I briefly mentioned in my post two weeks ago on bereavement leave that one of the things I did was rest a lot. I don’t mind admitting that this was something I found really hard. I have written previously about the impact that grief has on our nervous system, with an increase in both adrenaline and cortisol in response to the stress of bereavement taking us outside of our window of tolerance. It is crucial that we find ways to help our nervous system to become regulated again so that we can begin to heal, and one of the key ways to do this is by rest. It’s not as easy as just telling ourselves to calm down and chill out, of course, and I found a focus on rest to paradoxically be really hard work!