Matthew Edlund is an award-winning expert on rest, body clocks, and sleep. He has appeared on many television programs and written hundreds of articles for magazines and newspapers. You can visit him online at www.TheRestDoctor.com. Across the country, people complain about not getting enough sleep, yet they continue to push themselves relentlessly. Dr. Matthew Edlund has done extensive research and has consulted with hundreds of his patients, resulting in his conclusion that people are not just sleep-deprived but rest-deprived. In response, he has fashioned a 30-day rest make-over program based on four central types of active rest — physical, mental, social, and spiritual. "During rest the body rebuilds, renews, rewires, and re-creates itself," Edlund notes.
• Mental Rest involves focusing intelligently on your environment.
• Social Rest means using the power of social connectedness to relax.
• Spiritual Rest is the practice of community whereby we renew and revitalize ourselves.
• Physical Rest focuses on the body and provokes calm, relaxation, mental alertness, and better health.
The author provides a treasure trove of fascinating ideas and interpretations of the rhythms of our body clocks and the amount of sleep people need. He suggests developing a sleep ritual, doing the Mountain Pose at the start of the day, or learning the art of taking naps. He discusses self-hypnosis, ear popping, different gradations of social connection, thinking like a fly, dealing with multitasking and boredom, and living between energy and information. Most interesting is Edlund's contention that we can tune our lives by going FAR — an acronym of using food, activity, and rest. It all has to do with balance.
