True Rest For Better English And Enhanced Well-Being Ep 634

Enhance English Listening Skills: Unlocking the Power of Rest and Relaxation

🎧 Boost Your English Fluency & Relax 😌

Learn about the magic of TRUE REST while boosting your English fluency! Today's English lesson brings you a one-of-a-kind learning experience that combines language skills with personal well-being.

• 🌿 Find balance in life and language 📚
• 💡 Enhance your English fluency effortlessly 🚀
• 😌 Experience inner peace while learning ✨
• 👂 Develop listening skills through engaging content 🎯
• 🗣️ Boost your confidence in spoken British English 🇬🇧

✔Lesson transcript: https://adeptenglish.com/lessons/english-listening-serenity-rest/

Improve your English while learning the importance of true rest for recovery from long-COVID or burnout. Discover insights, tips, and 10 unique words. Unlock rejuvenation today!

• #EnglishFluency #LearnBritishEnglish #MindfulLearning

Dive into our lesson and let the power of true rest propel your English language journey to new heights! Sign up now and elevate your learning experience! 🌟

By exploring the topic of true rest, you'll not only gain essential knowledge about well-being, but also improve your fluency through exposure to unusual vocabulary words and engaging content. This lesson is designed to make real-world connections, which will help you internalize new words and sentence structures, allowing you to speak more confidently and naturally in everyday conversations.

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Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes... including you.
⭐ Anne Lamott, American novelist and non-fiction writer.

Want to learn British English and relax at the same time? Check out our podcast on Spotify 🎧 and YouTube video 📺 for expert guidance. Explore more at adeptenglish.com!

More About This Lesson

Are you struggling to find the energy to keep going? In this lesson, we explore the importance of true rest, especially for those recovering from long-COVID or burnout. Discover the difference between sleep and rest, and learn how to give your body and mind the break they need. We'll share fascinating insights, practical tips, and introduce 10 unusual English words that'll expand your vocabulary. Don't miss this chance to improve your language skills and find the secret to rejuvenation. Listen now and unlock the power of rest!

The more tranquil a man becomes, the greater is his success, his influence, his power for good.
⭐ James Allen, British philosophical writer.

Engaging with this type of English content, you will not only delve into a timely and significant topic but also enrich your vocabulary with 10 unique and unusual words. This lesson's utilization of real-world examples and a compelling narrative fosters language acquisition and retention, providing you with a robust foundation to bolster your linguistic proficiency. Join me on this fascinating journey, where together, we will refine your language skills and uncover the essential art of rest. Your growth and success as a language learner are our top priorities, and I am confident that this lesson will contribute significantly to your progress.

Students often think that constant practice and pushing oneself without taking breaks is the most effective way to achieve fluency quickly. In reality, incorporating true rest and mental relaxation into one's language learning journey is essential for preventing burnout, managing stress, and ultimately leading to more efficient and sustainable progress in acquiring fluency. Sometimes going a little slower is faster.

So why should you listen to this type of English language learning lesson?

• You will learn the importance of true rest in preventing burnout, helping you maintain a healthy balance between language learning and self-care.
• This lesson highlights the benefits of proper rest in improving the efficiency of your language learning journey, ultimately leading to better progress and understanding of English.
• You will discover how true rest can combat mental fatigue and enhance your ability to focus on learning English.
• Following the guidance in this lesson, you will learn how resting your mind and body can actually boost your learning efficiency and make your English learning journey more fruitful.
• This lesson teaches you the art of true rest, helping you effectively manage stress and maintain a positive mindset throughout your language learning experience.

Questions You Might Have...

As you gently navigate through the smooth waters of true rest, while you enhance your English fluency, you'll encounter captivating vocabulary about rest, relaxation, and rejuvenation. Just as a sailor needs to find safe harbour to rest and repair their vessel, this lesson teaches you the importance of giving your mind and body the proper rest they need to continue your journey toward English fluency with renewed energy and focus. Set sail with Adept English and let the soothing waves of this lesson guide you to a newfound appreciation of true rest and its impact on your language learning adventure.

1. How does this lesson help me learn to speak British English fluently? This lesson provides engaging listening practice while discussing the art of true rest. By listening to the content repeatedly, you'll improve your understanding of spoken English, pronunciation, and vocabulary, thus enhancing your fluency.
2. How does the art of true rest relate to learning English? The lesson highlights the importance of both physical and mental rest in the process of language learning. Resting while learning can help you retain and process new language concepts more effectively.
3. How often should I listen to this lesson to improve my English fluency? It's recommended to listen to the lesson multiple times to better understand spoken English and familiarize yourself with new vocabulary and phrases. Regular listening practice is essential for enhancing your fluency.
4. Can I benefit from this lesson even if I don't have long-COVID or Chronic Fatigue? Yes, the insights about true rest and its importance are applicable to anyone looking to improve their English fluency. Proper rest and stress management are essential for efficient language learning, regardless of your personal circumstances.
5. Where can I find more English listening practice lessons like this one? You can visit the Adept English website for more listening lessons and a free English course. Subscribing to our podcast on various platforms is another way to access our content regularly.

