You're tired. Not just "I stayed up too late watching Netflix" tired, but a deep, bone-aching exhaustion that a solid eight hours of sleep doesn't seem to touch. Honestly, most of us have been there. We wake up, chug a third cup of coffee, and wonder why we still feel like a phone battery stuck at 14 percent. This is exactly where Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith enters the chat. She’s an internal medicine physician who realized, after years of seeing patients—and experiencing it herself—that sleep and rest are actually two very different things.
We’ve been sold a lie. The lie is that if you close your eyes for a few hours, you’ll be ready to conquer the world. But if your soul is tired, sleep won't fix that. If your brain is buzzing with a thousand open tabs, sleep won't fix that either. Dr. Dalton-Smith's work, specifically her book Sacred Rest, identifies seven distinct types of rest that humans actually need to function. It’s not just some wellness trend; it’s a clinical observation of how the human body and mind recover from the friction of daily life.
The Problem With "Just Go to Bed"
Most doctors look at fatigue and check your iron levels or your thyroid. Those are important, sure. But Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith noticed a gap. She had patients with perfect blood work who still felt like they were running on empty. It’s a specific kind of "rest deficit."
Think about it this way. You wouldn't try to fix a thirsty plant by giving it more sunlight. It needs water. Humans are the same. If you are mentally drained, a physical nap is nice, but it isn't the specific "nutrient" you're missing. You’re basically trying to fill a bucket with a hole in the bottom.
1. Physical Rest (The One We Actually Know)
This is the obvious one. It’s split into two halves: passive and active. Passive is sleeping and napping. Active physical rest is stuff like yoga, stretching, or massage therapy that helps improve circulation and flexibility. If your back hurts from sitting at a desk for nine hours, a nap might help your brain, but your muscles still need that active release.
2. Mental Rest: Stopping the Brain Fog
Have you ever tried to go to sleep but your brain decided to replay every awkward conversation you've had since 2012? That’s a mental rest deficit. Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith suggests that people who need mental rest are often those who struggle to concentrate or feel like they’re constantly in a "fog."
A simple fix? Brain dumps. Keep a notepad by your bed. Write down everything you're worried about. It tells your brain, "Okay, we’ve recorded this, you can stop holding onto it now." It's basically offloading your RAM to a hard drive so your processor can cool down.
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3. Sensory Rest: The World is Too Loud
We live in a sensory nightmare. Bright lights, pings from Slack, the hum of the refrigerator, the blue light from your phone. It’s a constant bombardment. Sensory rest is about intentionally turning it all off.
- Try sitting in silence for five minutes mid-day.
- Close your eyes when you're on a phone call.
- Dim the lights an hour before bed.
It sounds small. It feels massive.
Why Social and Emotional Rest are Different (And Why You Need Both)
This is where Dr. Dalton-Smith really gets into the weeds of human connection. She makes a distinction between emotional rest and social rest that most people miss.
Emotional rest is the freedom to be authentic. It’s for the "people pleasers" and the "I’m fine" crowd. If you spend your whole day pretending everything is okay when it’s not, you are leaking energy. You need the space to say, "Actually, I’m overwhelmed," without feeling like a failure. It’s about ceasing the performance.
Social rest, on the other hand, is about the quality of your relationships. We all have "energy vampires"—people who leave us feeling exhausted after a twenty-minute coffee date. Social rest is about surrounding yourself with "life-giving" people. It’s the difference between a friend who demands your attention and a friend who just lets you be.
The Creative and Spiritual Connection
If you work in a job where you have to solve problems or build things, you’ve likely hit a wall. That’s a creative rest deficit. Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith describes creative rest as the act of allowing yourself to be "awed." It’s not about doing more work; it’s about consuming beauty. Go look at the ocean. Walk through an art gallery. Heck, even looking at a well-designed garden counts. You have to fill the well if you want to keep drawing water from it.
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Then there’s spiritual rest.
Regardless of your religious leanings, spiritual rest is about the need to belong. It’s the sense that your life has a point. It’s about connection to something bigger than your to-do list. For some, that’s prayer or meditation. For others, it’s community service or getting involved in a cause. It’s the "why" behind the "what." Without it, everything feels hollow.
What We Get Wrong About Burnout
People think burnout is just working too hard. It's more complex than that. You can work forty hours a week and be burnt out, while someone else works sixty and feels energized. Why? Because the person working sixty hours might be getting the specific types of rest they need.
Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith argues that we need to treat rest like a tactical recovery system. If you’re a teacher, you’re likely drained emotionally and socially. If you’re a data analyst, you’re likely drained mentally and sensory-wise.
The beauty of this framework is that it's diagnostic. You don't have to overhaul your whole life. You just have to figure out which of the seven buckets is empty and pour a little bit into it.
Actionable Steps to Recover Your Energy
Stop trying to fix your life with a "vacation." We’ve all taken a week off only to come back feeling just as tired on Tuesday morning. Instead, try these micro-adjustments based on Dr. Dalton-Smith’s research:
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Identify your primary deficit. For the next three days, when you feel that "wall" hit at 3:00 PM, ask yourself: Where am I tired? Is it my eyes (Sensory)? My brain (Mental)? My heart (Emotional)?
Schedule "Rest Transitions." Don't jump straight from a high-stress meeting into a conversation with your spouse. Take two minutes in the car or the hallway to breathe. That’s a micro-hit of sensory and mental rest.
Set "No-Electronics" boundaries. Seriously. The blue light and the infinite scroll are the enemies of sensory and mental rest. Even thirty minutes of tech-free time before bed changes the quality of your sleep.
Audit your inner circle. Take a look at your phone's recent calls. Who makes you feel better? Who makes you feel like you just ran a marathon? Lean into the former.
Rest isn't for the weak. It’s for the smart. By understanding the nuances of how we lose energy, we can finally start to gain it back. Dr. Dalton-Smith’s approach isn't about doing less; it's about being more intentional with how we recover so we can actually show up for the lives we’ve worked so hard to build.
Practical Next Steps
- Take the Rest Quiz: Dr. Dalton-Smith offers a free "Rest Quiz" online that helps you identify which of the seven types you are most deficient in. It’s a solid starting point if you’re feeling overwhelmed.
- The 1-Minute Rule: For the next week, pick one type of rest (like Sensory) and commit to one minute of it every day. Close your eyes and sit in silence. It sounds too easy to work, but the cumulative effect on your nervous system is real.
- Audit Your "Yes": Before saying yes to a new social commitment, ask if it will provide social rest or cause a social deficit. If you're already empty, it's okay to say no.