Even when this episode releases, I think the sale has been extended through Monday, so you can check the link in the show notes to get your kit. The other thing I wanted to just add to that is. There's gonna be the Instagram group, which you guys can join. I'll make sure that's linked in the show notes.

You can, you can still participate with us, even if you don't necessarily wanna start on that day, July 6th. Feel free to start before to start a couple days after. But it will be so fun to have you as a part of it, even if you're not on the exact same track that we are. Even if you're starting three days later, four days later, I think it'll be so, so cool to have you guys join.

So I just wanted to throw that out there that even if you don't feel like you wanna start exactly on July 6th, especially because of the holiday. Feel free to still get a kit through the link in the show notes. They're 30% off. And join us for this group fast. We're gonna be sharing over this next week.

Dr. Dalton Smith is a board certified internal medicine physician, keynote speaker, and award-winning author who is redefining how the world understands rest and wellbeing. She's the founder of Restasis, a professional development agency that helps organizations reduce burnout and improve employee performance through science-based restorative strategies.

Being fully known, the Joyful Satisfaction of Beholding Becoming and Belonging. Over 500,000 people have discovered their personal rest deficits using her free assessment@restquiz.com. This was such a fantastic conversation. We're talking about the seven types of rest, and this is coming from Dr. Dalton-Smith's own experience with burnout, but I just feel like, first of all, I love that it's such a straightforward framework, the seven types of rest, and some of them might seem really intuitive.

Where am I overdoing it? Where might I need some rest? And what I love is we talk about how when you break rest down even more minutely, you're able to give yourself what you're actually needing. One of the things we talk about is you might just think to yourself, I need rest. And so then you go and get a massage or you take a day off and you watch TV all day and then you still feel exhausted and burnt out and whatever else might.

You might be experiencing. And so being able to break it down and go, I've, I'm sensing I need rest, but what kind of rest Dr. Dalton's framework makes it so straightforward. So with that, please enjoy this conversation with Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith. Well, Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith, welcome to the Accrescent Podcast.

But I think where I wanted to start is what, what got you to that point of needing to look at rest, but also how did you get to identifying the seven different types of rest? I think that's really fascinating. There's, there's probably that initial point and we'll talk about maybe what led you there of, I need more rest.

It's not a part of my vocabulary. It's not something that I honestly cared about. Um, leading into this process, I just did not like the way success felt in my life. And my life was at that time, looked very successful on the outside, however, did not feel successful whatsoever to live. I was always tired, grumpy, uh, nothing brought me satisfaction.

I was always looking for the next fix, which in my case is performance based. I want to check off the next box, reach the next mountain. And so when I got to that place where I'm like, this is not working for me. I need to reevaluate what the problem is. And I was always tired, always feeling drained.

Yeah, high quality, great sleep, great, you know, great brainwaves, all the things the way they're supposed to be for the period of time that's supposed to make me feel refreshed and I woke up so tired. That's a real desperate situation because everything in your research, everything in your, your, you know, 12 plus years of schools and training and residency all add all of that stuff together and none of it was helping me.

And so that's when the question came. Okay. There's something about rest and restoration that sleep is not hitting. Mm-hmm. Because this was in the middle of the, this what we call the, um, sleep revolution, you know, Ariana Huffington and her book and all the things everybody was talking about. Sleep. What happens when sleep doesn't fix it?

And with each point, with each type of rest, there were so many points. I was like, oh yes, we really need to hone in on this. But maybe let's start with, actually I do wanna lean in for a second. 'cause you said something that really caught my ear, which is I didn't like how success felt to me. And I think that's a super vulnerable thing to say in the podcast I listened to that you had done, you said, I had my dream house, my dream partner, these two little babies that I had prayed for and had struggled to conceive the dream job and I felt so unfulfilled, so unsatisfied.

I think most people, it's that we are at such a state of depletion that we need, we need to fill our cup in some different ways, but I just think that's a really powerful thing to kind of point out that in, in many, many ways, so many facets of your life we're so wonderful and lovely and aligned, and there were maybe actually some smaller facets that needed to be addressed.

Maybe all the big ones were actually really checked off, but there were some of these little ones I. That needed to be addressed to. Yeah. That to me, that's where the whole concept of rest deficits kind of came into the vocabulary of how I discussed that. Because there were so many areas of my life, I was like, wow, you know, I could not have asked for it to be anymore what I desired than what I was living in.