Most Unusual Words:

• Convalescing: Recovering or getting better after an illness or surgery
• Prescribe: When a doctor recommends a treatment, medicine, or action to help a patient
• Pyjamas: Clothes that you wear to sleep
• Fatigue: Extreme tiredness, often not relieved by sleep
• Chronic: Lasting for a long time or happening repeatedly
• Taxing: Demanding, needing a lot of mental or physical effort
• Amuse: To entertain or make someone laugh
• Expend: To use up or consume something, like energy
• Tune in: To pay close attention to something or become aware of it
• Quieten: To make something less noisy, active, or busy; to calm down

Most Frequently Used Words:

Listen To The Audio Lesson Now

Transcript: True Rest For Better English And Enhanced Well-Being

What does ‘to rest’ really mean?

Hi there. Today we’re going to talk about rest, REST. And I don’t mean sleep - that’s a subject I’ve covered a lot. No, today I’m talking about actually ‘taking time out’, resting. Lots of people who’ve had COVID have found themselves needing to do this - particularly if they’ve been affected by long-COVID. So today we’re going to talk about true ‘rest’, taking time out and what it actually means. Importantly, ‘rest’ is very different from ‘sleep’. And this subject is also relevant for people who believe that they suffer from ‘burn out’ - that’s BURN OUT - that’s when you’ve worked too hard and you can’t do it any more.

Hello, I’m Hilary, and you’re listening to Adept English. We will help you to speak English fluently. All you have to do is listen. So start listening now and find out how it works.

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The importance of rest

Back to our topic. I learned a bit about what ‘resting’ means previously when I needed to have surgery and I needed to ‘convalesce’ afterwards. The verb ‘to convalesce’, CONVALESCE means ‘to rest, to take time out, to get better’. I’d never had surgery before - ‘surgery’, SURGERY means ‘a medical operation’, usually under general anaesthetic. So after that, I had to try to learn to ‘rest properly’ - which was really difficult for me! I’m a very busy person. But I thought I’d share with you what I learned from this experience!

So rest. That’s a little word, REST - and it really means something different from sleep. It means ‘take time out’, ‘chill out’, ‘slow down’. Since the pandemic, I’ve worked in therapy with people who’ve got long-COVID. This is the illness, which may be familiar to you, where people have COVID then once they might reasonably expect to feel better, they actually don’t. And instead they feel tired all the time - and they aren’t able to get on with what they normally do. This sort of ‘tiredness’ - that’s TIREDNESS and means ‘a state of being tired’, well we usually call it ‘fatigue’, FATIGUE. And in fact, long-COVD seems similar in some ways to a condition that people sometimes have, without COVID being involved - and that’s a condition called ‘Chronic Fatigue’. And as I’ve said to you before, the word ‘chronic’, CHRONIC means ‘for a long time’ - ‘Chronic Fatigue’. So we use ‘fatigue’ to mean the sort of tiredness that doesn’t go away, isn’t resolved by a ‘good night’s sleep’. Hence ‘Chronic Fatigue’ is seen as a medical condition and something that’s quite hard to solve.

True Rest For Better English And Enhanced Well-Being Ep 634 Article Image

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A couple resting on a bed. Learn British English fluently while truly resting. Listen to our Apple Podcasts to enhance your English language skills

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Rest can be prescribed to you

So if you’re in one of these situations - either you’re having to recover or ‘convalesce’, you’ve got burn out from over-working, you’ve had long-COVID or you’ve got some of the symptoms of ‘Chronic Fatigue’, then ‘rest’ may be something that’s not just recommended, but is actually prescribed to you. ‘To prescribe’, PRESCRIBE - that’s the verb we use for when doctors order medication for us - they ‘prescribe medicines’. And the ‘prescription’ is the noun, PRESCRIPTION - that’s the word for the ‘medicine order’, if you like. But doctors now prescribe things like ‘rest’ or ‘the gym’ or even activities like gardening, as it is increasingly recognised that not every condition or illness that human beings have, should or can be addressed by pharmaceutical drugs! So if you are ‘prescribed rest’, what does this mean?

Well. I think the mistake that many people make is to imagine that if they’re resting their body, then they can still be doing something energetic with their mind. We’re all familiar with the idea of working from home and this is possible for many jobs, but not al of course. So if you’re working from home, you’re perhaps at your laptop and you’re in your pyjamas, with a cup of tea on the side. Your pyjamas, that’s PYJAMAS - meaning ‘the clothes that you wear to sleep in’ - and you’re working, on your laptop. So agreed, this is probably a little less stressful than going into the office would be. But wearing pyjamas and working from home doesn’t protect you from work stress! Stress can be of course, physical effort, but more often for us in modern life it’s mental effort - stress is ‘of the mind’.

