Many video games give you a health bar to let you know when rest is needed. Even in the heat of a battle with a big boss, you need to find some kind of safe space to reset even just a bit of health in order to stay in the game. Some games offer you herbal medicine throughout your journey during gameplay and it’s always a scary sign when suddenly you have many health items to pick up – this usually indicates you’re going to need them in the next few minutes.
Our own body in our career is no different. Work is highly valued in society and the more you perform, the more likely people approve of you. While that conditioning is stuck in our subconscious minds, we know the truth. The reality is that sucks! All work and no rest is far from honorable and needs to stop being praised. We all know that rest is essential and waiting until we’re exhausted to rest is super toxic. Yet even though we know this, we don’t really practice it, do we? We can hear our mothers breathing down our necks with shame and squinty eyes every time we lay on the couch. That’s your cue to get up and get to work! Ugh, no, thank you.
Our health is the most important factor in how we perform in our work. I’m not going to type out how to rest and the redundant information about how much we need to rest each day. You already know this. What I’m going to talk about is how to check your health bar status, so you don’t get beaten up by the big boss. We’re in this to win it.
Depletion of your health bar may look like:
- Constant movement and fidgeting in your chair
- Frequent blinking
- Brushing your hands up over your face and hair, mostly from eyebrows and up
- A slight rush of anxiety building up from the top of your hips to your chest
- Hunger
- Brain fog
- Frustration and irritability
- Lack of interest in your work
- Daydreaming
- Pulling out the cookies hiding in your desk
- Smoke breaks
- Thinking of all the things you need to do still
- Ignoring phone calls, texts, emails due to the added pressure
- Withdrawal from social occasions
You get the hint. They may come in slowly and that’s the best time to catch your health bar dropping. You don’t want to wait until you get a critical hit and get the flashing health bar on your screen. Rather, take this first sign as your chance to drink some herbal tea, go outside, hide in a corner and cry a little, whatever it is you need to do, do it. Recuperate and build your health back so you can keep showing up and doing your good work.
I may seem like your mother talking but truth is, you probably ignore this good advice often. So, get off your chair and go have some fun or lie down for a moment. You owe it to yourself to honor your own rest as if it was a part of your job description. Each time you show up for yourself like this, it gets easier. And you’ll be able to pinpoint that exact moment your health bar starts to drop and will be more proactive at making sure it doesn’t drop completely. Now, sweet dreams. Don’t let the bed bugs bite.
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