Asking For Help As A Form of Rest
For the moments we find ourselves overwhelmed
I’m not sure that anyone noticed that I missed my normally scheduled Wednesday post last week. Since I’ve committed to writing a weekly blog for The Art of Rest, I’m proud to say, I’ve made it happen—even on the weeks where I needed to substantially shorten what I was writing or schedule something out far in advanced.
This past week, I dropped the ball. All day Tuesday I could feel the realization that it wouldn’t get done. Wednesday morning I looked at my clock at 10:00 AM and deflated a bit as the time rolled on by and I continued to be elbow deep in the tasks right in front of me that had a hard deadline and higher consequences than writing my work blog.
It stung a bit at first, and then I remembered one of the most important tools in our toolbox for resting well, is to ask for help.
Spring Is Full of Energy, Even When We Aren’t
Both sleep and upticks in mental health symptoms are often reported to be comparatively higher in the winter and spring than in the summer and fall. Having sleep difficulties (and more obvious mental health symptoms) in the winter makes sense. It’s dark. The weather can have a tendency to isolate us. The place where our favorite sweatpants starts and our skin begins gets a little bit hard to discern.
But springtime can feel confusing for folks when these symptoms and erratic sleep don’t go away—everything is bright and in bloom! The weather is brightening up. We remember that we have skin on our legs underneath those sweatpants. So when the sleeplessness persists and the mental health symptoms don’t fully lift yet, it is common to think that there is something wrong with us that we’re not able to shift with the season. It might not make the symptoms and sleeplessness worse but the cognitive dissonance between the two can certainly make us feel more shame around it.
First of all, I want to name that this is not only normal, but also that it should be expected.
Sleep is a slow to form vital sign—which simply means that when something shifts in our external world or internal world, our sleep with adjust according to that shift. Because it is slow vital sign (rather than a quick vital sign like a heart rate or respiratory rate), it takes a lot longer to shift. In general, sleep might not begin to shift for 6-8 weeks after something like a season begins to substantially change. So even though we’re finally seeing pollinators and getting our first sunburns of the spring, we have to remember that our sleep is just taking its dear sweet time in adjusting to our newly forming environment. Our bodies are searching for signs of safety and consistency. It takes some time. During this transition it is okay to feel a little bit discombobulated (yes, scientific term).
Which brings us to an important restful toolbox tool—asking for help.
“Help! I’ve Fallen and I Can’t Get Up!”
I’m sure all of you reading this weekly, restful masterpiece (sarcasm) must think I am an immortal sleep goddess (more sarcasm). Alas, I am a mere mortal just like you and in the spring I tend to get excited about the weather, over-commit to my obligations, and then feel disappointed and down on myself when I inevitably have that sweet, springtime, complete and total come-apart.
That, my friends, is why last week you did not get a blog update.
I’m sharing this to remind us all that this is so incredibly human. Sure, there are ways we can look at how we schedule our lives, notice our own tendencies to over-commit, and then just buckle down on our current decisions, swearing to ourselves that we’ll do better over time. While that might be true—we usually do get better over time—we also need to remind ourselves we have tools and interventions in the meantime while we slowly grow and change.
One of those, most important tools, is asking for help.
Why Asking For Help Is An Underused and Exceptional Tool for Rest
If you’re anything like me (for your sake, I hope it’s minimal) you’ll wait to ask for help until you’ve exhausted all of your other options. Why humans, especially high-functioning humans, are so averse to asking for help, I will never fully understand. Sure it might be noble, striving to be fully independent so your life doesn’t leak all over anyone else’s. It’s “healthy” to be self sufficient, I get it. However, it’s also healthy to be interconnected with your community. Vulnerable asks for help with trusted friends and family is a great way to deepen those connections, even if you theoretically could do it yourself if you grit your teeth hard enough to crack.
Not only does asking for help immediately reduce your workload, and thus your stress, but it also bolsters, fosters, and maintained strong social connections and perceptions of belonging.
Back in January I wrote a small piece on how rest and sleep are so deeply intertwined with our social and emotional experiences. Now, in that piece, I mostly focused on how sleep impacts our social and emotional experiences when we are under-slept—it’s also important to note that when we engage in regular, supportive social and emotional activities, we also help bolster our ability to rest and sleep in return. In other words, when we feel safe and connected in community, our bodies carry a lower stress load and we’re more likely to sleep well those nights.
The greatest part is, especially if we are someone who does not ask for help very often, our friends and family are usually eager to help support us and feel closer to us, too.
