
By Giulia Poerio, University of Sheffield and Felicity Callard, Durham University.
Most people think of rest as the times when we stop work or movement in order to relax, sleep, or recover strength. But historians and anthropologists have discovered that what counts as rest has varied a lot over time and across cultures.
Rest is very difficult to understand, not least because it is experienced in so many different ways. To get a better understanding of what rest is, an international and interdisciplinary team of researchers, led by Durham University, recently launched the world’s largest study on rest, called the Rest Test.
The Rest Test is an online survey to investigate people’s resting habits and their attitudes towards relaxation and busyness.
We aim to uncover the differences in what people think rest is and the practices that they engage in to find it. Do people really think that rest is the opposite of work? What activities are the most restful? What are people’s inner experiences like when they are “at rest”, and does having more rest really make you feel better?
The default mode.
If you mention rest, people tend to think of bodily rest. But, as anyone who has ever experienced his or her mind whirring before sleep knows, physical rest can sometimes be far from restful. (Check out Paper Tiger’s introduction guide to meditation below. Post continues after video.)