Importance Of Rest & Renewal - Part 2

June 30, 2010

Interview with Matthew Edlund, M.D., author of the book The Power of Rest: Why Sleep Alone Is Not Enough. A 30-Day Plan to Reset Your Body

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Mike Carruthers:
Taking rests throughout the day is necessary to keep your health, energy and productivity on track and there are lots of ways you can rest and renew.

Matthew Edlund, M.D.:
For example if people are feeling really exhausted I ask them to walk to music. You simply hear a very upbeat song in your head and you walk to it for 20 or 30 seconds.
 

Dr. Matthew Edlund, author of the book The Power of Rest... 

You walk to the song, you feel it in your body, our bodies are profoundly rhythmic, music is in our genes. That’s one of the reasons we love music is because we’re built that way.

You’ve probably heard about taking a few deep breaths to de-stress and relax and Dr. Edlund says that really does work well. Just simple things can really refresh you.

For example if you go out and you take a walk in sunlight, especially with a friend, and go to a natural area if you can something that simple as going with a friend and walking in a park - that can be a very active and very healthy form of rest.

But there’s also something called social rest.

Social rest is basically social support – which is a very big factor at keeping people alive. The longest-lived populations alive are in the United States – they’re Asian American women in metropolitan New York. And one group in Suffolk County has an expected life span of 95.6 years. And if you’ look at these groups that are very long lived you find they have a lot of social connections.
 

To hear the complete unedited interview, click here