Learn To Rest So Well It Makes You Dangerous

0:00 Why is it that some of the most skilled and disciplined people in history like the samurai spent as much time in silence doing art and rest as they did in sword training? It wasn't idleness. It was strategy. They understood something we've forgotten. True power doesn't come from constant effort or grinding. It comes from knowing when to stop. Rest. Intentional cultivated rest isn't the opposite of productivity. It's what sharpens it. Let's explore how resting well isn't a sign of weakness. It's a skill. One that can change how you work, create, and live. Most of us live in a kind of lowgrade tension all

0:47 the time. Even when we stop working, our minds keep spinning. Rest has become something we earn if there's time left. And when we finally try to slow down, we scroll, we binge, we feel the silence. First, we need to accept that rest isn't just a negative space in contrast to activity, but an equal partner of life's same wave. Work and rest are inextricably bound, each enhancing the other. And we all carry the blueprint of this wave in us, in our biology. Did you know that you have an internal clock inside your body that dictates your energy level and alertness throughout the day? We usually totally

1:32 ignore it and it messes us up. When you wake up, your alertness rises and peaks around noon and then it falls in the afternoon and rises again in the late afternoon and evening before it falls again before sleep. It's called our circadian rhythm. We overlap this natural rhythm with work. Normally, your boss doesn't really care if he sets up a meeting right after lunch and expects everyone to pay attention to some boring numbers and graphs. Teachers scolded me when I was mind wandering in the afternoon classes watching out of the window. So, we need to understand that rest is not laziness or lack of productivity, but specific activities that make use of the peaks and apps of our alertness curve. Then against common

2:18 belief, our brain isn't inactive during rest. Our brain makes up only about 2% of our body weight, but consumes 20% of our energy. Interestingly, the brain at rest consumes nearly as much energy as a cognitive active brain. The brain automatically switches on a default mode network, a series of interconnected areas that activate as soon as we don't focus on externally directed tasks. This state is linked to insight, emotional processing, memory consolidation, and even a stronger sense of self. In other words, deep rest is not idleness, it's integration. And this part is more accessible when our alertness curve is low. Increased cognitive performance and

3:04 reaction time were measured right after an activity that many grinders consider as the ultimate sign of idleness and weakness. and that's napping. Many famous writers like Haruki Murukami incorporated napping into their routine. But even Churchill regarded his midday naps as essential for his mental clarity and recharging his energy. He kept this habit during both world wars. Though it's clearly something that's not only for peaceful times only. The list is long of highly accomplished and productive people who incorporated naps into their routine. And that's not because of idleness or because they already were successful. 15 or 20

3:50 minutes of napping can recharge your cognitive performance, decrease fatigue, and enhance creativity when your circadian curve takes a dip in the afternoon and you start to feel drowsy. Since I've incorporated more naps after my lunch, I definitely felt a boost in my ability to focus and do creative work in the afternoon. I have three young childrens and when I'm done with lunch, I now take this as an opportunity to have some quiet time, often doing a short nap with the youngest one. I always set an alarm for 20 to 30 minutes to prevent oversleeping. Even if I don't fall asleep, I do a body sensing exercise, also known as non-sleep deep breath or a calming breath work exercise

4:35 where I focus on my breath while doing a calming breath work technique. I noticed that it has a similar effect and studies have shown that these practices mimic the same long form brain waves as a nap or sleep. If you don't have the space or time for a nap, even simple mind wandering as a after lunch activity serves a number of important mental processes. It's something many people disregard as a lack of focus and as something negative. A paper by bear at all suggests that mind wandering during focused tasks can enhance creative thinking. It improves creativity by tapping into the default mold network of our brain and its ability to activate and connect brain region that don't

5:21 normally work together during outward directed attention and problem solving. The next activity is so simple and cost-free that we usually do everything to avoid it. People like Thomas Jefferson, writer CS Lewis and many more across all fields included it as a part of their daily routine. Even companies like Apple and Meta invested millions to make this activity more appealing and designed beautiful pathways for it. Yes, I'm talking about walking. It's an activity that studies have found to benefit both the brain and the body. It's also something that many cultures practice for health and clearing the mind. A number of interesting studies by

6:06 Opito and Schwarz measured the impact of walking on creativity compared to sitting. A person's creative output increased by an average of 60% when walking. It was also measured if there was a difference between outside and inside walking and they found no significant difference in creative output. Both were beneficial. Instead of just some sitting coffee breaks, I now include short walking breaks, both inside and outside, often sparking new YouTube video ideas and writing ideas for my newsletter, which by the way, you should totally subscribe to. When I'm out for a walk, I usually jot down my ideas in this notebook. I always carry one of these with me. Creativity is not

