um artwork, maybe that you have on in your home, or maybe it's uh music that you're listening to that inspires you. For some people, it could be when they go on vacation, they're like, I don't know. When I go on vacation, I just get inspired in these bit major cities. Could it be the architecture, something about the layout of the city? Some part of the creativity in that area is unlocking something in you. And the great thing about creative rest is it is so beyond your like cerebral brain. You can't, you many of us can't articulate even what it is. We just can't experience it. You're like, something about being here just inspires me. It awakens me. It breaks creates that like awe and wonder that unlocks creativity inside of me.

SPEAKER_00 39:08

Yes, that's so that is exactly what I was thinking as you were talking about it is that that emotion of awe and wonder. I read somewhere that that's like the highest um vibration emotion, even that even surpasses love in terms of uh the frequency that an emotion carries. And so um that I can see how incredibly important this piece would be, especially in terms of actually I'd love to, I guess what I was thinking is this must be important for people who are in leadership positions, who have real have careers where I know when it became like all just like constantly going in business and this and that was when I started feeling burned out in a career that once really inspired me and lit me up. And I, as you're talking, I'm wondering if it's because I didn't have enough of this creative rest that because that connection to nature, to the feelings of awe and wonder is I would think is connected to like inspiration and purpose. Or maybe maybe I'm getting a little bit into spiritual rest, which is the next piece, but I guess I'm I'm curious um if creative rest has or lacking creative rest has to do with burnout at work.

SPEAKER_01 40:24

Yeah, it definitely does. Um, and you you're absolutely right. It does have a tie over to somewhat with uh spiritual rest as well. You know, we I do a lot of work with with um entrepreneurs, a lot of work with people who are in leadership. And creative rest is one of the areas where many of them tend to be depleted in. And that's why all you know they'll feel like their business stalls out or they feel like they they don't know how to scale, they don't know what the next step is. And it's because they're they've lost the ability to be the visionary in their business. And if you're not able to be the visionary, you're not able to have new, fresh, innovative ideas, even in some of the corporations we work with, this has become a big issue because if their marketing team and those that are supposed to be the creatives lose their creative edge, then how can the company continue to expand and to grow? And so the creative aspect has a huge part to do with the ability for you to grow, whether it's your own business or another company that you're working with then. Spiritual rest ties into it in the fact that it really gets to the why behind the purpose behind the work that you do and seeing the meaning and the value in some of the work that you do. Now, spiritual rest does can have a faith-based component for those who uh have moved in that area where there's a faith concept around how you see spirituality. That's my system of spiritual rest as well. But I also work with people who have don't know faith basis. And so they don't believe in any faith or religious practices, but they can see the value in spiritual rest because in the very core of it is the need that we all have for love, acceptance, belonging. The need that we all have to feel as if we're part of the greater good, we're part of the uh global humanity, so to speak. And so even at that, if someone, let's say, is in a leadership position and they might be saying, Well, how does spiritual rest work within leadership? Well, being part of the global humanity shows up in forms of things like appreciation for the work someone does, shows up in gratitude, it shows up in uh volunteerism, it shows up in advocacy. So there's multiple different ways for this to show up outside of religious type practices.

SPEAKER_00 42:42

That makes so much sense. And that that piece, thinking about leadership and being a leader, that spiritual rest aspect of really feeling like one you are a part of a whole and contributing to something beyond yourself. And I think that that could look for different for others, but absolutely essential for a leader, especially of a large team or organization, to have that component to it and to be able to inspire that aspect within others, I would imagine. So that makes a lot of sense. That's great. I know you have we have one more left, sensory rest, which I think is a super important one just in general in today's world, but also I think, you know, for parents, especially of young ones, just like the overtouching, the constant stimulation, that piece. And so I'd love to hear a little bit about, you know, what you know, when do we know we need sensory rest and and how what does that look like to take it? How do we give that to ourselves?

SPEAKER_01 43:36

Yeah, sensory rest is uh evaluating the sensory input in your day. So the lights, the sounds, the smells, the touch, all the different things that add to your sensory environment. Um, you know, if you're working in an office space, what are the is it a communal type office space with open desk where everybody's here and everybody talking on the phone? Because even though you may say, Oh, I tune that out, or I tune out Kids in the other room while I'm working at home. Your only way you're tuning it out is if your brain's working. How does the tuning out happen? Your brain has to filter the information. So that whole eight hours that you're tuning it out, your brain is actively working. And when we become sensory overwhelmed, and eight hours of any type of constant noise will lead to sensory overwhelm. Our side our physiological response to that and psychological response to that is a stress response. And so it's like whatever this is won't go away. It's just staying there. And so the cortisol levels tend to go up. And on top of that, psychologically, we have a response when our sympathetic system ticks in. So many of us will either have irritation, agitation, rage, or anger. So for the mama who's like, I'm good and then I'm not. And it's like I'm snapping and I don't know, or I come home and it's like all of a sudden I've been unleashed. And it's like, what's wrong with me? Why am I having this? Chances are there's something that's sensory overwhelming you throughout the day. And I find for a lot of women, particularly, this might be a little bit too much for some, but I'm just gonna say it. I find that for some women who don't enjoy sex, the reason is they're sensory overwhelmed throughout the day with touch in ways that are not their husband. You have young kids, they're touching you a lot. They come over, hi mom, and they throw their hands on your thighs. They come over and they wrap their arms around you. If you're breastfeeding, you're already no, you're con not all day long, someone's on you, right? And then you wonder why you don't want him touching you because you've been touched all day long. And so what I find oftentimes is when I get a couple and he's like, She doesn't like sex anymore, I'm like, here's what I need you to do. I need you to give her an hour, you put the kids to bed. That's now your job.