'cause there is such a deep deficit that pulls from that part of your life in that area where you're succeeding. Yeah. You know, it's funny you're making me, I think, and speak in visuals so much in metaphors because that's just how I see the world. But you're making me think it this analogy of like, let's say you eat a Wagyu steak for every meal, and it is the best of the best, the highest quality, but we're not eating any vegetables.

Yeah. So the seven include physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, social, sensory, and creative. And so I think the easiest one for most of us to kinda wrap our brain around is probably the, the physical one. I think we all recognize that sleep's important, but physical. Even with that, physical rest has two different components.

It has the passive, which is sleeping and napping, and then it has an active component that includes things like yoga or. Physical therapy or the body ergonomics of your workstation or getting a massage. You know, all of those things that deal with, with body flexibility, that deal with muscle integrity, deals with your spine, your posture, all all of those areas that, you know, circulation, lymphatics, all of it.

Like I said, I think in each of these there's gonna be such great little tidbits. 'cause on the surface it can be really easy. Okay. Physical rest. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Got that check. But that's why we're gonna spend some time on each of these. 'cause I think there's actually so much nuance here. And when I was listening to that episode, you had done, I was thinking about myself with this because.

I'm tired. And probably within the last six months I started going, whoa, this is just like a default response I have. Mm-hmm. Am I actually tired or am I achy because I had a hard workout yesterday? Or maybe I'm inflamed because I had a cocktail last night. The reason that was really powerful for me in talking about the unconscious is.

I have a whole unconscious narrative, so associated with that phrase, I'm tired coming out of years of chronic illness for many, many years when I would say I'm tired, it did mean I am at a state place of total depletion. I don't know what's wrong. I don't know how to fix this. I am absolutely at capacity.

Then it does feel like such a heavy mountain to climb, um, that, oh, I, I must be back in that place where I'm totally at capacity and so much of my life is misaligned and da da da, da da. So I love that you're talking about, you know, in the podcast you said, sometimes we think, oh, physical, okay, let me get a massage.

You know, it sounds like, oh, I'm gonna go to the spa or get my nails done. And, and it's more, it's, it's not really looking at self-care from a holistic standpoint. Um, you know, when I work with clients, I hear that a lot too. I'm tired, I'm so exhausted, I'm so overwhelmed. And so it's, it does become this, this just kind of drop in the bucket way of, of kind of encapsulating.

I just don't feel my best without actually getting into some of the details of what that means. You know, for a lot of people who have that default, I'm so tired. My response usually with those clients are, well, at least let's begin with what kind of tired are you? Mm-hmm. Because tired is not just.

Yeah. As I was listening, I kind of, I, I broke it down into really like these two categories that I think your seven, um, the seven types of rest really encompass at its root is what am I getting too much of that I need a little break from, and what am I not getting enough of that I need, you know, so what's the too much, and then what's the nourishment I'm lacking that I need to bring in?

And that's really what the seven types of rest, I think break down to, at least for me in my head. But I wanna talk about this physical piece a little bit more because I do, when I, when I start going down that narrative of I feel off, oh, I must be tired. Oh, therefore I need to just not do anything. And that is like the immediate solution.

You don't just like collapse on the floor and do nothing to recover. You go and stretch and move your body and do an ice bath and have a protein shake. And that is actually what gets you to recover so much faster. And it's a little counterintuitive, I think maybe to our primal bodies that wanna just go, huh, the fastest way to recover is to just collapse and do nothing.

And that's, that's really with all of the seven types of rest, we, if with each one of them there is a cessation type of, of way of addressing it. But, and that's tends to be the route that we go rather than actually looking at as you, you stated, so well, what needs to be nourished? What is lacking, that actually needs to be added?

Mm-hmm. It doesn't feel like it, but it is. And so really what it is, is it's just swapping something out. Um, unless we're just like completely taking a nap and not doing anything, but watching a show is still engaging in some way. And so it's that decision to go, you know what, a more active, impactful form of recovery or nourishment for myself actually isn't gonna be sitting on the couch and watching a show.

No. Actually, what I am when I tune into my physical body is I feel kind of puffy. I feel inflamed. I feel achy. Okay? My lymphatic might be a bit backed up. So what's gonna be most restorative for me today is maybe what I just said some. Mm-hmm. Vibration plate, a gentle walk, some stretching, maybe some dry brushing.

