How important is it to sleep well? How important is it to take a routine rest from physical exercise? How important is it to do fasting? Have you ever thought about the importance, the effectiveness of these activities in your life? We can discuss a little bit today on these parts.
We all have heard about sharpening the saw. Sharpen the saw means – not only the core activity, but also the resting activity defines better output of your task. A routine break, a routine rest, a routine recovery is very very important for your overall activity. There is a famous story about two woodcutters. Once two woodcutters started to cut the woods together. When the 1st woodcutter was continuously cutting the woods, the 2nd wood cutter was taking a 10 minute break every hour. But at the end of the day, surprisingly it was seen that the 2nd woodcutter cut more wood than the first one. What was the secret here? The secret is very open! The 2nd wood cutter was sharpening his saw every hour which helps him to do his job in a much better way. And at the end of the day, he became the winner!
This is the same philosophy we need to follow in other parts of our life. Let’s take the example of physical exercise. If you go for running 7 days a week, your body will betray you very soon. Because when you run, your body is under a huge pressure. There might be some internal minor injury that also happens which you don’t realize (because it’s too negligible at the beginning). But if you still continue running everyday, that minor injuries are not getting time to be recovered! So soon your body will face a bigger injury and you have to suffer for sure. On the other hand, if you take some routine rest every week and maybe run for 5 days and take rest for 2 days – it will help your body to perform better. Because, your body will get enough time to recover and every time it’s recovering it’s ready for a bigger challenge! This is called respecting the body.
Modern science is telling us regarding autophagy. Autophagy is a process of the body, where the body reuses old and damaged cell parts. Now when does autophagy work? If you start fasting and continue (of course with the help of a doctor), autophagy is likely to start in your body! Also, this process refines your body and your digestion will be better. Which means, you will be able to continue eating for a long time in your life! So, to continue eating, you should take rest from eating as well. You should practice fasting, intermittent fasting.
The case is the same for sleep. Sleep is to give rest to your body. If you don’t sleep regularly as per the requirement, congratulations! Your body is going to face lots of difficulties and diseases very soon! Once I used to think that 8 hours of sleep is a complete waste of time. 8 hours of sleep in a day means 33% of the day you are sleeping. The calculation is the same for my whole life. The person who is sleeping 8 hours everyday is sleeping 20 years if his lifespan is 60 years! How ridiculous it is! But in reality it’s not ridiculous at all! Because these 20 years will help the guy to enjoy his rest 40 years. If you don’t get 8 hours of sleep, you are not going to enjoy your rest 16 hours of the day. So, to work 67% of the time, you have to sleep for 33% of your time.
So, stop somewhere, take a rest, recover and run again! In life it’s important to stop sometimes, it’s important to take a break. These rests and breaks will keep you moving!