Dedrian R. Barrett: The 24-hour Rest Day

In 2016, Microsoft had one simple request. They wanted Kivi Bernhard to be their keynote speaker for a very prestigious conference. Now, Kivi Bernhard is a spectacular orator who built a successful diamond business from the ground up in the United States. However, their request had one simple problem. You see, Kivi Bernhard, his day of rest was the same day as the conference, and as a result, he declined the offer. Now, Microsoft did what any Fortune 500 company would do: They increased their compensation price significantly, but he still declined. Now, Microsoft wanted Kivi so much so that they decided to move the conference to another day just to acquire Mr. Bernhard. A couple of months later, Mr. Bernhard received a phone call from a senior executive at Microsoft. In this phone call, the senior executive detailed to Mr. Bernhard a conversation that took place on Mr. Gates’ private air jet. And at this air jet, the planning committee for the conference was telling Mr. Gates how difficult it was to acquire Mr. Bernhard. He simply paused and responded with: “That’s what happens when you have something that money cannot buy.” In my life, I have seen the words of Mr. Gates to be true. I personally rest for 24 hours each week. Now, what does my rest really look like? Well, I rest from Friday at sunset to Saturday at sunset. During that time, I don’t do any work. No academic work. I don’t check my emails, nor do I look at or pay my bills. My friends and family know that I am free, and we have the chance to hang out and just spend time with each other if we so choose. So you may be wondering: How does a 22-year-old young man dental student get to resting for 24 hours each week? Well, I will tell you that it’s actually been in my family for a really long time, stretching all the way back to my great-grandparents. However, for so long, it was just a tradition. It’s not something I really took on as my own. But it wasn't till about halfway through high school and then two years after that that I began to really make resting my own. So what was the reason for my rest? Why did I begin to rest so much? Well, it starts with “burn” and ends with “out.” You see, burnout is something that plagues so many Americans and I’m sure a lot of us in this auditorium today. And the funny thing about my journey and how I encountered burnout was that I didn’t even know I was burned out. I just found myself unenthusiastic, unmotivated and just not happy with life. And that’s the best way that I could describe it. But thus began my long healing journey from burnout. And I learned a lot of things along the way. Now, resting for 24 hours each week was very important in me healing from burnout, but it was even more important in me preventing burnout. You see, we learn about two types of medicine in school. The first is preventative medicine, and it’s a style of healthcare which has a goal of preventing a certain outcome from manifesting. But then there’s also curative medicine, which has a primary goal of curing or eradicating a already present disease. Resting for 24 hours each week has been my most effective and potent way of keeping burnout at bay. I often tell myself if something takes more than six days out of my week to complete, it probably isn’t worth doing. You see in that statement are not themes of laziness or me giving up, but there is a theme of self-respect. So what has my rest looked like? Or what has it done for me? I kind of boiled it down to three things for you guys. The first is that I kind of see that I have a higher work ethic because I rest for 24 hours each week. So let’s go back in time. Do you remember when we were kids, and our parents let us know, “Hey, at the end of school, I’m going to take you to the ice cream shop? Or we’re going to go to your favorite restaurant?” Well, that’s all we looked forward to for that day. We were excited. That’s kind of how I look at my rest. During the week I put in extra work, in a healthy way, of course, working very hard because I know I have something to look forward to at the end of the week. Number two: I find that my mental health is a little bit more resilient. You see, the things that we encounter each and every day during the week have a way of just gnawing us down, making us feel like we have nothing left. Well, when I rest for that one day I have a chance just to recollect myself, get myself back together so that I’m rejuvenated and ready for the next week. And then lastly, I find that my sleeping schedule is a little bit more consistent because I rest for 24 hours. Being a dental student, sometimes I’m going to bed late, getting up early, doing what I have to do to succeed along with my classmates. But resting for 24 hours each week allows me just to get in bed at a early time, get up when I want, guilt-free, and that I’m ready for the next week at hand. Now, I know we’re all sensible people here, and I told you my story, but I also brought data with me because it's important, right? The first thing that I would like to talk to you about is an article by Forbes. And in this article, the author was trying to communicate why resting is so important and how to unpack and unwind from such a busy and robust world. Well, they brought up something very interesting to me, and that's our sympathetic nervous system. Your sympathetic nervous system is a program that’s built into each and every one of us to help