And that is completely different than I'm tired, therefore I need to sleep more. Exactly. Be, and, and you know, the interesting thing with that, with what, the example you just said, sleeping more could actually make you hurt worse. Uhhuh, because you're being inactive, you're not moving blood flow to the area to actually flush out any of the things that you're trying to flush out.

Yeah. Because you never did anything restorative. You just stopped. It's, it's as if someone coming into my, the hospital and they're bleeding and I tell the nurse, suture them up and I send them out the hospital. Okay. I stopped the bleeding, but then I restored them. Did I, did I pour back into the place that was being depleted?

But there's a little bit of an element of like faith and trust involved there in the beginning when you haven't gotten in the habits of that, that you go, oh, but everything in my mind, body and spirit is telling me to just collapse. Uh, that's what I call it with myself. When I do nothing, I call it the collapse.

Um, and then like when I'm in that practice of doing the active recovery type things and I see this really does get me back to where I wanna go so much quicker, then you have that faith, you have that proof and it kind of helps you keep going. And I think that's the thing we, we have to get back to a place of, of adventure and exploration with what actually works for us, I think.

Exactly. So there's a constant exploration of it. Like what is going to actually, what feels good now, what works right now for this season of my life, these circumstances, you know, this life experience. Having been a longtime lover of herbal face food, I was absolutely ecstatic when they finally launched the lotion.

They have a very limited product line because they are so intentional about creating. The highest quality products on the market, and I am insanely picky. First of all, when it comes to skincare in general, because my skin is so sensitive, but especially when it comes to lotions, I usually hate most lotions on the market.

Coupa Cow, I can barely even pronounce some of their ingredients. There're so exotic that help provide deep lasting hydration and other ingredients like calendula that help promote healing and reduce inflammation. I mean, it is absolutely a dream product packed with the most nourishing healing ingredients in the world.

Yeah. For myself, I, like I said, I'm not a one who naturally leans towards rest. I'm a very high strung type A type personality. So, so rest doesn't come natural to me. And I think that's part of the reason I tend to draw clients just like me. We're like, I don't wanna rest. Like, I get you. I don't wanna rest either.

But I recognize to be the best version of myself, the happiest version of myself, the most productive version of myself requires a level of rest. Mm-hmm. So I think it, I think it really boils down to personality. There are some people who naturally are drawn to that and they, they're like, yes, you, you've, you know, it's, they can automatically go into rest mode, no issue.

I have to remind myself that I don't wanna put out subpar work. I don't, that's part of it. I don't wanna put out work that I'm embarrassed about later. Mm-hmm. Because those are the kind of things that happen when you, when you pour from your emptiness mm-hmm. You, you give from a place that is not your best.

I don't want to look at something 10 years from now and be like, wow, that, you know, that's the book I wrote, or that's the, the outcome of whatever that was. So, so I kind of go about it a little bit different way. Rest for me is a large part in how I stay sustainable. Yes. In the work that I feel called to do.

So I think it's a matter of tapping into your, why do you rest? Some people, it just feels good. It's like, I need rest and I love rest. And, and for some others I think it's you. They have to, like, I do tap into why is this important to me? I, I want to, I wanna keep a low blood pressure. I want to keep a good outlook on life.

Mm-hmm. A year from now. And so it requires being in relationship with yourself. But I find for me, when any of my practices become boring, mundane, overwhelming, that's sometimes my cue that. Oh, that's not the type of nourishment I'm needing anymore. I need to switch it up a little bit. Mm-hmm. And what's going on here?

So to that end, you know, there's a, there's a million ways to quiet my mind if the meditation I've been doing for the last month, all of a sudden I'm not excited to do it anymore. Okay. It's probably time to switch it up and find something else. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And that is actually into mental recipe.

Um, and, you know, even things like brain dumps, uh, time blocking things that help you to be able to organize how you're processing information, um, are really helpful with that mental rest deficit. Can you talk about, I, there's, I really, I'm excited to get to some of the types of rest towards the end, so I don't wanna spend too much time here, but I think this is, I mean, I think they're ones everyone can relate to, um, but especially mental overwhelm, mental chatter.

They're rehearsing conversations they had earlier in the day or to-do list for the next day. Uh, or the person who finds that they, they almost think they have dementia, but they're like 30. It is like, I can't remember anything, or I'm forgetting stuff. And, and it's, it's more a matter of not being able to concentrate that they're kind of.

