I just read a fantastic article entitled “To Get More Done, Slow Down” from Peter Bergman over at the Harvard Business Blog.

This article hit close to home as I have been thinking about this very subject quite a bit in my own life.  Downtime is important.  We try to pretend that it is not, or worse that it is a bad thing.  No pain no gain right?

Thats one way to live life I guess.  However, most people I know that live by that mantra end up miserable emotionally and suffering physically and health-wise sooner or later.

Think about lifting a dumbbell to make your arm stronger.  Although you don’t really think about it, the rest part of lifting weights is just as important as the actual lifting itself.  There are olympic weight lifters that only lift once or twice a week because they realize the importance of rest and recover in the muscle building process.  Its during recovery that muscle is actually strengthened, not during the activity.

Anyways, this principle has application in many other areas of life.  I think you’d agree that we typically don’t do enough recovery.  If you are not giving yourself one or two days a week of rest, it will catch up to you.  Its not a matter of if, its a matter of when.

Read the article.  Its facinating.