Rest Days vs Recovery Days
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This distinction seems super valuable. What I find most interesting is that I would have labeled what OP calls Rest as Recovery, and what it calls Recovery as Rest...
I'll try my hand at Tabooing and analyzing the words. Epistemic status: modeling other people's models.
Type A days are for changing from a damaged/low-energy state into a functioning state, while Type B days are for maintaining that functioning state by allowing periodic breaks from stressors/time to satisfy needs/?.
I think Unreal means Recovery as in "recovering from a problematic state into a better one". I'm not sure what's up with Rest - I think we lack a good word for Type B. "Rest" is peaceful/slackful, which is right, but it also seems inactive/passive which doesn't match the intended meaning. If you emphasize the inactivity/passivity of Rest then it fits better with Type A. (I think this partly explains the reversal.)
Connotations of Rest that I find relevant:
- lack of anxiety
- PSNS activation
- relaxed body (while not necessarily inactive or passive body)
- a state that you can be in indefinitely, in theory (whereas Recover suggests temporary)
- meditative (vs medicative)
- not trying to do anything / not needing anything (whereas Recover suggests goal orientation)
- Rest feels more sacred than Recovery
Concept that I want access to that "Recover" doesn't fit as well with:
- Incorporating Rest into work and everyday life (see: Rest in Motion)
After browsing dictionaries and thesauri for about half an hour trying to come up with clear names for the two types of days you defined, I concluded that the best option is to call Recovery Days "Rest Days in which you're tired", and Rest Days "Rest Days in which you're not tired". I'm curious to hear if that works for other people.
Note: the best eliminated candidates for Recovery Day were "Chill Day", "Sloth Day", "Lazy Day" and "Slow Day"; the best for Rest Day were "Free Day" and "Aimless Day". These candidates wouldn't remove ambiguity.
"Free Day", while perhaps not the best option overall, has the merit that these days involving freeing the part of you that communicatess through your gut (and through what you feel like doing). During much of our working (and non-working) week, that part is overridden by our mind's sense of what we have to do.
By contrast, in OP's Recovery Days this part is either:
(a) doing the most basic recharging before it can do things it positively feels like and enjoys, or
(b) overridden or hijacked by addictive behaviours that it doesn't find as roundly rewarding as Free Day activities.
Addiction can also be seen as a lack of freedom.
Promoted to curated: I've found this post personally quite useful. Not necessarily because it said new things, but because it gave a handle to a bunch of stuff that I already had vague intuitions about.
I've actually generally benefited a lot from the whole Sabbath stuff, and have adopted a habit of spending my Sundays away from any internet-connected devices (except in emergencies). In that practice, I also noticed that when I didn't successfully take a recovery day on Saturday, I would have a lot of trouble properly resting on Sunday, in a way that pretty closely resembled the ideas in this post.
Besides that, I appreciate that this post isn't much longer than it needs to be, properly links to related articles and generally makes its point in a clear and concise way.
The biggest criticism I have of this post is that the two words for the two days just sound too similar in my head. When referring to this post I repeatedly had to do a double-take where I rederive the meaning of the two words, and often forgot one of them since they didn't obviously derive from one another. I also have some personal distaste for the call-to-actiony things right at the end, though this one was basically fine and I expect it will have made the post better for other people.
Something that I didn't get the first time I read this concept (but which Qiaochu explained differently to me), is the specific thing of "check in with my stomach." (Unreal, I'm interested in feedback on whether this is accurate)
It's not that you're just doing whatever you "feel" like, in a generic sense. You're doing something like Focusing on your stomach in particular, which several people have reported useful for getting introspective access into parts of themselves that they aren't normally in tune with.
Part of the idea, I think, is that many people by default do things that are in tune with some particular part of their body/mind, and there's a cluster of wants/needs drives that get more ignored by default.
So, in response to the other thread about videogames vs books (which seem a priori like they should be similar), is... well, yeah they are. But in Unreal's case it the stomach found some of them yummy and some not.
(I'd guess the meta-level principle isn't to Listen To Your Stomach in particular, just to make sure to listen to yourself generally and see which parts of you aren't getting attended to and make sure you are free to do them. But there may be systematic reasons to hypothesize that the stomach is a more useful-than-average way to do that for most people)
It's not that you're just doing whatever you "feel" like, in a generic sense. You're doing something like Focusing on your stomach in particular
Yes, this is right.