Processing peripherally without ever going deep. And I feel like that's a big part of the problem right now for a lot of people. We do a lot of, um, multitasking. Um, we have, you know, five to 10 tabs open on our computer. It's like we're constantly jumping from information to information. So we've untrained our brains from actually being able to focus deep and we focus very peripheral.

They're wanting to make sure that they're, all of their attention is in it, that they are, um, showing up with the highest level of mine processing possible. If that's the case, you don't want to be jumping into your emails in the middle of that think tank. You know, you're not gonna get the best outcome that way 'cause you're splitting your mental energy.

Um, the other thing is, if you're that person who's like laying in bed at night and you thinking all the thoughts and can't turn it off the brain. When we cycle like that, when we're ruminating, it really just kind of latches onto the information and it refuses to let go of it until it sees a completion.

Same with the chemistry test or history test. So it's a, our brain has been trained to do that. Mm-hmm. So when we ruminate is expecting some type of test to occur, some type of conclusion to this rumination process. And so when you jot it down, just like a, what we call a brain dump. Having a notepad or a piece of paper where you're writing it down, as far as the brain concerned, the test was taken.

I wanna lean in on the, the multitasking. 'cause I did hear once, and it really changed a lot for me, that technically the brain cannot multitask. It can only focus on one thing at a time. So when you're doing multiple things at once, really all you're asking your brain to do is go here, here, here, here. Back and forth.

Back and forth. Mm-hmm. And, and then we wonder why we are absolutely exhausted at the end of the day. And when I started doing things like time blocking where it's, okay, I'm gonna focus on this for the next 20 minutes. My phone is away. I'm not checking any emails. I am only here. First of all, you just get that thing done so much quicker.

And, um, actually John Heights book, the The Anxious Generation that came out last year, he talks about this like our fragmented thinking and how we are just constantly fragmenting our attention. I I love that. I, you know, when I think about it, I'll often think about it this way. The, the brain does some things more than one thing at a time.

But if you think about it, those things are, when something is robotic, it's so ingrained into your nature that it's robotic. Like, I can talk and walk at the same time. Both are, you know, nervous brain processes, but, and I think about that then do I want to have any part of what I'm doing in robot mode?

Once you learn where all the keys are, you dissociate to some degree, and your fingers just type it out and you're able to keep processing. Most of our life is not disassociated like that. Like I cannot disassociate having a conversation with you and looking at my phone. Mm-hmm. I'm either concentrating on you or I'm concentrating on my phone.

You open your fridge. It's not two things for breakfast. It's what are the 15 options I have for today? Mm-hmm. You know, so then we have the, the brain overload just from decision fatigue. So it just compounds on the multitasking to create a brain atmosphere that doesn't, doesn't catch a break. Yeah. And as a part of this, so the two things we've talked about so far is one less fragmentation, more, you know, less multitasking, really more singular focus.

And then the brain dumps, like having the notepad to get it out to calm that rumination. I. Is this also where maybe like the, the mindfulness meditations. Oh, oh yes. And just the quieting of the mind come in to just go actually. I'm gonna do less of this and more of this. And the more of is that like, I guess in a way, sometimes mindfulness meditations are singular focus.

Mm-hmm. Uh, I, jogging is the one that tends to come to mind because when someone's jogging, they're. Their brain processes tends to focus in on their breathing and their cadence. So it's not even one thing. It's usually two things that they're, that they're mindful of their, their foot speed, and then how they're breathing in comparison to that foot speed.

But those two things, so focuses the attention that you actually hear people say things like, oh, I'm gonna go for a jog to clear my mind. Yeah. Because that's actually what's happening For other people, it could be even heavy lifting. I find that people who do like, um. Uh, keto Bells or, you know, some of this really heavy lifting.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I think that can come from really. Challenging tasks. And then also I'm just thinking this could be so accessible to the person cooking dinner. Mm-hmm. Turn the podcast off, turn the TV off, turn the movie off, and just be fully absorbed in cooking that food or whatever it might be. Even if it's just housework, anything can, we can bring that kind of singular focus to so many everyday tasks that I think would still feel really restorative mentally.

Relates to you. Mm-hmm. And actually, I, there's, uh, specific sounds that help me to go into kind of more of a mindfulness state. Mm-hmm. Because I attach to the vibration of that sound. Yeah. Which then focuses my attention to be able to quiet the noise. I love it. Okay. We still have five more to get through.

