READING TIME: 5 Minutes

Don't we all just live for our evenings and weekends?

From our busy work-week, we certainly need a break. After a long day, you need a beer or a glass of wine.

And we deserve it, right?

I fully agree. You won't hear us telling you to grind, hustle, and slave away until your bones hurt. We all deserve rest and a break from the woes of life.

Rephrasing the concept of rest however, allows for some deeper thought on the subject: "Your body deserves a break."

Shifts our mindset a bit, hey? I know it's crazy for this blog, but perhaps the tone of health when it comes to rest shouldn't be forgotten?!

We want you to get the most of your rest time and so we've curated a quick checklist to ensure that what you're doing really serves you.

Our expectations for what rest-time SHOULD do for us:

Relax us
Get us ready for a good sleep
Get us ready to take on the next day
Be the time to spend with family and friends
Make us feel better after the long and/or tough day
Get to the yard work, finish projects, fix our cars, go to appointments, oh, and our hobbies!

Read on to find a few helpful tips to help you make sure those expectations are met...

Here are 4 Checks You Can Do Before You "Put Your Feet Up"

1. Life-giving VS. Life-dulling?

This one is quite tough for me and it might be for you. It's continually a battle to manage doing "activity" during my evenings and weekends instead of staying at home, cooking a nice meal, sitting with a glass of wine and just "vegetating."

Now let me be clear, it's completely your call as to how you spend your time, but this is still a great question: could it be that whatever I'm doing to "veg" on Tuesday night may actually leave me more sluggish and tired at work the next day.

OR maybe I kinda feel sorry for myself that I didn't get more done?

OR worse, do I even remember that extra popcorn at the movies or few extra hours of Pinterest browsing in a week?

Maybe I actually should've made time to phone my Grandma back home instead?

I know, priorities are hard!

2. How will I feel: In 1 Hour AND 1 Day?

We can talk about food choices again here. Eating a meal full of vegetables, some lean lentils and chickpeas or some chicken breast that might give you a bit more energy tomorrow than the seemingly harmless stop at Subway 3 nights a week on the way home. If you've been wanting to see some changes to your fitness, waistline or dress size, then even simply thinking like this can help!

3. Could this be more mindful VS. mindless?

Often we feel our brains need a break. I've even caught myself saying "My brain hurts" after a long day.

But does our typical solution really fix the problem?

Canadians now average 30 hours of TV time per week! Not only that, 58% state they even multi-task with a mobile device at the same time. We also know that extended TV time can cause major changes in brain structure, lower verbal IQ and cause detriments in our ability to solve problems and communicate effectively. If we are doing that as a "break" from our jobs and stressors, it may just be time for a wake-up call; "breaking" our brain may just be more accurate.

So you have a few options. Read! You're winning here by fending off Alzheimer's, making you sharper, increasing your ability to empathize with people and cause a chill-out factor (ok technically, it reduces stress) [Source].

Exercise can't hurt either... especially if the honest truth is that you'd like to get stronger and lose a few inches AND you're not currently doing 3+ days of exercise per week.

4. Is This REALLY How I Want To Spend My Time?

It's quite common for us to actually regret the time we've spent away.

We come back from vacations and wish we would've spent less money shopping or more time on that one beach we loved. We get back to work on Monday and kick ourselves because another weekend went by where the garage didn't get organized. Somehow, we did find time for the Hockey game and a piece of cheesecake.

Although there's nothing wrong with any of that stuff in a life-lived-in-moderation, getting serious about how we spend our time isn't a bad thing either.

Often prioritizing what we want to get done over the weekend, even if there is a bit more effort involved, pays off.

We have a skip in our step of accomplishment that lasts throughout the whole week, keeping us light and alive.

For some reason, cheesecake doesn't seem to have the same effect.

Continual regret also has some serious affects on long-term stress, and can even cause immune system damage.

So, I urge you to consider if its time to changes things up.

When you come back to work on Monday and already feel tired, dreading the rest of the week... what you're doing to rest probably isn't working.

Using these questions has been so effective for me.

Feeling like my life has far greater value PLUS my days at work are full of energy, I get things done quicker and with higher quality, and I'm just nicer to people throughout my day.

So give it a go, hey?

Then maybe you'll get those baseboards that need to get finished done a bit faster, and save you a few moments of regret thinking "Well dang it, I sure did throw away last night, didn't I?". Heck maybe you'll even become smarter, and instead of staring blankly at a TV screen, you'll find be inspired by a book you read to pitch something new at work that lands you a new promotion!

Rest is supposed to be ENERGIZING, FULFILLING and FUN... you deserve to make yours count.

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[Day 5]: 4 Questions to Ask Before "Taking It Easy"