I also do predict the stomach is where most people should be Focusing on, for getting proper Rest. I think there's some kind of ongoing battle between the head and the stomach, and people/society tends to favor the head.
But I get mileage out of doing Focusing on all kinds of areas.
Clearly one of the most useful posts I read on LW in 2019. I’m constantly using this distinction in my thinking about how I want to spend my time, and it’s helped a lot.
If this gets published in some way, it might be worth changing the name of these concepts. I think I did a bad job in naming them.
Some suggestions for "Recovery Days" = Zombie Days, Junk Days, Tired Days
I think "Rest Days" is a good name for this concept, and I'd prefer keeping it.
Elizabeth calls them Slug Days (or at least, I think it's the same concept? you could ask her) on the logic that she feels like oozing around like a slug instead of being a person
I actually find zombie days resonate more than slug days (zombie captures the "I can't think" thing), but do think either of them is an improvement over status quo. (My review of this post was definitely going to be "good concept. needs a better name.")
Rest Days strikes me as the better of the two, resonates with me on those days. Also fits with Nate's "Rest in Motion" idea.
I like zombie days. On Rest Days I'm very alive with strong preferences that I act out, on zombie days I can often barely answer questions.
I've had the recovery vs. rest day distinction in my head ever since reading this post. Sometimes when I take a day off and then end up feeling not-very-rested at the end of it, rather than being frustrated I remember this post and think "well it's not that I failed to rest, it's that this was a recovery day and the next one will be more restful"; and this has often been true.
It has also helped me consciously focus more on rest rather than recovery activities, on days when this has been feasible.
I also have one more category of this type: "alternative work days".
There are two types of work I do: either I sit all day at home alone working on texts about immortality or global risks or something like this.
Or I develop my art collection which requires visits to artists, museums, a lot of photography and conversation with people.
These two works mostly use different parts of my brain: one is working and the other one is resting meanwhile.
Wow, you've laid out the benefits very nicely. I'd like to try it this Sunday. But I have some personal projects that are very fun and take up most of my free time. Should I stay away from those too?
I would experiment with that in the following ways:
- Try not doing any projects and see how that is (This seems good for what Zvi / Ben describe as an emergency check / Sabbath as alarm.)
- When you feel like working on a project, do so but periodically check "Do I still feel good about doing this right now? Is this yummy? Do I want to be doing this?" Do the check and then follow what seems good in the moment.
I have way more to say on this subject now. It's actually a huge topic, with many parts.
If I were going to teach a curriculum about this, that curriculum would include:
- Why do I not want to get out of bed in the mornings?
- Shoulding vs Serving
- Eros vs Ego
- What am I identifying with? How does that affect my life?
- Blue pill vs Red pill moment - continuity break
- Initiation into the unknown
- What am I here to serve? What am I here to live according to? Personal life missions
- Vow work
- Resting vs Collapsing
- Places where I don't honor myself
- What's a boundary?
- Forgiveness
- Internal vs External (Spiritual orientation vs material orientation)
- Am I willing to change my life? - continuity break
- "Having a practice" - My life as Training
- Possible paths forward - intro to different spiritual lineages and paths
- Finding a teacher, if you want
- Using everyone and everything as a teacher
- Creating the new vow
I am probably not fully qualified to teach this curriculum, but if you are interested, let me know. I think I could do one-on-one work with a few people. Everyone's gotta start somewhere.
Very interesting dichotomy! Definitely seems worth trying. I'm confused about the reading/screen time/video games distinction though. Why would reading seem appealing but being in front of a screen not? Watching TV is essentially identical to reading right? You're taking in a preset story either way. Admittedly you can read faster than TV characters can talk, so maybe that makes it more rewarding?
Also, while playing more video games while recovering and fewer while resting makes sense (they're an easy activity while low on energy, and thus will take up much of a recovery day, but less of a rest day), "just following my gut" can still lead to plenty of gaming. Does this mean that I should still play some on a rest day, just less? That I almost never have enough energy to rest instead of recover? That I'm too into gaming and this is skewing my gut such that a good rest day rule would be "follow your gut, except playing fewer/no games today"?
I think that "video games" is too broad of a category here; I think there are both games which feel Resty and games which feel more Recovery-y.
I think Kaj is right. But in general, video games / TV feel like they help me escape the present moment, avoid thinking about something or feeling my body, and keep me in my head. Video games also have that feeling of fake productivity which makes them feel like a compulsive "pretend work." (Aka pica.)