We could, I feel like we could spend an hour on each of these probably. There's so much nuance to them, but I think the next one is spiritual rest. Yeah, spiritual rest. I kind of encapsulated in saying that everybody needs a sense of love and belonging and purpose in their lives. So regardless of the faith-based system, someone might be actively practicing or not practicing.

And so whether that be through a faith-based system or whether that be through something like volunteerism or, um, a cause that you feel really attached to looking at the ways that you kind of connect to greater humanity and the, the. Way purpose pours back into you. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I love that. To your, to your point, there's, I'm thinking of some people who might hear that and go, I don't, I don't feel really fulfilled.

And when we engage in that, there is something very life-giving when we interact and engage with the world in that way. It's, it's the nourishment that comes when you nourish another. Yeah. And again, that can look like so many different things. Mm-hmm. I think that can look like volunteering, that can look like helping out at your kids' summer camp.

That can look like honestly planting, planting a plant in your yard that's great for pollinators. Like, there's so many ways we're interconnected, not just Absolutely. I, I, the thing that initially came to mind when I said that was, um, I, I, I'm probably dating myself here, but there was this, this, um, trend where you pay for the coffee for the person behind you and then it kinda on and on and on and, you know, you see how far it goes, but I mean.

You love coffee, you're gonna share it with each other. Mm-hmm. And I think that there's something really fulfilling about that. You get no re i I think the greatest levels of spiritual rest is when you get no direct reward, even acknowledgement from the person with which you're pouring into, because it's not the same as pouring into your kids.

It's like, okay. That that can have its own level of exhaustion. Yeah. You know what I mean? So, or family in general, it's, it's like the person owes you nothing. You do it because it simply is coming from a deeper area of yourself. Yeah. And I think there, there's weirdly, I'm, I'm thinking about how very often I, I'll have clients who cross my mind sort of randomly throughout the week, maybe a client I haven't seen in a long time.

So yeah, it's very fulfilling to express that. Yes. Okay. Spirituality, what is number four? Four is emo Well, four and five are emotional and social. So, um, I mention them together 'cause they both deal with people. Um, so emotional rest is how, how free you feel to be authentic with what you're feeling and, and expressing that in a way that does not require you to slip into people pleasing or to censor your feelings so that you're not able to be just authentic.[00:42:00]

And then social has to do with the people in your life and really evaluating if they are negatively pulling from your social energy or if they're life-giving. They're people that when you're around them, you feel energized and you feel inspired and motivated. For any longtime listeners or followers on Instagram, you guys will know that I have loved and used herbal face food for.

Probably over five years now. It is the one product in my life that I have been the most loyal to, that I keep going back to year after year after year, because it's so clean, but also so impactful. For those who are new to Herbal Face Food, their product is the most potent antioxidant, anti-aging skincare brand on the market period.

And so when you think about how many multiple, multiple products you're using per month, I actually think when you choose herbal face food and it's the only serum you have to use, you're probably gonna be spending less on skincare overall, even though it seems like it has a higher price tag. Check the show notes for a discount code to receive 30% off your first order, as well as a link to shop.

I'll share a couple. First, obviously it's just with other people, people where you feel, um, a level of connectivity and safety with emotional safety, with where you can share what you're feeling. You don't feel like you're gonna be, um, judged for it, or you don't feel like it's gonna come back at you in some way.

So whether that's someone you've paid, like a counselor, a therapist, or a coach, or if it's a trusted friend or a spouse, the thing is just to make sure that you don't slip into trauma dumping when you're doing it with your loved ones. Mm-hmm. Because they're not trained to, to, to navigate your trauma like a therapist would be.

Practice. At the time, I was spending a lot of time in the ICU, uh, as well as I have a clinical practice, so the people who I was seeing in the ICU, this was before the days of hospitalist. So I knew these people. These were my patients. I, you know, I'd seen their, their grandbaby pictures. I, I know the dog's name.

These were people who I considered friends. And so when they're at the end of life, I'm an empath. I can't just turn off the fact that I care mm-hmm. Even though I have to do that to be able to practice what I need to practice in that hospital. And what I didn't recognize was, although I had trained myself to disassociate the emotions, not show them, not feel them, at no point in time would you ever see me cry a tear or anything in the hospital.

Yeah. And so I would sit down and I would process information and I would write. And for some people that's how they express it. Yeah. They express it through an artistic, um, way, whether it's through poetry or like in my case, like I said, lyrics or they paint or whatever it is. My son likes to strum his guitar.

