Productive Living: Sacred Rest, with Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith – TPW473

Honoring sacred rest can make a big difference in our quality of life I'm excited to share with you my conversation with internal medicine physician, author, and speaker Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith as part of our Productive Living series. Who is Saundra? Saundra is a board-certified internal medicine physician, speaker, and award-winning author. She is an international well-being thought leader featured in numerous media outlets including Prevention, MSNBC, Women’s Day, FOX, Fast Company, Psychology Today, INC, CNN Health, and TED.com. She is the author of numerous books including her bestseller Sacred Rest: Recover Your Life, Renew Your Energy, Restore Your Sanity. Saundra lives in Alabama with her husband Bobby and their two kids.  How Saundra got started About 15 years ago, despite having a fulfilling career and a busy family life, Saundra became burnt out. She was in one of the busiest times of her career and didn't want to quit her practice or anything else she was doing. Rather, she wanted to learn how to thrive (and not just survive) in her career while still enjoying her family and maintaining her personal life. This desire has inspired her journey and life's work, which is to learn more about her own rest deficits and teach others about how important rest is in their daily life, especially when it comes to productivity. A typical day for Saundra There is no such thing as a typical day for Saundra, mostly due to her busy schedule. She considers herself to be a multi-passionate woman, meaning she doesn't limit herself to one area of interest. She wants to explore all her passions without limitations. As a result, she has a lot of freedom and for her, this produces a meaningful life. When she is free, she is able to be her most productive and happiest. She does have some structure in her day when it comes to her morning routine, though. Each day, she tries to do a self-assessment to determine how she is feeling (something she never did before, contributing to her burnout). Is she tired or stressed out? What areas of her life are taking up the most energy for her and how can she restore this energy? If she can identify the area in which she is feeling the most depleted, she will focus on that area during the day. In the evening, she takes time to wind down her sensory input, simply because she tends to be on sensory overload a lot. She's an introvert who enjoys space and peace and quiet. Because of this, she has to create white space in her evenings in order to relax. This allows her to sleep deeper and longer. The importance of sacred rest Saundra was inspired to write her book after seeing so many patients in her medical practice who were suffering from lack of rest, just like she was. She would check the patient's vitals and remind them to relax but this wasn't helpful long term. What the patients needed and wanted to hear from her was how to fix the exhaustion they were feeling. Saundra began to have conversations with her patients about rest and how they are restoring themselves. This type of conversation was uncommon to have at a doctor's visit and wasn't always easy for her patients to understand. But, Saundra used her own real-life examples, which really helped her patients to see what was happening. When writing her book, Saundra was sure to include her own experiences as well, recognizing the relief that comes when you realize you are not the only person going through a particular experience, especially when it's your own doctor. People pleasing work-aholic go-getters don't excel at rest without an internal battle. Rest requires submission of the soul, and the soul wants what the soul wants. It fights back against rest by holding up all the pretty fruit busyness is...