It’s harder than you think. We live in a world that celebrates busyness and productivity.

Messages we have received in society, in our families/upbringing, the media and at work/school implicitly or explicitly tell us that we must fill every moment with productivity and achievement.

Have you been in that place where you feel too exhausted to work, but too wired to rest, so you make yourself busy to avoid feeling guilt about standing still?

You could even be feeling the first icy grip of burnout.

Any attempt to rest or recuperate is met with thoughts around what needs to be done in the home or on the farm. And let’s be honest – there is no end to these tasks.

This sensation of needing to keep moving and keep on being productive accompanied by a nervous compulsion to complete task after task is a state where it is almost impossible to allow your nervous system to feel safe. Your mind races through the tasks that must be completed, or it thinks of the consequences you may face if you fail to complete them.

Your ability to relax and embrace everyday chances to rest your mind, such as daydreaming, naps, reading, taking a walk, or a long conversation with someone who matters to you, can drastically affect how calm, content, and present you are able to be.

Doing these things will send a message to your nervous system that you are safe and that you can relax.

Finding and carrying out activities that put you in a “flow state” – that is when you are so immersed in a chosen activity that time slips away without you noticing – are extremely beneficial to your mental health and allow us to feel safe and rested.

To address this imbalance, you must turn your attention inwards and figure out what it is that your internal self is lacking - it could be more rest, sleep, silence or solitude.

It is unlikely that what you need will come from external sources.

Shift your focus to thinking about different tasks and whether they are a “rubber ball” or a “glass ball”. Which tasks absolutely cannot be dropped, or they may “smash”, such as supporting your children or partner, or feeding your stock, and which ones could “bounce away” to another person, or be available for you to pick up later?

This may help you to accurately assess your priorities in a different way.

If you are at a point where you may need to take a break to preserve your mental health or prevent burnout, I realise that there are extra challenges if you are on farm.

The first step is likely to be communicating to your family/friends/neighbours that you are finding things a bit tough at the moment, and you might be surprised at how people show up – people often actually like to help when given the opportunity.

Nobody ever received a medal for never taking time off and running themselves into the ground.

Address your boundaries if you haven’t already: if you have traditionally found it difficult to say no to requests from others, or to allow people to run roughshod over you, how could things be different for you without these extra challenges weighing you down?

Are you heavily scheduling your days out of a fear of lacking productivity?

Maybe it’s time to think about how you really want to live your life, and what matters to you.

By Kathryn Wright

Kathryn Wright is a registered counsellor specialising in rural mental health.

http://www.kathrynwright.co.nz