According to Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith, author of “Sacred Rest”, humans need seven kinds of rest. A couple of decades ago, Jim Loehr and sports psychologists started talking about four kinds of energy requiring proactive management to support peak performance: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.
Dalton-Smith reframes energy management in terms of rest and recovery. She says we need seven kinds of rest:
– physical
– mental
– emotional
– spiritual
– social
– sensory
– creative
You recover resources you have exhausted or lost touch with by modulating or re-balancing yourself across these seven parameters. Sensory rest might mean turning off all of your devices and withdrawing to sit in silence or getting away from the loud city streets for an afternoon in the woods. Physical rest might mean laying down, but it might also mean going for a walk. Social rest might mean spending more or less time with people, depending on the qualities of your recent interactions with others.
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I learned the hard way about the importance of rest and recovery in my mid-twenties after I had driven myself past my limits into acute asthma. I had been pushing myself to do more because I believed I could AND had to do more. I put in long hours in my first managerial job. I ran long distances every morning. I drank with colleagues and clients most nights and weekends. I slept less and less.
Eventually my body revolted by shutting down my lungs. My asthma attacks went far beyond wheezing. My lungs plugged up, and my lung capacity dropped by 80%. I felt like I was asphyxiating. I got dizzy after a few steps. I couldn’t sleep. I was unpleasant to be around. I wondered if this was the end.
I finally gave up and allowed steroids and bronchial dilators to help my body recover minimum viability. Still, I didn’t want to rely on drugs for the rest of my life, so I spent the next decade trying to figure out where I had gone wrong and what to do differently.
What I discovered resonates with the seven forms of rest described by Dalton-Smith. I learned that my body needed to recover through sleep, nutrition, hydration and moderate exercise. When I became emotionally stopped up, I learned to find an excuse to cry or laugh. When I felt threatened by or resentful toward the people around me, I learned to rediscover the kind, open, (loving?) corners of my inner world. When work felt like an empty grind or a quicksand of performance anxiety, I learned to reframe the story of my professional life around discovery, play, creativity, service and learning.
Eventually, my asthma receded and life started feeling again like an open book, but I had learned that I didn’t need to write the whole book in one day.
Asthma is a chronic immune condition that comes and goes based at least partly on how well you take care of yourself. I still have minor symptoms sometimes, and I still fall into less extreme versions of the behaviors and mindsets that drove me into catastrophic asthma in my twenties. I have it on good authority that at times I am still very unpleasant to be around.
Happily, I have learned to notice the early warning signs that some aspect of my life is out of balance and in need of rest or recovery. For the most part, I am able to figure out what kinds of recovery are required, so I can adjust my behavior before things spiral out of control.
Sometimes the best thing you can do is give it a rest.
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Agency (主体性) + Purpose (志) + Growth (成長) + Connection (繋がり) + Contribution (貢献) = Meaning (意義)
In the space between you and me awaits all that will ever be.
人と人の間に全てのもと
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Here’s a link to the Life Kit interview with Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith:
https://www.npr.org/2026/02/02/nx-s1-5694017/7-kinds-of-rest-other-than-sleep
© Dana Cogan, 2026, all rights reserved.