Grinding through mentally demanding work without pause is the physical equivalent of sprinting nonstop for an hour.

Worse, most of us assume a good night’s sleep can fix the damage—but it doesn’t replenish the seven specific types of rest our brains need, which can help us prevent burnout and feel our best.

The 7 Rest Profiles

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith, author of “Sacred Rest” and a board-certified internal medicine physician, has identified seven types of rest after treating patients with normal bloodwork, sleeping well, and no underlying medical cause for their exhaustion. The culprit, she found, was simpler than most expected.

“The majority of the work most of us do is not physically demanding. We’re sitting on our behinds all day long,” she told The Epoch Times. “Often the work is creatively demanding. We’re constantly using that kind of energy, but we don’t think about it as being energy that we’re depleting.”

Restoring each type of energy we use requires less effort than you might think, and sitting perfectly still is optional.

1. Creative

Deficits in creative rest can manifest as a lack of inspiration or difficulty brainstorming, thinking outside the box, or being innovative.

You can counter the effects of creative exhaustion by taking in creativity, rather than being a creator. Spend time in nature, watch the sunset or sunrise, listen to music, or appreciate architecture.

“Statistics show that people who feel like they’re creatively depleted often will feel restored around bodies of water,” Dalton-Smith said. “A lot of people will say, ‘Going to the beach just makes me feel better.’ Some people experience creative rest from something as simple as the colors of the walls in their home.”

2. Mental

Signs of cognitive overload include trouble concentrating or clearing the mind, ruminating thoughts, and constant mental chatter.

Meditation and mindfulness can relax the mind, while physical activities such as walking or running can clear it, Dalton-Smith said. You might also try brain dumping—writing down all the thoughts that come to mind—or other styles of journaling, especially useful before bed or at the end of a workday.

3. Emotional

An emotional rest deficit can cause anxiety, depression, people-pleasing tendencies, or a creeping sense of disconnection from yourself and others.

Restoring emotional health can include speaking to a therapist, journaling, artistic expression, singing, and playing an instrument.

4. Spiritual

Becoming spiritually tired can lead to a lack of motivation or moving through life without purpose or meaning.

Depending on your beliefs, prayer or meditation might help. Volunteer work, service, and meaningful connections with nature or other people are other options.

“Spiritual rest can be thinking outside of yourself, looking at the greater good, or finding a level of connectivity with humanity that is meaningful,” Dalton-Smith said.

5. Social

Social rest works differently depending on your personality. For extroverts, depletion can come from too much time alone. For introverts, it can come from too much time with people who need something from them. Either way, the signs are similar: feeling unappreciated, lonely, used, or taken for granted.

Coping can include spending time with friends you enjoy who don’t need anything from you, especially those you consider life-giving, or engaging in pleasurable activities alone and with no expectations.

6. Sensory

Overstimulation shows up as irritability around excessive noises or smells, or difficulty enjoying sensory-rich experiences, such as a concert, that used to bring pleasure.

It can be helpful to find balance by having times of quiet—using noise cancellation headphones or turning off your radio on a drive to appreciate silence.

7. Physical

Physical exhaustion can cause swelling, pain, tightness, or tension in the area that’s been overused or physical symptoms with no medical explanation.

Restoration can include stretching, massage, using a foam roller or red light therapy on muscles, or adjusting the amount of sleep you’re getting.

Recognizing the Rest You Need

Most people are surprised where their deficits show up and realize that, when they follow through with the restorative practices, Dalton-Smith’s suspicions were spot-on. The reason: Most of us aren’t intuitive about our mind-body connections or our own needs.

Addressing deficits one at a time, starting with the most depleted, can be enough to reverse early burnout and keep it from returning, she said.

The World Health Organization recognized burnout as an occupational phenomenon resulting from unmanaged chronic workplace stress in 2019. It can affect overall health and prompt people to seek medical care, yet it doesn’t lead to a diagnosis of an illness or condition. Burnout’s three components are feeling exhausted or depleted, mentally distancing yourself from work, and reduced workplace efficacy.

“A lot of people are able to be self-sufficient even in their burnout. They’re what I call functional burnouts. They’re showing up every day. They’re producing. They look successful sometimes,” Dalton-Smith said. “The world’s like, ‘Wow, look how much they accomplished,’ but they’re accomplishing at the sake of their own satisfaction.”

For Tina Haisman, experience proved to be the best teacher for creating the right type of rest in her life two decades ago. Before she was a life coach, she was a stay-at-home mom, yet she wrestled with high stress despite living the life she’d always wanted.

“I didn’t like who I was,” she told The Epoch Times. “My friends were like, ‘Get a massage,’ and so I did.” The experience was amazing, Haisman said, as it offered physical and emotional relief. But when she returned home to needy, crying children, her stress quickly returned and took a toll on her health—exhaustion, dissociation from her body, and emotional turmoil.

“Massages are great, but there’s also our mind and our soul and our heart that need care, so those are the ways that I teach women how to handle self-care,” she added.

Redefining Rest

Dr. Tommy Wood, a neuroscientist and performance consultant, makes an important distinction: Rest cannot substitute for sleep, which is essential for basic brain restoration and day-to-day functioning. However, rest is as vital in its own right.

“You need a period of rest so that you can go and do it again, just like if you’re doing sets at the gym,” Wood said.

His recommendation is to break rest into short periods throughout the day—either pausing activity entirely or shifting to something that gives the brain a break from its repetitive demands. His preferred method is simple, slow-paced breathing done once an hour or so.

“When you’re breathing out for longer than you’re breathing in, that has a relaxation effect on the body and brain. You can achieve that in a few minutes.”

When it comes to medical guidance, it’s helpful for rest to be clearly defined, according to a narrative review published in PM&R. While a lack of rest can cause burnout and fatigue and exacerbate stress, you can get too much rest, which might contribute to stiff joints from being too sedentary and depression, the authors noted. Ideally, rest is what we proactively do to restore health—not something that’s either passive or done as an excuse to avoid activities.

“Whether we are physically pouring out—or mentally or relationally—we feel the difference,” Dalton-Smith said. “We can tell that we’re not our best.”