Let’s Say, Hypothetically, I’m Horrible At Asking for Help
Here are a few tricks and scripts to get you started. Try these on for size, or take the bones of them and re-write them in your own language before trying them out:
[For the situation where you know exactly what you need]
“Hey, I know I don’t usually ask for this type of support but I am feeling spread so thin this spring, do you think you could help me out by _____________? I would be so grateful!”[For the situation where you need to cancel plans]
”Hey, I know that I said I would commit to ___________, however I’ve been practicing checking in with my body and working really hard to be honest when I am feeling overwhelmed. It feels _________ for me to say this, but I think I need to prioritize my own rest today. I’m going to have to cancel, and it would be really helpful for me if we can celebrate me learning how to listen to what I need in real time. Thanks for understanding.”[For the situation where you have no fucking clue what you need but you’re just feeling overwhelmed and spiraling hard]
”Hey, I’m noticing today I’m feeling extremely overwhelmed, overstimulated, and overcommitted. I’m not entirely sure what I need right now but I will articulate it to you as soon as I can. Can we pause on __________ while I figure out what I need?”[For the situation where you just need someone to help by listening and not problem-solving]
”Hey, I’m noticing I’m feeling unrested and off-my-game. I think I want to try to navigate solving this by myself but I am realizing it would feel really helpful and supportive to have someone witness me talking about it without trying to fix it for me. Do you have the bandwidth to catch some of this with me soon?”[For the situation when you’re realizing you need a little bit of space]
”Hey, I’m noticing that my world is feeling very full right now. I know we were excited to do _____, but I’m realizing it would be helpful if I had a little bit of space. Can I reach back out when I’m ready?”
There are so many ways to ask for help, and these are obviously not exhaustive, but might be a good place to start. As a caveat, I want to remind people to trust your own judgement when discerning who to reach out to for help and for what purposes. It’s also important to note that we are asking people for help in these situations and they are allowed to tell us they do not have the capacity. It’s our job to remember that while it can be a risk to ask for help and be rejected in that help, the asking is often times what starts the process of us recognizing we’re needing more support and can be a catalyst for our friends to learn how to make more room for us in the future when they notice we’re overwhelmed, even if they cannot do it the first time.
In general, I personally, am often very unprepared for the help I end up getting when I am brave enough to ask for it. I am also often shocked at what a powerful tool for rest it is and why I don’t use it more often.
Stretch Your Help Muscles
Finally of note, if you’re reading this (or listening to it) this spring and you are finding that you are chalked full of energy, bandwidth and resources, it’s also a beautiful community act of rest to offer help to those you are noticing have less bandwidth than you.
The great thing about thinking about community health as a holistic puzzle is that we’re often not all maxed out at the same time and we’re often not all having the easiest breeziest time on the same day. Fostering robust community rest is noticing when we need to ask for help just as much as it is realizing when we have more help to lend. Both sides of the coin communicate “safety” in the body to everyone involved, and that helps us all reduce our stress loads long-term.
As for me?
I’ve been gifted a TON of help this past week. I wouldn’t say I’m fully caught up on rest, nor am I 100% confident that I won’t hit another point of frenzy in the next few busiest months of my year. What I will say though, is that I can see my trajectory of managing my stress and my sleep this time of year keep heading in the direction of ease, rather than one of more stress down the line. That’s all we can really keep an eye on.
I personally hope that this week’s The Rest1 update was unnecessary for all of you because you’re so well-resourced and well-rested. If on the off-chance, this struck a chord with you, let me know in the comments or by hitting reply. I’m grateful to be pursing The Art of Rest alongside y’all and would love to hear how you’ve been navigating a busy spring.
Until next week! Lovingly,
Dagny Rose
This sub-section of The Art of Rest, is all about—you guessed it—The Rest.
As a trained sleep scientist and mindfulness teacher & researcher, here we explore the everything related to rest. Whether we are unpacking the newest evidence-based sleep health tips, exploring day-to-day tools for bolstering and protecting rest, or diving into a world of dreams, “The Rest” is going to regularly touch into what a restful life is, and how to move towards one5
Looking For A Personalized Way to Optimize Your Rest?
I am wrapping up my springtime guidance-work for the season! I offer individualized 1:1 guidance for those who want to use rest as a way to meet their current worlds. Some folks want to expand their creativity with dreamwork and optimizing sleep for their next big adventure. Other folks might see me for a seasonal tune up to maintain healthy sleep they’ve worked hard to acquire. Sometimes people find themselves swirling around in the dark, awake all night and we gently work together to collaboratively work on a unique restful roadmap to get their sleep, stress, and rest back on track. If you’d like to work together, shoot me an email at dagnyrose@theartofrest.me to inquire about getting started.
My final spring booking spots for spring are April 28 - June 15 and they are filling up fast. Keep an eye out for summer booking slots when I’m back around mid-July.
I want to fully acknowledge that last week I had promised this month I would get into why The Tree of The Month Club was a great way to engage in creative rest. Don’t worry! I haven’t forgotten about it, we’re just going to bump that article until next month :)