I really want to ask: How can we take an effective rest? !

When we feel tired, don't want to talk, are in a bad mood, have no appetite, and our brains are not working, this is our body telling you that our body's energy has reached the bottom and we need to recharge and rest. There seem to be many ways to let the body rest and restore energy, but the truth is cruel: some people "charge for 5 minutes and standby for 2 hours", while others "charge for 2 hours and standby for only 5 minutes".

The reasons for these differences, in addition to their different physical conditions, are also related to whether your charging method is "fast charging" or "slow charging", whether it is "successful charging" or "invalid charging", and whether your power consumption method is "power saving mode" or "power consumption mode", "variable frequency" or "fixed frequency".

Therefore, if you want to keep yourself energetic and not tired, effective rest is an efficient way to recharge your energy, but reducing energy consumption and reducing accumulated fatigue are also important ways to rest indirectly .

So, how can we successfully transform from "I feel physically and mentally exhausted" to "I feel great"? Today, let's talk in detail about what it means to rest effectively.

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1. Sleep and rest

Sleep is always the best way to quickly reduce fatigue, speed up recovery, and make the body energetic. However, insufficient or excessive sleep will increase fatigue and cause various physical diseases. How to use sleep to achieve effective rest is a technical job.

1. Sleep quality is more important than sleep duration

As for the question of "how many hours of sleep a day should be required to ensure good health", I believe everyone is familiar with it through the dissemination of various health science popularizations. However, the amount of sleep required by each person varies from person to person. Some people cannot get out of bed without sleeping for 9 hours, while some people can be energetic after sleeping for 4 hours; some people still feel groggy after sleeping for a whole day, while some people are full of energy after just a nap. (How long is the best sleep for a person every day? You can refer to the old article: I really want to ask: How long is the best sleep per day? )

Sleep duration is a necessary condition to ensure the normal functioning of the body, but if the quality of sleep is not good, no matter how long you sleep, it will be useless. In other words, only by improving the quality of sleep can we achieve the purpose of using sleep to relieve fatigue and achieve rest .

There are many ways to improve sleep quality, such as getting up at a fixed time to effectively adjust the daily rhythm, or taking a hot bath before going to bed to relax the body and mind, etc.

2. Effective remedies for “sleep debt”

"Sleep debt" refers to the fact that fatigue cannot be recovered due to lack of sleep and remains. Fatigue will gradually accumulate like a debt and compound interest, which is one of the causes of hidden fatigue. When "sleep debt" occurs, it needs to be repaired in time to prevent hidden fatigue from continuing to accumulate.

How do you determine if you have "sleep debt"?

On holidays, sleep until you wake up naturally (note, not sleep in or take a nap), calculate your sleep time, and then subtract the sleep time on weekdays. If the difference is more than 2 hours, it means that you are in a state of "sleep debt":

Sleep duration before waking up naturally - Sleep duration on weekdays ≤ 2, which means no sleep debt every day;

The sleep time before waking up naturally - the sleep time on weekdays = 3, which means a debt of 1 hour per day;

The sleep time before waking up naturally - the sleep time on weekdays = 4, which means a debt of 2 hours per day.

How to repay your sleep debt? You can try:

1

Plan to get more sleep

Catching up on sleep is a way to repay your sleep "debt", but wanting to sleep all day and night to pay it off in one go will only disrupt your biological clock, greatly reduce your sleep quality, and cause new fatigue, which will drain your "family assets". Therefore, paying in installments and catching up on sleep in a planned way will help you recover from fatigue.

For example, if you have a 2-hour "sleep debt" every weekday, and a total of 10 hours of "debt" in a week, then you can go to bed 1 hour earlier the day before the holiday and wake up 1 hour later the next morning, so that you can repay 2 hours of "sleep debt". Over the two days of the weekend, you can repay 4 hours of "debt" without disrupting your biological clock. The remaining 6 hours of "debt" can be made up by other rest methods.

2

Take a nap between work

Since 1995, NASA has been actively conducting a nap study called "NASA Naps" to address the problem that astronauts' sleep time in space is shortened by 30 minutes to 2.5 hours, in order to remedy the serious problem of astronauts' mission performance difficulties due to lack of sleep. The results of the study showed that astronauts who took naps for an average of 26 minutes during the day had a 34% improvement in cognitive ability and a 54% improvement in attention.