SPEAKER_00 45:52

If you want sex, oh man, sign up for this. What's this plan?

SPEAKER_01 45:56

You put the kids to bed, let her reclaim her body for 30 minutes. And you'd be amazed at the number of emails I get from men who are like, Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 46:10

And you know the women are saying thank you too. Can you imagine? I mean, you know, 30 minutes. Okay, messages from them, but I can love the messages from an amazing amount of men who write me and say thank you.

SPEAKER_01 46:21

I hadn't we no idea what the problem was. But yeah, we have to have time to reclaim our bodies. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 46:28

Yes, that makes so much sense. So much sense. We're gonna I'm gonna try that and I'm gonna just share this portion of all this event. I'm just gonna share this portion with my husband. No, I'm just kidding. But it doesn't make so sense. It's so much sense. It's like we're giving of our bodies all day, and then it feels like want needing to give our of our bodies again instead of, you know, of course, it can be reciprocal. So yeah, wow, such a big one, especially those of you who are listening who are new moms. I hope that this one in particular of the sensory overload and getting some space from um getting some sensory rest can be such a powerful thing for you, and turns out for your husband as well. So there you go. So um, Dr. Sandra, I know we're coming near our end today. Um, what would I have two final quick questions for you? I guess what would you say to the woman? Because these women, uh as you are, you know, they're career moms. They they're working, they're leading, and they're parenting. And something I hear a lot is like, I just don't have time to rest. I don't, I don't have time to rest. What would you say to them?

SPEAKER_01 47:36

You don't have time to not rest. Because the the reality is if you refuse to rest, you're going to build a life that is not sustainable. And eventually you will get to the end of yourself. It may not be full-fledged burnout where it meets all three criteria of the World Health Organization, but you might become what I call a functional burnout. You keep showing up every day with no joy, with no satisfaction. You're pouring and you're pouring, but it never feels like enough. And that's not a life anybody wants to live. And so I believe in if you're gonna spend the energy building a life, build one that actually feels good to live in. Don't build one that just looks successful, build one that feels successful. That's beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 48:18

And then my final question for you is and I you partially answered this a bit in that response, is you know, our event is called Burn Beautiful. Um, Dr. Sandra, what does it mean to you to burn beautifully?

SPEAKER_01 48:32

Yeah, I feel like we are all burning in one way or the other. We're either burning with passion or we're burning up. And so if we flip the burning around to where we are vibrant, we're excited, we have energy, we're showing up and ready to start our day. To me, that's what it means to burn beautiful. Beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 48:51

Well, thank you so, so much, Dr. Sandra. And I know that our listeners are gonna want to know where they can find you. So could you please share um where they could find you? And also I know you have a special free gift for folks as well.

SPEAKER_01 49:04

Yeah, the um main website is i choose my best life.com. That is where um you can learn about my books and all the different things that we do. Um, restquiz.com is where I would send you to to get our free assessment. The free assessment allows you to be able to see where you score in each of the seven areas so that you can determine which type of rest you're most in need of and begin your own personal rest journey.

SPEAKER_00 49:31

Oh, and I can imagine how helpful that is for those. It's like we can't do everything, but if we know where to start, what type of rest it is that we need the most, how powerful that could be. That is wonderful. Uh, Dr. Sandra, this has been such a wonderful conversation. I'm so grateful. And I am really walking away with that last one, that last piece of information for sure that I'll share with my husband, but um, also just the distinction between mental and emotional rest, social rest, and making sure we get that creative rest as leaders and entrepreneurs. So thank you so much. It has been wonderful. And to our listeners, a reminder that more sessions will be delivered to your inbox tomorrow. And you'll have access for a full seven days after this interview, after each interview is released, unless, of course, you're a VIP member with that lifetime access. And I look forward to joining you in our next session tomorrow. Until then, take a breath, make space for what matters most, and as always, burn beautifully. Thank you for spending this time with me. If this episode sparked something in you, subscribe. And I'd be so grateful if you take a moment to rate and review the show. It is the most powerful way to help other women find it. And if you know someone who is struggling or on the edge of burnout or simply wants to lean from fullness, send this their way. Let's grow this movement together. To get exclusive insights, tools, and behind-the-scenes support, join the Hurts Insider list at www.leaduphhealth.com. And if you're ready to explore working together, whether through coaching or consulting, you can book a free consultation right from the site. Until next time, burn beautiful love.