6:53 the only character trait we need to for thriving. Sometimes it's even counterproductive. We don't want an air traffic controller getting constantly distracted by sparks of new ideas. In such a situation, we need focus, mental resilience, and most of all, high inhibition, the ability to suppress task irrelevant thoughts. So, while low inhibition can spark ideas and creativity if the available distractions are not counterproductive but supportive, we still sometimes need to pay prolonged attention to one thing and one thing only and don't get distracted even if the task is boring. Many people associate high inhibition skills with

7:38 willpower or discipline. But when we look beneath the motivational quotes, we find that when people feel most alert and active, their inhibition is highest. And when they're low on energy and need a nap, their inhibition lowers. So this suggests that inhibition correlates with our circadian rhythm, making our inhibition highest when it peaks. So I should do my focus intense tasks in the morning or late afternoon and creative intense tasks in the early afternoon. However, even more important is cultivating a high baseline of energy which makes the next rest activities so important. I think I don't need to tell

8:24 you that sleep is important, but we regularly sacrifice it with busy things. And even if we love a long night's sleep, we don't consider it a skill. While we sleep, our brains are highly active, consolidating memories, repairing physical damage, restoring our energy, and sometimes working on solutions subconsciously if we do it the right way. Sleep deprivation on the other hand impairs our reflexes, decision making, emotional resilience, and learning ability and negatively affects our health. While vigorous exercise and naps can counteract some of the consequences of a bad night's sleep, it shouldn't be an excuse to cut sleep

9:10 deliberately. establishing a windown routine, shutting off electronic devices an hour before bedtime or so, and adhering to regular sleep time or behavioristic intervention to cultivate better sleep. In a recent sleep meta study, they found that behaviors like having a smartphone in your bedroom and having no bedtime rules regarding gaming media or smartphone use are far more detrimental to sleep on set than viewing blue light or being aroused by media or games before going to bed at a regular bedtime. This for me suggests that behavior beats tools like blue light blockers or a perfect sound environment of ocean waves. Just go to bed early

9:55 enough. Use the tools to enforce a windown routine and not as a substitute for bad behavior and you will find yourself so much more recovered the next day. But you can also take sleep to the next level to enhance your productivity even more. Lenus Pauling was considered one of the 20 greatest scientists of all time and he practiced thinking about scientific problems while lying in bed waiting to fall asleep. After weeks or months pondering over the same problem, the solution to particular problems would suddenly burst into his consciousness. Many other scientists and artists follow a similar routine and often wake up with a solution or

10:40 creative idea in their minds. Many successful people use this priming effect of deliberate preparation in the evening to start the next day more effectively. If sleep is the king of rest, exercise would be the queen. Both are important and essential, but you want to make sure that they don't fight each other. Many people still hold this belief that exercise primarily uses energy rather than giving energy and therefore it is often neglected whenever one has a lot going on in life. I'm working so hard on my education or career that I don't have the energy to exercise regularly is a common excuse for people who live a stressful and busy

11:25 life. This goes so far that people still have this stereotype that one could either be an athlete or an intellectual, but not both. A long-term study followed the lives of 40 scientists for more than 20 years to find out what character traits distinguishes great accomplishments from mediocre ones. It wasn't inborn talents or cognitive genius. Bernstein and her colleagues found that all the best scientists who went on to win Nobel prizes and prestigs chairs at their universities or honors from the National Academy of Science showed an unusual urge to experiment athletically as well as scientifically and chose to engage in athletic

12:13 activities that could be carried from youth to old age. It's clear from numerous studies that exercise not only reduces stress, but can increase brain power, boost intelligence, improve creativity, and increase energetic stamina and psychological resilience for prolonged focus. But if you want your sleep and exercise to enhance each other, you need to make sure of the following thing. Many people move their exercise to the end of the day and often sacrifice sleep quality and duration. A recent study showed that extensive exercise up to 4 hours before bedtime negatively impacts your sleep quality by raising your resting heart rate and core

13:00 body temperature. So ideally have your most intense workout in the morning or early afternoon and use the evening for less intense activities like walking or breath work sessions. I, for example, wake up around 5:00 when my three kids are still sleeping and get a workout in. This workout also primes me for a productive day. This also enables me to do some focus work early in the morning which justifies all these mentioned rest activities that I spread throughout my day to be more productive with less work. And if you want to put all these rest activities on steroids, you should learn to breathe more effectively

13:45 because it's the underlying fabric that lets you influence your autonomic nervous system that governs your energy and rest system. Check out my free 15-day breath work course to learn all the fundamentals. And check out this video here to learn the core principle of effective breathing. Thanks for watching.