Therefore, if the quality of sleep the night before is not very good, or the sleep duration is not enough, and you have accumulated "sleep debt", you might as well take a nap at noon or during work breaks. This can not only effectively eliminate sleepiness, relieve fatigue, and replenish energy, but also repay the "debt" a little and reduce the accumulation of hidden fatigue.
If the "debt" is too much, it's time to consider taking an annual leave or going to bed early on weekdays.

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2. Rest after exercise

As we all know, exercise makes our body healthier. Exercise can help relax muscles, reduce body tension, and improve blood circulation, thereby promoting body rest, reducing physical fatigue, improving sleep quality, and helping to restore vitality.

However, many people may not know that exercise is a "magic pill" that can make us happy, strengthen our brains, and relieve mental fatigue. As early as 2012, the American Psychiatric Association included exercise as one of the treatments for mood disorders. The psychological effect of exercise is immediate, widely applicable, and convincing.

People who like sports and exercise regularly have probably experienced the "runner's high", which is the feeling of being happy and refreshed after a period of continuous high-intensity exercise, even though the body will feel sore and weak. This is because exercise can promote the secretion of many neuromodulators involved in positive emotion regulation in the brain: dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, endorphins, etc. All of these neurotransmitters are related to pleasure and can be classified as "happy substances".

After exercise, the brain will also secrete a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which plays a key role in generating new neurons, protecting nerve cells responsible for memory, promoting synapse formation, and establishing connections between neurons.

Therefore, exercise not only makes you feel relaxed and happy, but also makes your mind clearer, recharges your emotions and brain, and makes you more energetic. Of course, not everyone can spare time for high-intensity exercise, but when you work overtime and don’t have much free time, you can try some micro-exercises to relieve fatigue and recharge :

1. 60-second body shake

Swinging exercise is a good way to overcome the fatigue and harm caused by long-term sitting. Stand up, twist your neck, stretch your waist, turn your arms, swing your legs, shake off the fatigue accumulated from long-term sitting, relax stiff joints, relieve tight muscles and promote blood circulation, which can relieve physical fatigue and reduce psychological pressure.

2. Stand up and take a sip of water

Take "getting water to drink" as an opportunity to remind yourself to take a short break. Prepare a small cup for yourself. When the water is finished, get up and go to the water dispenser to get water and drink a sip. This will achieve the three goals of short-term rest, light exercise and sufficient hydration.

3. Rest outdoors

Being outdoors can solve many problems. For example, light can promote the secretion of vitamin D, natural light can reduce the risk of myopia and disease, relieve eyestrain, and adjust the biological clock and mood, etc.

The benefits of outdoor activities and exposure to natural light also apply to adults. Existing scientific research shows that sunlight levels affect serotonin levels. Serotonin, also known as 5-hydroxytryptamine, is a neurotransmitter and a key substance in "mood regulation."

If you are busy during the week, then the weekend is a good time for you to enjoy outdoor activities, rest and recuperate, and make up for the sunshine. Of course, no matter how busy you are at work, you can still squeeze in time, so don't miss the opportunity to be outdoors on weekdays:

1

Change your commute to work by walking/biking

Recently, a systematic meta-analysis conducted by Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands found that walking 2,517 steps a day was associated with a significant 8% reduction in the risk of all-cause mortality, and walking 2,735 steps a day was associated with a significant 11% reduction in the risk of cardiovascular disease. Walking or cycling on the way to work or on a certain section of the journey can help you get some sun while exercising, which is green, low-carbon and healthy.

2

Stand by the window during breaks

Even if the indoor light is sufficient and bright, it is still more than 10 times lower than the brightness and intensity of natural light on a clear day. Therefore, daily indoor lighting cannot replace natural light, and it is even more impossible to achieve the therapeutic effect of natural light on physical and mental health. If your work is too busy and your working hours are tight, you might as well stand by the window when you get up or take a break to receive natural light, which can also promote the secretion of serotonin.

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4. Eat, drink and rest

When people are tired, they will uncontrollably crave high-sugar, high-salt, and high-carb foods. This is because after high-intensity physical and mental work, the blood sugar level in the body drops, and people will become irritable or depressed, and urgently need sugar, donuts, and cola to instantly increase their blood sugar levels.