Right. I don't care if, I mean, if you like it or don't like it, it's not about the consumer. It's about me releasing the emotions in a way that's authentic to how I want to release them. Yeah. Completely. It's the felt sense. It's not the final product. Mm-hmm. One thing I just wanna hone in on really quickly before we move back to social, 'cause I loved, you talked about this in the episode I listened to that you did, where you were saying, I'd come home and tell my husband about what happened in the ER that day or in the ICU that day.

You know this girl and here's what she looked like and she was on the stretcher and da, da, da. And. Feeling like that was you expressing the emotions and yet all it was to your point is you were telling him what happened and I was trauma dumping and, and it still felt, I think, dissatisfying to probably both of you.

I felt helpless. I felt grief stricken. That's where that emotional rest is really coming from, and I think that's something so many people can relate to. I'm thinking of like the teacher who comes home from their day at school and starts telling their family, oh my, and then this kid did this thing and da, da, da, and they're never actually expressing their emotional experience.

They're actually perpetuating the problem. Because unfortunately when you, when you trauma adapt, you, you think, oh, I got it off my chest. Right? No, you just actually went through it a second time. Right? You, you actually, you just relive it. You did not get it off your chest. You went through it a second time and now you brought people you love into it too.

And I almost wonder if on an unconscious level where that's coming from is I am feeling super intense, heavy emotions and I want to, I wanna feel justified in your eyes about that. So I need to highlight the details of what happened so that when I express how much it's impacted me, you get it. And you understand.

Except that we're never actually getting to that emotional expression piece. Exactly. I would think that if we actually finally set the thing, but because we don't finally say the thing. I think a big part of it is a lot of us are ashamed about what we feel. Yeah. It's some part of us feels like this isn't okay to feel, so we, we all, we do what you said.

But that is a huge one that even I myself, can relate to of going, hang on, can we challenge ourself to go, am I telling you what happened or what happened inside me? And can we try to do the, the latter a little bit more? Yes. Okay. Social rest. I do wanna talk about this for a second and I'm keeping, keeping an eye on the time.

Yes. And and to your point, there's a lot of information. So for someone who's like, no, no, go back to social there. We have a free assessment@restquiz.com where you're able to do the assessment, find out which of the seven you're most efficient in. So if there's one that we're not hitting on in the depth that you like, you're able to kind of dive a little bit deeper that way.

So with the book and of course. Rest. The book is probably the, and, and yes, the book as well is available to go deeper. Um, so sensory rest is basically looking at your sensory inputs. Everything from the, like, the sound, the tactile experiences, all the different, the smells, all the different senses. And recognizing that are when we, especially like if you're in a noise polluted area, maybe you're at a desk that's in the middle of your office space, and so everybody's walking by.

And for a lot of people, it's some form of irritation, agitation, and can be even ramped up to rage or anger. And so if you find that end of the day you're like, I'm, I'm pretty good when the day starts, why am I so grumpy when I get home from work? Or why, why do I have a hard time being nice in the, you know, afternoon meetings at my job?

It could be because there's something that is overwhelming your senses during your day that you are not actively aware of, because you haven't actually been very intentional about managing your sound environment or your sensory environment. Mm-hmm. I think this is so powerful. 'cause I'm thinking about nervous system work and when you, when they talk about the nervous system, it's any stimuli, right?

Those are all stimuli that your brain and your nervous system is processing and responding to all day long. And I think if we just talk about this from an ancestral perspective, we were never exposed to this much stimuli. Ever, ever, ever, I don't think, you know? Yes. As you're wandering the world, there's nature and sky and birds, but there's not email and text and calls and notifications and beepings and all these things that are happening all the time.

The wind blowing in the trees. There's constant sound, but I. I think just to what you just stated, there's constant sound, but there, but there are also opportunities for very deep levels of sensory deprivation. When it gets nighttime, it's extremely dark. Mm-hmm. Rarely do our homes get to the level of dark, you know, that nature can get to.

So we're not always staying stimulated. I, I think, I feel this often at the end of the day when I'm driving home, I tend to not want a single thing on the speakers. It's just like, and I just need. Silence and to be with my thoughts. But what that makes me think of is, you know, getting home. And even if, even if it's just, I'd imagine 10 minutes of I'm gonna lay on my bed with the lights off, no sound, no music, close my eyes and just soak in this stillness, this slowness.

