My grandma has always told me that the change of work is the best type of rest. It took me a while until I fully realized the true meaning of her words, and here I would like to share my findings with you. Have you ever noticed, just like I have, that the people around you are too tired all the time? Sometimes it may seem as if the whole modern world lacks energy, and it really does. According to a number of surveys conducted in 2020, about 20 percent of all people suffered from chronic fatigue. Undoubtedly, these numbers have only increased for the last time. Scientists and physicians are deeply worried about this trend. That is why they permanently report to assure us that we’re just like living zombies compared to our ancestors, blaming our awful modern lifestyle for that.
HUMAN FATIGUE THROUGHOUT THE TIME
If we have a more precise glance at people’s way of life in the past something turns out to be significantly different from what we have today. We have changed our living environment so much for the last 50 years that the cause of our fatigue is not so easy to determine. In fact, people of the past suffered from chronic fatigue just as much as we do today. Only fatigue was of a different kind, actually, it was physical labor that took all their strength. Later in the line, the industrial revolution took place and people switched to mental work and the usual tiredness of the body was replaced by the fatigue of the mind. Before that everyone knew what the cause of tiredness was the physical exhaustion. Nowadays, however, the reasons for our fatigue have obtained concealment peculiarities.
WHAT WAS A REST FOR A MAN IN THE PAST AND WHAT WE DON’T HAVE TODAY?
Didn’t the people who lived before us feel just as tired and exhausted as we do today? The fact is, in order to have a rest and to recover a worker was simply not to work in ancient times. A century ago, for instance, the élite were just to put aside their papers for a while and they were not loaded with any more information and work until they are on another working schedule.
Nowadays, however, we have no clue how to relax properly and effectively. The reason is that we are surrounded by gadgets which constantly provide us with tons of majorly useless information. Moreover, many people strongly believe that watching TV shows or playing computer games for no real cause is a great way to have a rest. If that is true, then why the most people are too tired and exhausted all the time?
WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE WAY WE TRY TO RELAX TODAY
Mass media are permanently trying to persuade us that watching a movie or playing a new computer game are the very activities for our brains to relax. That’s why an average programmer or accountant, for example, who has been working with calculations and doing some paperwork all week goes to the movies at the weekend in order to relieve him/herself. As a result, after watching the desired movie the person loads him/herself with a new volume of information instead of brain relaxation. Schoolchildren and students, in their turn, after a full day in the class just sit down to play exciting computer games that require the brain to be active again. The main reason for the common delusion of how to rest properly is that we confuse emotional outbursts suppression and relaxation.
COMMON DELUSION
It seems to us that if an activity brings us enjoyment it means we are having a rest. Whenever we watch TV, chat on social networks, or talk on the phone, it may feel like we have a rest, but in reality, we get even more and more stressed. To put it in other words, we substitute a real rest such as normal sleep, physical activity, solitude, and mental relaxation with this false pleasure.
To understand how to fight modern fatigue we need to assess and analyze what
has changed in our lives for the last, say, one hundred years? Before global electrification, we used to fall asleep at nightfall. As a result, we slept an hour or two more a night than we do today. In natural conditions, the sunset prepares us for sleep a few hours in advance and our brain produces melatonin so our bodies relax. Present-day almost 70 percent of people fall asleep with a smartphone in their hands. The blue light of the gadgets signals to their bodies that it is daytime and not time to sleep. As a result, we miss the deep phase of sleep, which is responsible for our organism’s recovery and rest. The things from media and entertainment, that we delusively call pleasures, disrupt our circadian rhythms. These rhythms are the basis of our recreation.
SOME OTHER FACTORS OF OUR LIFESTYLE THAT CONTRIBUTE TO THE PROBLEM
However, that is not only the real rest we deprive ourselves of. The same situation is around physical activity. That is, in 1970 only 20 percent of people worked in the office. Presently, this number has passed the seventy percent mark. So, how do most of us have a rest after this kind of work? The majority simply come to their homes, then watch some movies, or play with gadgets sitting in sofas.
HOW CAN AN OFFICE WORKER GET RID OF FATIGUE LASTING FOR YEARS?
Most of us spend too much time sitting and this is becoming a real problem. Scientists try to warn us carrying out numerous researches aiming to reveal that immobility causes even more severe problems than the lack of rest or smoking. The best rest after a day sitting in the chair is an intesive physical workout in a gym. Studies show that the most basic physical activity helps people get rid of chronic fatigue lasting for years. A change of activity turns out to be the best rest ever. Here the strong advice follows if you are an office worker — tend to be physically active when you have free time as your psyche needs to be unloaded.
When we say to have a rest we mean real relaxation. It is a time when we don’t have to communicate with somebody, or to watch something, or to read and analyze something. We are just not to do anything. Actually, that is what we are all in strong lack of. It is a deficit of normal rest that we all come along with day by day. However, the majority do not fulfill their chances to relax even when they have the opportunity to do so. We get tired all the time because we deprive ourselves of psychological and emotional relaxation for our brain. A man of today has reduced the amount of work to do but created other problems for her/himself. We don’t unload those systems of our body that work the most.
So what should we do first of all? How to escape from all those people around you who seem to be tired and exhausted all the time?
- Try to analyze and change the way you think you have a rest
- Remember the fundamental truth that a change of activity is the best way to recover!
- Whatever your occupation is make your rest something totally different
- Be open to new experiences in this sphere of your life. Whatever different occupation from sitting and staring TV set or mobile gadget relaxation you may find, like visiting the gym or doing yoga practices, will definitely have great performance
