The 7 Types of Rest, Part 3: Sensory Rest with Online Therapy Maryland
Getting out into nature, and stepping away from technology helps with sensory rest.
Welcome back to this series on the seven types of rest, based on the work of Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith. We’ve covered physical and mental rest already so check out those posts, if you’ve missed them. Today we are going to jump into sensory rest because I’m fresh off a time of really concentrating on that one and realizing once again how important that one is to me.
Sensory Overload and modern life
Sometimes a buddy can help encourage us to settle down and rest.
I don’t know about you, but I have an ambivalent relationship with modern life. On the one hand, I am deeply grateful for modern medicine that makes many conditions that were once dangerous and deadly now quite reasonable to treat. Hooray! And as much as I moan about the downsides of life with smartphones, I’m old enough to remember what a pain it was to have to navigate a long trip with just maps and never want to give up my GPS apps.
Where can you find some sensory rest? Scenic view optional.
But I’m not always Team Modern Life. As a massive introvert, sensory overstimulation is a chronic challenge. Just going to Costco on a weekend is enough sensory input for me for quite a while, thank you very much. It seems that there are always so many kinds of sensory input competing for our attention, and an expectation that multitasking is the best way of life for everyone (how else are we going to get everything done??).
Not a huge fan of that part. My nervous system seems not to have gotten the Modern Life Update and is actually much more comfortable and stable with fewer inputs. I don’t want to write blog posts in a busy coffee shop. I don’t want watch tv while I cook dinner. But I get caught up in living life in multitask mode and then later wonder why I’m frazzled and tired.
Sensory Rest WIth Your Online Maryland Therapist
So, what IS sensory rest? According to Dr. Dalton-Smith, sensory rest is, “the opportunity to downgrade the endless onslaught of sensory input received from electronics, fragrances, and background noise.” My introverted self loves that phrase “endless onslaught” because it feels so accurate.
Getting sensory rest can take some deliberate effort because the modern world is often not set up for it. But it can be done and can provide wonderful benefits, even if you aren’t a hardcore introvert. None of our brains and nervous systems have evolved as quickly as modern technology has and it can be helpful to give them a bit of a breather at times. We can look at all the five senses here: sight, sound, touch, smell and taste and if you notice there is one that is most overstimulated, start there. For many people, sight and sound are going to most frequently top the list because we are pretty much always taking in stimulation (often from various sources) through those senses. But we can be overloaded by too much of any combination of the senses and it makes sense that we need rest in order to find balance.
In order to make sure we are getting it, we need to make opportunities for it in our days and weeks. There’s always some sort of stimulation around so it can take a concerted effort to turn it down or tune it out. Some ways we can fit sensory rest into our lives might look like:
Leaving the phone and earbuds at home when going for a walk.
Eating a meal without reading, listening to media or watching tv.
Taking time to pay attention to the physical sensations of washing up, drying off and maybe moisturizing your skin.
Using an eye mask or eye pillow while taking a brief rest to allow the eyes to fully rest from all light.
Try eating whole, unprocessed foods without any added sugar or salt, even temporarily.
If you are in the habit of always having some background noise, experiment with small periods of silence.
Sensory rest, Extreme Sports edition
Bite-sized bits of sensory rest are important to keep up sustained daily, weekly, monthly. But sometimes it can be interesting to try out a bigger chunk of sensory rest time. Personally, I’m a big fan of retreats—time set aside to really pare down all kinds of sensory input. Whether it’s for a day, a weekend, a week or longer, a retreat is an opportunity to be curious and explore what happens when some sensory inputs are reduced for a bit of time. And the level of reduction is totally variable and up to you. Some people go camping, or carve out a quiet day at home alone, or join a community sponsored day long retreat with others, or go on a structured residential retreat program. All viable options for exploring sensory rest!
After having done and thoroughly enjoyed all those options, a few years ago I went on a five day silent meditation retreat. The program is designed for lots of sensory rest. Most of the day was alternating hours of sitting meditation or walking meditation in the simple, uncluttered meditation halls and rooms. Meals were simple, nutritious vegetarian meals, eaten in silence. Each person had an assigned work task each day, done in silence. There were a couple of free hours each day for rest or going for a walk outside. Spare moments of down time were mostly spent making or drinking tea in the dining room while watching the birds out the window. No phones, no reading, no talking.
What was so incredible for me was the recognition of how the reduction of all the sensory inputs highlighted how incredibly LOUD everything was INSIDE of me. My thoughts, my sensations, my opinions and complaints and judgements and wants and all the rest. Whew! I had been practicing meditation for many years by that point so this wasn’t a surprise, it was just the first time I had that long with so much sensory reduction to see that phenomenon just go on and on and on and on, hour after hour, day after day.
There’s a lot to be said about the experience of a retreat like this (some great, some difficult), but what was so striking was the effect by the end. By the time I left, I had an internal quiet I had never known. If you’ve ever been outside on a calm day after a good amount of snow has fallen, you may have noticed a kind of deep and heavy quiet, settling over the landscape. It was like that, but inside me. When I drove away from the retreat center, I had no desire to turn on the radio. I didn’t want to call anyone. After dinner that night, I didn’t want to read or watch anything on tv. I was content to sit quietly, drinking my tea, just looking around. There was enough sensory input already—what I could see in the room, feeling the warmth of the mug in my hands, smelling and tasting the tea, listening to the heating system kicking on and off. It was enough for my recalibrated nervous system.
Inevitably, that wore away and I was back to multitasking with the best of them at times. But now I had really experienced that deep quiet within. I knew, in my bones, what a rested state felt like. Which meant I had a map for whenever I wanted to visit that landscape within again—whether for a moment or for a longer stay. It’s good for me to remember that occasionally I need more than a bite-sized amount of sensory rest and that there are ways to find it.
Continuing our restful journey
Is there a way for you to try out this idea of sensory rest within your own week? Even if just for a few minutes here and there? Play with balancing the few different kinds of rest we have explored so far in this blog series, and then come on back as we eventually make our way through the remainder of the list as well. I wish you many moments of refreshing rest throughout your week.
A free consultation For ONline Therapy in Maryland
If you are looking for support on this topic or anything else related to your mental health, please reach out. I see folks for therapy in College Park, MD and offer online therapy in Maryland. You can explore more information about my services throughout the website. Feel free to contact me for a free 15-minute phone consultation.