keep us alive. For instance, let’s say that you’re walking down a forest path in primitive society, looking for some berries, delicious berries. And from a rustling bush sprung forth a pack of hungry wolves. Well, your sympathetic nervous system would initiate, so your lungs would open up to take in more air, more blood would rush to your muscles to bring nutrients and oxygen, and even your eyes would dilate to take in more information. You’re ready to survive. Now, I call it the sympathetic nervous system, but you might know it as the “fight-or-flight response.” And this has kept humans alive for many, many years. Now, this is great and all; it really is. But it can have a little downside to it. You see, when your sympathetic nervous system is activated, a hormone called cortisol is also released, and we call that the stress hormone. Now, in today's society, it can be a little hard because it doesn’t just take a pack of hungry wolves to make your sympathetic nervous system initiate. It can be a bad grade, a group project or a bill that’s so high that you can’t pay. And at that time, your sympathetic nervous system initiates because you think you need to fight or flight. Well, you want to know how you correct or deal with all the negative side effects of stress and the sympathetic nervous system? Well, you initiate the parasympathetic nervous system, or what we like to call the “rest and digest” phase. And during that time, your body’s able to rejuvenate and you promote healthy bodily functions. The next thing that I would like to talk about is what happens when you push your body to the point where it can’t handle it. If you don’t rest, what actually happens? And I think through that, we’re able to see why rest is really important. Well, the first thing I’d like to discuss is something that I’m sure that we all can agree on in this auditorium, and it’s that drunk driving is terrible. It claims so many lives per year and as well a lot of hearts of parents, siblings and more. Well, I was able to find a study. It compared drunk driving to fatigued driving. And they were able to find that those were fatigued had a mean reaction time that was 0.52 seconds slower than those who were drunk. What does that mean? Well, it means that those who were fatigued could not react or process information as well as someone who was drunk. And to me, that’s really profound. You see, when we're fatigued, when we push ourselves to that level or that breaking point, our minds take a big hit, and our productivity can go down, our creativity as well can fall. And in a world where our productivity and creativity are so important to us becoming the best academic individuals and career individuals that we want to be, I say to rest, preserve those qualities of yourself. The last thing that I would like to talk about is a part of our being that typically forces us to rest more often than not, which is our bodies. You see, there’s something called “overtraining syndrome.” And while burnout kind of more so deals with the mind, overtraining syndrome is with the body. So it kind of is characterized by someone who is constantly working out, pushing theirselves - most of the time an athlete - to the point that even though they’re working out more and more, their performance is declining. Sound familiar? And what’s amazing about this is that the side effects, or the symptoms, are very similar to burnout. So they’ll become unenthusiastic about life. They’re moody and unmotivated. And interestingly enough, they’re even more prone to infection. So I want to know: How does someone deal with overtraining syndrome? Well, I posed this question to our favorite search engine, which starts with a G, and you want to know what was ninth on that list? Take time to rest. Just give your body a time to relax. Go outside, enjoy the day. Eat right, but rest. Now, if we take that same amount of care with our bodies, why not with our minds? So what prevents us from resting? What gets in the way? Why can’t we rest? Well, I would tell you, it's things like low socioeconomic status, third-shift jobs, weekend jobs and much more. And of course, themes of self-idolatrism, consumerism and capitalism in our society just don’t make matters worse - or better for that. So how can you rest? How can you incorporate resting into your life? Well, I have three pointers for you. The first is that you have to plan to rest. You see, resting does not just happen because we always have something to do, always have somewhere to be, and our lives, if left up to us sometimes will just be filled with work. You have to prioritize it. Make it something that you want to do and have to do. Number two: With resting, you want to do it with people. Like with anything in life, it’s more enjoyable when others are around. I encourage you to rest with your friends because it also adds that accountability component to it. And then lastly, when resting for 24 hours each week, be committed. There are going to be things that come along the way that will kind of challenge you, that will want to make you compromise on your commitment. And I encourage you not to. I say that we all should be like Kivi Bernhard. No matter the obstacle or the request, we stick to our rest. Benjamin Franklin once said, “He that can rest is greater than he that can take cities.” Resting for 24 hours each week won’t make you a religious guru, but it can make you a happy and healthy guru. Thank you. (Applause)