Five ways to wellbeing, and a quiet one that isn't on the list: Guest Post from GrounddFive ways to wellbeing, and a quiet one that isn't on the list: Guest Post from Groundd

If your workplace gives you a wellbeing allowance, this is an invitation to consider whether rest deserves a place in how you use it, not just effort.

Most of us can name the Five Ways to Wellbeing, or close enough. Connect. Give. Take notice. Be active. Keep learning. They're on staffroom posters up and down the country, and for good reason: they're simple, evidence-based actions, as the Mental Health Foundation describes them.

Look at the list again, though. Every one of them asks you to do something.

Rest isn't on the list. It isn't named in Te Whare Tapa Whā either. Taha tinana, the physical wall of Sir Mason Durie's wharenui, is about nourishing and refuelling your body, but sleep goes unsaid.

We don't think that's an oversight. Rest is assumed. It sits underneath the five, the way foundations sit underneath a house.

That matters, because wellbeing advice tends to celebrate action, while rest is what makes action possible.

But the things we assume are the things we skip.

Every year, the country asks us to turn outward

Look at what Mental Health Awareness Week has asked of us. Take time to kōrero. Reconnect with the people and places that lift you up. Build community together. This year, 12–18 October, the theme is Belonging Matters.

Each one is an invitation to turn towards other people, and we think those are the right invitations. But nobody turns towards anybody on four hours' sleep. Rest isn't the opposite of connection. It's what pays for it.

Winter has been saying this the whole time

The Mental Health Foundation puts it better than we could:

"In te ao Māori, winter is a time for rest, reflection and nourishment. It's a season of stillness, so it makes sense to slow down and be gentle with ourselves."

And Pounamu Skelton, speaking to RNZ about the maramataka, said something we haven't stopped thinking about since.

"I love this dark time of year. It's dark for a reason, and that's usually to encourage you to get back to bed early and rest."

It's the tail end of winter. The light is coming back. Most of us spent the dark months pushing through it.

Nobody teaches you how to rest

The clinical fatigue specialist Vincent Deary told RNZ that "rest is hard work for a lot of us. We don't really know how to rest and recover. It's not something that we're taught or something that we value."

That matches what we hear. Groundd have been making weighted blankets and temperature-regulating sleepwear since 2018, and the thing customers write to us about is almost never sleep science. It's permission. They tell us about the moment in the evening when they finally stopped, and how hard that moment is to reach on your own.

So here, gently, is the unglamorous list.

• Pick a finishing time, not a bedtime. Most of us don't have trouble sleeping. We have trouble stopping.
• Make the last hour boring. Dim light, cooler room, nothing that asks you to decide anything.
• Mark the change with something physical. A hot shower. A walk to the letterbox. Something with a bit of weight across your lap.
• Let it be unproductive. This is the hard one.

The part where the allowance comes in

Here's what we notice about the money. People will spend a wellbeing allowance on a gym membership without blinking, because that looks like effort, and effort feels earned. The same people often hesitate over anything meant for rest.

We think an allowance is a generous thing to have. It isn't really a discount. It's someone else saying you don't have to make the case alone.

We're a small family business. We started making weighted blankets because a few of us found that a bit of weight made stopping easier at the end of the day, and it turned out we weren't the only ones.

They don't suit everybody. Plenty of people try one and decide it isn't for them, and we'd rather say that out loud than not.

So if your allowance can help you choose rest, use it for that with the same seriousness you'd bring to a gym membership, a course, or any other visible act of wellbeing.

You don't have to earn an early night before you're allowed to take one.

Ngā mihi, from all of us at Groundd.

Groundd is family-owned and New Zealand-made. Givenwell members can buy directly from groundd.nz and claim the receipt back through their wellbeing allowance.

Rest is one of many things your allowance can go towards. If you're not sure what's covered by your employer's programme, check your Givenwell account or ask your people team.. the point of an allowance is that you get to decide what wellbeing looks like for you!!