However, high blood sugar levels stimulate the release of a large amount of insulin in order to convert excess sugar into energy. High-sugar foods cause blood sugar to rise rapidly, which in turn stimulates excessive insulin secretion and causes blood sugar to drop rapidly. If the body has such blood sugar fluctuations for a long time, it is easy to cause blood sugar crashes, causing insulin resistance, and preventing the body from effectively using glucose, which leads to insufficient energy and makes people feel tired and weak. In addition, high sugar intake may trigger an inflammatory response in the body, interfering with normal energy metabolism and immune system function. Many studies have shown that chronic inflammation is highly correlated with fatigue.

Therefore, a high-sugar, high-carb diet will not only fail to relieve your fatigue, but will also cause chronic fatigue . So, what should you do if you really want to eat when you are tired? Please look for imidazole dipeptide, which can help you fight against fatigue.

1

Imidazole dipeptide has a magical effect of precise anti-fatigue

As we all know, migratory birds migrate regularly to change their habitats as the seasons change. Each migration requires long-distance continuous flight without rest. What supports them to stay on standby for a long time while consuming energy at high speed? Scientists have discovered a large amount of imidazole dipeptide in the wings of migratory birds while studying their anti-fatigue mechanism.

Imidazole dipeptide is a protein that is undoubtedly the strongest anti-fatigue ingredient. It is widely distributed in humans and some animals. During the evolution of animals, they achieve anti-fatigue effects by increasing the content of imidazole dipeptide in parts that consume a lot of physical energy.

In fact, there is a substance called "imidazole dipeptide synthetase" in living organisms. It is densely distributed in organs with intense consumption, such as the human brain and skeletal muscles, the tail fins of fish, and the chests of poultry. Imidazole dipeptide synthetase promotes the synthesis of imidazole dipeptide in the most fatigued parts of the body, exerting a magical effect of precise anti-fatigue.

Fortunately, imidazole dipeptide can be supplemented through diet, and there is no need to worry about dying before it can fully exert its power after entering the body. Because once imidazole dipeptide is digested, it will be temporarily decomposed into two amino acids, which will be transported to various parts of the body with the blood flow. In the most tired parts, it will be resynthesized and exert its function through the strongest assist of "imidazole dipeptide synthetase".

In our daily diet, chicken breast is the food with the highest content of imidazole dipeptide. The reason why chicken breast can become the number one food for weight loss and even become the favorite of fitness experts and athletes is not only because of its low calories and high protein, but also because 100g of chicken breast can ingest and absorb 200mg of imidazole dipeptide, which greatly alleviates skeletal muscle fatigue caused during exercise.

Therefore, when you feel tired and hungry, chicken breast steaks, air-dried chicken strips, and chicken sausages will be your best choices for relieving fatigue, recovering quickly, and satisfying your cravings.

In short, fatigue is like a debt. If it is not relieved in time, it will compound like usury, getting bigger and bigger, gradually accumulating and escalating into chronic fatigue.

Just like managing debt, managing fatigue is also crucial. Effective rest is the key to paying off this fatigue debt, while timely self-care and lifestyle adjustments can help prevent the generation and accumulation of fatigue, ensuring that we can stay physically and mentally healthy and energetic.

It is important to remember that unlike those "fast food breaks" that appear to be rest but actually cause internal consumption , effective rest requires gradual and continuous persistence to achieve the greatest effect.

References

[1] Stens NA, Bakker EA, Mañas A, et al. Relationship of daily step counts to all-cause mortality and cardiovascular events[J]. Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 2023.

[2] Hidden Fatigue: The True Face of Fatigue That Cannot Be Eliminated Even with Rest, by Kajimoto Osami

[3] Exercise Changes the Brain by John Reddy and Eric Hageman

[4] The Brain Communicator by Zhao Sijia

[5] David Perlmutter, The Microbial Brain

Planning and production

Author: Su Jing, National Level 2 Psychological Counselor

Reviewer: Tang Qin, Director and Researcher of the Science Popularization Department of the Chinese Medical Association

Planning丨Lin Lin

Editor: Lin Lin