Um, yeah, I think that can be really, really impactful. But can you speak to a second for it might, we've, because we've trained ourself to be so overstimulated, it might initially feel very uncomfortable. Right? The overstimulated person who needs less stimulation at the end of the day might actually feel like it's blasting the radio on the way home.

Let me try a, a sensory deprivation tank, and they literally have nerve panic attacks in the sensory deprivation tank because you can't go from an overstimulated light to a life to no sound, you know, complete darkness, no weight, which is what a sensory deprivation tank does. Mm-hmm. It feels threatening to the nervous system because it is so foreign.

So I think we have to rec recognize that just as we have to, like if you're a caffeine addict or an alcoholic or a drug addict, you have to wean off some of these things. Yeah. Some of us are. Our sensation addicts. Mm-hmm. We do video games all the time. We got our notifications on our phone set to Max.

Mm-hmm. Or like you mentioned, if you're driving home, you turn off the excess sound and you listen to things at a specific time during the day when you have allotted for that. But not all day, all you know, every hour with something turned on. Yeah. I think for me it's, yeah, how can I reduce the stimuli even just by two or three things.

I think we don't, we kind of underestimate, I'm even thinking of, I used to be, I, you know, I'd have essential oils diffusing in my home all the time. Mm-hmm. And I, I do think I've found myself getting to a point of overstimulation where I've just like even cut back on that. Like, I don't, I don't want extra sense in my home.

And I love keeping a pair of noise cancellation earphones at my desk. You know, I can't al and if, you know, if you're a say at home mom or something like that and you're like, I got kids, yeah, you need to see 'em. You don't always need to hear 'em. And so, so it could be helpful to put a pair on because you all, we're only talking about, you know, 5, 10, 15 minutes of a moment of deprivation just to give your body a bit of a reset.

And most of us are problem solving all day long in some capacity. And so it's not that we're creative, we actually are creatively tapped out and we need rest from that. But what does that look like? Because I do, you know, I think we hear so often like, oh, I need to, I need to paint, I need to create, I need to, but.

I almost feel like out of this conversation, what I'm hearing from that is maybe really what we're saying is I need to express Yeah. And actually, uh, that I don't consider that creative rest. So if you are actively using part of your creativity, if you're painting, if you're drawing, if you're doing any of that, that falls more into the emotional rest that we talked about earlier.

Mm-hmm. That's what I mean by creative rest. And so it requires us to then determine what inspires me, what, what lights me up, what unlocks creativity inside of me. Right. You engage in it and maybe then it does spark some creativity that you want to go create something of your own. But I love the way you define creative rest, which is, it is appreciating something that has already been created.

And so the question I, I knew I wanted to close with with you is what does it look like for you in daily practice to attune to yourself and the rest you need? Is this like an inventory of questions you're asking yourself? How do you identify on a regular basis what kind of rest you're needing? That's, that's something that I think grows with time.

Mm-hmm. Some mornings I wake up and I'm like, yep, I'm ready. Let's go. And some mornings I wake up and I'm like, no, I don't really feel that great this morning or morning. And if I don't feel great that morning, I start looking back at the day before mm-hmm. And start asking myself, where did I expend energy?

Yesterday, or, you know, earlier this week that I haven't done something to pour back into the place where I just pour it out. Mm-hmm. Um, so I, I do a lot of traveling with, uh, speaking engagements and consulting and training. And so this first half of June, I was on the road for days, days, like three weeks of travel.

And so I spent the next week basically focusing on restorative practices as they related to my body. I went to the chiropractor, I got massage, I did, you know, all sorts of steam therapies and, and you know, UV and all this other stuff that I, that I know is helpful for me. Mm-hmm. And so I think that's a big part of it, just actually continuing to check in with yourself and then if you're like, I don't know why I feel this way, look backwards because where you pour it out is the most likely place of deficit.

I don't know what the label is for that. And so being able to even just go through those seven types of rest in a more clear, concise way I think is so helpful. Oh, Hmm. You actually, gosh, I really have expended a ton of problem solving creative energy. Maybe I need to give myself permission to not create this weekend and to just receive.

And so I think that's super, super helpful. But yeah, it sounds like a really great aligned action is go take the rest quiz, which I'll make sure is linked in the show notes so we can all start to attune a little bit better to ourselves. Well, Sandra, thank you so much. I, I know. I felt like, gosh, we could have just gone on and on and on.

It's just Dr. And my last name, Dalton-Smith. Beautiful.