Speaker 1: Do you need to recharge? No, no, I'm not talking
about your phone. I'm referring to you. Maybe you need
to slow down a bit or take a break. If
any of those feelings are relatable, you've come to the
right place. Today we're going to talk about slowing down,
taking care of ourselves, and getting back our energy.
Speaker 2: Welcome to another Happy English podcast, coming to you from
New York City. And here's your English teacher, Michael.
Speaker 1: Alright, thank you John, and thanks everyone. It's Michael here
from Happy English and I help people speak English better.
And this is Happy English Podcast, Episode nine eighty three,
talking about rest in everyday English. Today we're going to
look at some natural phrases native speakers use when they
need to rest, slow down, or recharge, especially after being
busy or feeling stressed. Let's start off with the most
basic phrase, take a break. We use take a break
when we stop working or stop focusing for a short time.
Doesn't have to be long. For example, you might say
I've been cleaning the house non stop all morning, I
need to take a break, or at work, someone might say,
let's take a short break and come back in ten minutes.
You can also use take a break as advice, like
you know you've been staring at that screen all day,
why don't you take a break. This phrase is simple, polite,
and very common. The next one is slow down. Slow
down sounds like something you might say when someone is
driving too fast, but in this context, we use slow
down when life feels too fast or too intense. It's
not about stopping completely, it's about changing the pace. Like recently,
I've been working on two new courses and a bunch
of new podcasts and videos. Maybe I need to slow
down a bit. Or if someone looks exhausted, you might
say you've been pushing yourself too hard. You should slow down.
This phrase often comes up when people are talking about health, work,
life balance, or long term stress. Another very common phrase
is take it easy. We often use take it easy
when we're talking about resting without pressure. For example, I'm
not doing much this weekend. I'm just gonna take it easy.
Or if someone is sick or tired, you might say,
take it easy for a few days and see how
you feel. After Steve had his knee surgery, his doctor
told him to take it easy for a month. Take
it Easy is casual and friendly and has a caring
and relaxed tone. And by the way, take it easy
is commonly used in other situations as well, like if
someone is angry or upset, you can say something like Okay,
take it easy as a way to calm them down,
and we say hey, take it easy as a friendly,
casual way of telling someone goodbye. Next, let's talk about
get some rest and rest up. We often use get
some rest when someone is tired or needs recovery, Like
at the end of a long day, you can tell
your friend, hey, you look exhausted. You should get some
rest tonight. And last night one of my friends invited
me to go out for a drink, but I just
told him that I wanted to stay home and get
some rest. In a similar way, we use rest up.
Sometimes adding up after a verb means do that completely,
So when you rest up, you rest completely. Like I've
been training for a marathon for a few months now,
but the day before the race, I'm just gonna stay
home and rest up. When you rest up, you save
your energy or save your strength for another time. Now,
let's look at some technology related words. The first one
is recharge. When you finished using your phone for the day,
you plug it in to recharge the battery right Well
with this image, we use recharge when our mental battery
needs more energy, and we use recharge when we need
to pause for a while to get more mental or
emotional rest. Like I didn't go anywhere this weekend, I
just stayed home to recharge, or spending time with my
family helps me recharge. Recharge sounds positive. It means you're
doing something or doing nothing so you can come back
with more energy. And here's one more technology related phrase,
to unplug. Literally, unplug means to disconnect a device from
the power source. Like after you vacuum the floor, you
unplug the vacuum cleaner and put it away. That's the
basic meaning of unplug. By the way, the opposite is
plug in. You plug in the vacuum, clean the room,
then unplug the vacuum. Well, when it comes to people,
unplug means to disconnect yourself from something like stop using
your laptop or your phone. Like me, for example, this weekend,
I'm going to unplug and not think about work. Or
sometimes I need to unplug and spend time away from
my phone. Using unplug this way is very common nowadays,
especially when people feel overwhelmed by constant messages and notifications
and social media. All right, so let's put this all together.
We take a break when we stop for a short time.
We slow down when life feels too fast. We take
it easy when we want to light pressure free rest.
We get some rest when we're tired and need recovery.
We recharge to get our energy back, and we unplug
when we disconnect from technology. Nice set of English phrases
to talk about relaxing and keep in mind, the best
way to remember English like this and any other word
or phrase in English, is to take that word or phrase,
write it in a sentence that's true for you or
true in your world, and then memorize your sentences. That's
how you build fluency. Hey, thanks for listening, and remember
learning another language is not easy, but it's not impossible,
and I'm here to help you on your journey.
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