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Sleep and rest are not the same and failure to address both can increase risk of burnout

Rest is the most underused, chemical free, safe and effective alternative therapy available to us, workplace wellbeing expert says

Getting sensory rest in a world dominated by screens and phones is a challenge but even closing your eyes for a few minutes can lighten the load . Photograph: iStock

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Olive Keogh
Thu May 2 2024 - 10:00

Have we been getting it all wrong about sleep? Are the recommended eight hours not the panacea we thought they were and is there another way to fight the fatigue that has become a permanent fixture in so many people’s lives? The short answer is yes, mainly because we’ve been confusing sleep with rest and they’re not the same thing.

Saundra Dalton-Smith is a medical physician and expert on workplace wellbeing and burnout prevention. She says that by erroneously combining the concepts of sleep and rest, “we have dumbed down rest to the point where it appears ineffective”.

Dalton-Smith adds that while high-quality sleep is important, it’s a mistake to confuse it with rest. Very often what tired people need is more rest, not more sleep. This also explains why those who get a decent amount of shut-eye, and don’t have an underlying illness or medical condition, can still end up feeling chronically tired.

In theory, sleep should come naturally. In practice, a healthy sleeping pattern is something a lot of people struggle to achieve. According to sleep experts, around 50 per cent of the adult population is sleep deprived. Sleep debt is bad news because it comes with a long list of potential negative side effects including raised stress and anxiety, suboptimal performance at work and burnout.

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The link to burnout is particularly worrying as the number of employees describing themselves as feeling this way is on the rise. In 2019, the World Health Organisation was sufficiently concerned about the levels of burnout to add it to its International Classification of Diseases, defining it as an “occupational phenomenon”.

Last year, a survey of Irish employees by Lockton People Solutions showed that 14 per cent of them were in the throes of burnout and 70 per cent said they had experienced burnout at some point in their careers.

Just last month, the Irish charity turn2me, which provides adult counselling and peer support services, began a campaign to raise awareness of the five signs of burnout. Persistent exhaustion is top of the list.

“Sleep is only one part of the big picture and only one of the seven types of rest,” Dalton-Smith explains. “Many of us are going through life thinking we have rested because we have slept, but in reality, we are missing out on the other types of rest that we need. The result is a culture of high-achieving, high-producing, chronically tired and burnt-out individuals.

“Many of us are suffering from a rest deficit because we do not understand the power of rest. Rest is the most underused, chemical-free, safe and effective alternative therapy available to us.”

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Dalton-Smith is the founder of Restorasis, which advises companies on work/life integration and burnout prevention strategies based on her Seven Types of Rest framework. “Identifying your rest deficit is the first step in being your personal and professional best self,” she says. All physical, social, emotional and mental activity requires energy and while we mainly associate using energy with physical output, we’re also depleting our energy with every mental, social and emotional interaction as well.

Dalton-Smith describes the seven types of rest as physical, mental, emotional, social, sensory, creative and spiritual. And the way to beat constant fatigue, she says, is to make room for them in our daily lives. If we’re still exhausted having slept, then one or more of the above are probably in need of replenishment.

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“Sleep alone can’t restore us to the point we feel rested. So it’s time for us to begin focusing on getting the right type of rest we need,” says Dalton-Smith, who adds that getting to grips with our rest deficits starts by identifying where we’re using the most energy in our day. (If you need help to nail your deficit, Dalton-Smith has an online quiz on her website to help.)

Physical rest is divided into passive and active rest. Examples of passive rest are sleeping or napping, and examples of active rest are yoga, stretching exercises and massage. Mental rest is about briefly switching off by taking short breaks from work roughly every two hours throughout the day.

Getting sensory rest in a world dominated by screens and phones is a challenge, but Dalton-Smith says that even closing your eyes for a few minutes can lighten the load as can silencing your smartphone and closing the lid on your laptop.

Creative rest (very important in jobs involving problem solving or brainstorming) can be topped up by pausing to appreciate nature or having a piece of artwork you admire nearby to look at periodically while our emotional rest coffers are likely in need of a top up if we’re feeling underappreciated, overburdened by the demands of others and don’t have room to express our own feelings.

Learning to say no and cutting back on people pleasing can help here Dalton-Smith says.

Interestingly, social rest is not about avoiding people. It’s about spending more time with those who are positive, supportive and reviving and less time with those who exhaust us.

“The final type of rest is spiritual rest, which is the ability to connect beyond the physical and mental and feel a deep sense of belonging, love, acceptance and purpose,” Dalton-Smith says. “To receive this, engage in something greater than yourself and add prayer, meditation or community involvement to your daily routine.”

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