I guess I also should have distinguished "reading for pleasure" and "productive reading." I was advocating for the former and not so much the latter.
Once, I did a spontaneous picnic where I put a blanket outside somewhere nice and brought a basket of food and a book. And I just lounged outside, reading [Annihilation] and eating and looking at nature. If I imagine having TV instead, I feel like I lose the ability to choose where my attention goes freely. With a book, I can pause or daydream and take my time with it more easily.
But really it's up to you what counts as Restful. I can imagine watching video interviews Restful for some reason. Or listening to podcasts. I'm less sure what Restful video games for me would be.
That make a fair bit of sense. And what are your thoughts on work days? I get my work for my job done, but advice on improving productivity on chores and future planning would be appreciated. Also good point on pica!
So some very general links (since 'improving productivity on chores and future planning' sounds like it could mean a lot of things):
- Designing your life so that your attention is exactly where you want it to be naturally: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HHjn3r8n7bJp6Q5HE/hammertime-day-4-design
- Resting in motion: http://mindingourway.com/rest-in-motion/
- Marie Kondo's methods seem pretty good for getting chores done / actively wanting to do them (I felt motivated watching her Netflix special): https://www.livible.com/blog/ultimate-konmari-guide/
- General post on productivity: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/P3zrurj5hHKFKDL3M/productivity-working-towards-a-summary-of-what-we-know
- Implementing something like a Getting Things Done system: https://zenkit.com/en/blog/a-beginners-guide-to-getting-things-done/
Overall, I've gotten large gains out of designing my life such that work feels like water flowing downhill rather than me trying to trudge uphill.
I use Policy-Based Intentions a fair amount, as a way to save willpower. I'm like a game designer trying to design the maze that my mouse is running in, if that makes sense. And I try to make it easy for the mouse to make the correct decisions depending on the situation.
Has anyone else run into the issue where they don't really want to rest - they just want to do different work?
When I try a rest day, I immediately just want to play a strategy video game. I have an urge to study, improve, learn, etc. That's literally what my mind always goes to. I don't really want to rest, I want to work, it just seems clear that, deep down, I don't think the work I do on normal days is worthwhile.
Rest/Recovery days is a wonderful framework, one that will replace my current system of designated “autonomy days” and “obligation days”. For me I categorized days around agency, how much control did I have to choose tasks and which order I did them in. Which worked wonderfully when I chose wholesome tasks, but would go poorly when I chose too many insubstantial activities.
I've made these comments previously, but for purposes of having at least one official review:
- I think the names aren't optimal. Zombie days or Slug days or some-such seem like an improvement for "recovery days." I think it's also possible that Rest day might be more unambiguous if it were called a "Restorative day" or somethjing.
- I think the post doesn't quite call enough attention to "this is specifically about listening to your gut. Your gut is a specific part of your body. Listening to it is a skill you might not have. Listening to it is a useful source of information that you might not otherwise be in tune with." I missed that the first time around and had to have it explained to me by Qiaochu. .
Followup work:
As I told Val in a similarly meta-genre'd post last year, I think it's fine for individual posts to not be super rigorous. But, it's good for ideas to go through a longterm process where eventually we check in on them more thoroughly. So, some things I'd like to see someone look at someday:
How many people actually tried "aiming for true Rest days"? How many of those people actually found something valuable out of it? This post makes intuitive sense to me, but it seems like the sort of domain I expect people to overgeneralize and confuse themselves over. I'd like at least some sense of the strength of the anecdata.
I've tried to do Restorative days sometimes. I got some value from it, and I've seen enough people claim value from various Sabbath-activities that there's probably something there. But, how often and how long do the Rest days actually need to be? (Obviously one size may not fit all. But I suspect we can get a lot more/better data on what the typical use case actually is like and what works best as a starting point.
I'd also like to see the "listen to your gut?" concept fleshed out into a more concrete hypothesis.
I agree about the names. 'Rest' days are particularly confusing, since recovery days involve a lot of rest. A main characteristic of 'rest' days instead seems to doing what you feel like and following your gut.
In my experience, a day off is most likely to improve energy levels and motivation if it is spent doing outdoor exercise.
On the other hand, spending one hour a day on outdoor exercise is more effective than spending one day a week on exercise.
I want my whole life to be a long series of Rest days. Enjoying each moment as it passes by.
To live in the moment and not bound by what does Capitalism want me to do to get my bed and butter. One day, hopefully, when Technology an take care of everything, we will be able to live our fullest wholesome lives.