REST BEFORE YOU GET TIRED

  I found recently a book so interested that I even went on to listen the audiobook. The book is titled "how to stop worrying and start living" by Dale Carnegie 

Before I get further into the story let me tell you how deep the message got into me. While I was reading the chapter "rest before you get tired", I had to stop a bit and remember my grand-mother. The young lady is about 98 years now, you could imagine that she was conventionally already an old lady when I was growing up. This book dug out of me the memory of her. 

You might not know but for us young African growing up in the rural area life was divided into two sessions. During school sessions we were in school and in summer times (well Africa is always in summer time), let's say in holiday sessions we were in the villages doing any kind of activities trying to raise up the money for the school sessions, just think of the fable of Aesop: "The Ant and the Grasshopper" and you'll understand the whole story. Then you can imagine me and my brother-in-law doing that (picture below) late in the afternoon...

I have wonderful memories of my life in the villages, this would be another post. so how my grandmother lives the lessons written by dale Carnegie although she has never read a book?

She is the first one to wake in morning;

She has morning routine for herself,

She prepared the breakfast, (yes in Africa, in the far villages we have also breakfast and I can tell you that it is the best so far)

When going to the plantations, she is the last one in the queue,

she rest almost every  few kilometers,

When we arrived, she rest again, she eat her fruit, while we rushed to start working,

She starts working at her own pace,

Few moment later she rest again, some water and maybe another fruit is eaten,

She comes back to work and later on she rests again. of course, we were deeply working with the aim to finish all and fast,

At lunchtime she eats of course at her pace,

we? we rush to eat in order to get back to work;

so when we resume after few hours, we were tired;

Her? Well, she had had few rests but she is still working. 

When we were tired, we begged her to go back home, Bu she seemed to have access to another reservoir of strength. I never understood and now I do.

“Rest before you get tired!”

Do what the Army does – take frequent rests. Do what your heart does – rest before you get tired, and you will add one hour a day to your waking life.” – Dale Carnegie

Just think about the sport where we see athletes competing to higher speed and strength, think about basketball for example the players always have moments of rest before the conclusive moment. When the unrest feel unease the rested seem to tap into the reservoir of energy like my grandma.

You might ask me, what about people doing intellectual work? Do they need rest?

Why shouldn’t' they? They spend the whole day in offices and come home destroyed. What if they can come back home with more energy to share?

It is proven that the mind does not really get tired but the body does.

The “rest before you get tired” theory is even applied by our hearts. So why do we think that deviating from own nature could be a good thing for us?

So let's do like our hearts, like the military or like my grandma and come back to our families full of energy so our homes will have positives vibrations. Memory reminds me of the mechanics of the materials. Most materials have elastic behavior until they reach the yield stress after that they cannot recover without a lost.  So, like most materials let try to stay in the elastic behavior range without passing the yield stress point. Hence, we can always start again feeling fresh, and return home, be able to raise up our children or wives, play with the family without saying the home breaking sentence: “I’m too tired I need to go to bed”.

How could we go about it?

Dale in his book give this advice for efficiency and relaxation while working:

1.     Learn to relax at your work: 

·       Clear your desk of all papers except those relating to immediate problems or tasks at hand;

·       Do things in the order of their importance;

·       When you face a problem, solve it then and there if you have all of the facts needed to make a decision;

·       Learn to organize, deputize and supervise;

2.     Put enthusiasm into your work...

Why not rest just few moments to gain more moments. Just rest before you get tired. How am I sure that it would work?

Take these examples from Dale Carnegie Book:

•  Churchill used to take naps, sleep frequently and hence was able to work for as long as 16 hrs a day even in his sixties & seventies;
• Thomas Edison also stated that he would sleep frequently to maintain his high energy levels;
• US Army, gives rest of 10 minutes every hour while marching. This helps them to maintain their stamina and energy for long hours;
• Rockefeller who lived for 96 years, used to take evening nap every day.

Are you having difficulties relating to these people? What about our own heart?

 Every heart works 24 by 7. There is no rest for the heart but still it works for 50 or 70 or 90 years without failure. How is that possible? Doctor Walter Cannon has explained it by saying that in a minute heart pumps 70 times. Even then it has its own resting time. In whole day heart is working only for 9 hours and remaining time which is 15 hours of a day is for resting.

My grandma can testify that,

I too can. Because, I was able to run 22 km by applying the same technic,

And you can testify it too, how? Just look around you, look at those ones always full of energy, their habits they might not be aware of it but they just rest before getting tired.

What if you reach the breaking  point? Will it still be a way to move on?

Yes! there is a way, and I'll tell you more about it in my next post... See you soon!