Are You Resting, or Just Not Working?

There is a difference between stopping and resting, and I’m beginning to think we’ve forgotten it. Sitting on the sofa while answering messages, scrolling through social media, watching television and mentally rehearsing tomorrow’s problems might mean we’re no longer working, but our attention is still being pulled in half a dozen directions. Genuine rest asks something rather different of us: permission to stop being productive for a while.

I’ve started deliberately creating what I call ten minutes of nothing. No phone, television, music or jobs squeezed into the gap. I make a brew, find somewhere comfortable and simply sit. Sometimes I’m naked, sometimes I’m not. There’s no meditation technique to master and no target to achieve. If my mind wanders, it wanders. The important part is that for ten minutes nobody, including me, is demanding anything from me.

That matters to my Wellness Wheel because wellbeing isn’t only built through things we do. Rest and recovery matter too. As autumn draws us indoors and our naturist lives become less about sunshine and outdoor spaces, perhaps there’s an opportunity here. Naturism doesn’t hibernate when the temperature drops. At home, stripping away our clothes can also become a simple signal that the demands of the outside world have finished for a while. I’m not claiming nudity has some magical therapeutic effect; for me, it simply helps mark the transition.

We’re surrounded by advice telling us to exercise more, sleep better, eat differently, meditate, journal and optimise ourselves. All useful things in the right circumstances, but wellbeing shouldn’t become another job. Perhaps today you don’t need another thing to achieve. Perhaps you need ten minutes in which absolutely nothing is expected of you. When did you last allow yourself to do nothing without feeling guilty about it?