You Don’t Know … What You Don’t Know: Stress and The Value of R.E.S.T

YOU DON’T KNOW … WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW

I was reminded of this age old phrase when recently I had a rather funny interaction with a lovely Year 12 girl whom I’ve been seeing for a while. Like many HSC students, she was presenting with a lot of stress symptoms and was most definitely feeling overloaded with a sense that there was no end in sight. “I don’t see it getting easier anytime soon”, she said. My heart goes out to her; that final year of school can be unnecessarily tricky on so many levels.

STRESS

We can all relate to this at least in one season of life, but perhaps this is the new norm; and what you now call your ‘life’. I hate to state the bleeding obvious but sometimes when we’re in it, we can’t see it. This is called stress. A crazy  amount to do in too little time, perpetually driven to do more – unrealistic deadlines, too much overthinking and an indecision about how on earth we’re going to get it all done. If this is our constant state then no doubt, if it hasn’t already, your body will start to let you know. Breathing out of whack? Tight chest? Wired yet tired? Can’t rest? Less need to eat? The list goes on … and that is our wise mind and body telling us that this is simply not sustainable long term.

‘REALLY’ … just ‘EAT’, ‘SLEEP’ and ‘TAKE SOME TIME OUT’

So what to do? It feels like there’s no way out but there is. There has to be. It’s called REST. Really …. just Eat, Sleep and Take some time out. (If you didn’t notice, I just created a fairly naff but simple acronym for the initial stages of self-care – why not make your own)? Now I know my little word ‘just’ probably annoys you and you’re screaming out “it’s not that easy, you don’t understand what’s on my plate!”  … but it’s deliberate because REST is meant to be simple. And routine, and pleasant. How might you apply that for yourself this winter time too?

REST

Now to conclude this … back to my lovely Year 12 girl. So she says to me: “There’s a day study camp at school this holidays”. “Awesome”, I say … “That’s a good 6 to 7 hours of study per day. How do you then hope to spend your evenings that week?” To be honest, I’m waiting for the “chill out” kind of reply: watching Netflix, bake something yummy, go to bed early, see my friends etc… but instead I hear “Well, that’ll be a good time to prepare for that other
test … and oh, I also really need to start on my early entry applications”. At this point I stop our ‘walk and talk’ so-called stress relief therapy and, with exasperated yet compassionate eyes, I see her: “Really? I thought you might REST!”.

At that, we broke down in laughter together at the ridiculousness of it all.