There are many people who focus all their attention on what they need to do: work, family, friends. However, they pay little attention to their inner world, their physical needs, and, above all, their psychological and spiritual needs.

Often, over the years, when their endurance decreases due to age, they begin to show signs and symptoms of chronic fatigue, which in many cases affect their entire body in the form of headaches, weakness, insomnia, back pain, digestive discomfort, high blood pressure, and much more.

As illuminating examples of the imbalance between fatigue and rest, tension and relaxation, activity and rest, I would like to mention three physical illnesses that are “in fashion” in the West: burnout syndrome, fibromyalgia, and chronic asthenia. These and other illnesses, grouped under the heading of psychosomatic diseases, have as a common basis psychological tension, which becomes chronic due to a lack of relaxation or rest.

The best way to rest is to learn not to tire yourself out, not to burn out. It’s just as important to read the phrase “Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today” backwards as it is to read it backwards. Along with being diligent in getting things done, it’s also good to tell yourself: “Put off until tomorrow what you can’t do today.” Don’t burden today with more than you can do, and don’t put off until tomorrow the rest you need today.

A tired person tends to be pessimistic: someone who is normally optimistic, for example, will react with a strange apathy. Someone who tends to worry will find their worries multiplying, and they will need to be helped to see that they are not currently seeing things objectively.

In today’s society, due to consumerism, rest is viewed as an expense. It seems impossible to rest in a familiar, simple way, avoiding unnecessary expenses (travel to exotic or distant places).

Therefore, rest is not a luxury or a form of selfishness; it’s a necessity, a duty. “Take care of yourself,” friends and family sometimes say when saying goodbye: we remind each other that our health is a gift from God.

To learn how to rest, I recommend a very practical book with helpful advice: “Learning to Live Rest” (EUNSA, 2011). Its author is Dr. Sarráis, a psychiatrist at the University of Navarra.