Resting isn’t just taking time out physically

So I think that what we sometimes do when we’re supposed to be ‘resting’ - we ‘rest’ our bodies, we sit or we lie down, but we don’t ‘rest our minds’ sufficiently. Particularly if you’re someone with a very busy mind - I know, I have one of those! Resting the mind can be quite a challenge. It can be hard enough, if you’re a busy person to get yourself to simply sit down, stop, to physically rest. But the idea of ‘mental rest’ is something that’s harder to recognise the need for. But neurological activity is one of the most demanding actions - it’s one of the things that taxes us the most. Just in pure energy terms, the brain uses glucose, GLUCOSE.

The brain uses a surprising amount of energy. If we’re properly to rest, then we do need to rest our brains too! Our brains burn 20% of the energy that we use every day. That’s 400-500 calories - through thoughts, thinking, through transmitting through electrical signals. Sending and processing the electrical signals - the way that the brain communicates. That’s very expensive in terms of our energy expenditure. But it’s not just the expenditure of calories - or physically what it costs to ‘run’ our brain. There’s the psychological energy and space taken too. That’s a different thing. If you think of much of our stress in modern life that we carry, it’s driven by our thoughts and perceptions. It’s psychological. Most of us in modern life aren’t stressed because a ‘woolly mammoth’ is after us! We’re stressed about ideas, notions, things like paying our bills, whether or not we get promoted at work, whether we’ve got health concerns, what might happen in the future, whether our streets are safe, what are children are up to.

For most people, stress is less about immediate threats in our world and much more about ‘what’s going to happen, unknown things in the future?’ And this is very much driven by our minds, our psychology. So that ‘takes its toll’ on us as well. Resting properly means not just taking time out physically, but taking time out mentally as well. Stopping worrying about these sorts of things in other words.

Listening Lessons

What does mental rest look like?

So what does ‘mental rest’ look like? Well, rather like physical rest, you need to ramp things down. That means first of all not doing work. Not even if you’re in your pyjamas. That means not doing your tax return or not planning a holiday. They’re things which are taxing on the brain. And if you’re watching something on TV or your laptop, or you’re reading something - it should be non-taxing, non-demanding, non-challenging. Something fairly light. Something that perhaps amuses you or makes you laugh would be OK - or which entertains you in a way that’s light, superficial, relaxing. ‘Superficial’, SUPERFICIAL means ‘not deep, on the surface’.

Even something that you’ve read or watched before might be a good idea. It’s less of a challenge the second time through - there’s comfort in the familiarity. And if you do need to go lie down in bed and have a sleep, then that’s OK too! Usually I don’t recommend sleeping in the middle of the day because it’s likely to upset your routine and your sleep schedule at night time. But if you’re suffering from fatigue, long-COVID, burnout or you’re convalescing, then the rules are different and having a sleep during the day can be very helpful to your recovery.

Download The Podcast Audio & Transcript

I think that usually we’re unaware of our energy use. But sometimes, if you’ve been ill with a cold or the flu - that’s ‘FLU, ‘influenza’ in other words - when you attempt to start to get back to normal, you do become aware of feeling exhausted after only doing a couple of things. You put the washing on, you sweep the floor - and ‘Oof!’ - you’ve had enough and you need to go back to bed. We do get an idea in this scenario of how much our body uses energy, how much we are ‘used up’, just by doing small things. Our body makes us aware in this type of situation - but in normal life, when we’re well, we’re much less aware of the need for rest. And certainly in the situations that I’m talking about today, we may not be as aware as we need to be of the importance of both physical and mental rest.

How does mental rest benefit us?

And the benefits of resting for the conditions that I’ve described? Well, if you’re convalescing after an illness or an operation, then you’re likely to recover much more quickly with adequate rest, which is mental as well as physical. If you’ve got Chronic Fatigue or long-COVID, it’s probably going to take longer. But the really important thing is to tune into your body, to become aware of what it needs, how it communicates with you when things are too much. It seems only by learning to respect this, learning to take notice of this, is recovery possible. But actually recovery from long-COVID is beginning to happen now for the people who have it. So have hope, if that’s something you’re suffering from. Recovery involves learning to treat ourselves more gently, more thoughtfully and with much more ‘tuning in’ to our own body’s needs and learning the skill of quietening the body and the mind.

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Goodbye

Let us know what you think of this podcast - we always love to hear from you. And don’t forget to listen to it a number of times in order to improve your understanding of spoken English.

Enough for now. Have a lovely day. Speak to you again soon. Goodbye.

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