Analog Escapes

Why we rest

Every week, from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown, Analog Escapes stops taking bookings. You can still look around. We just won't sell you anything.

This week we stop Friday at 5:00 PM Eastern and start again Saturday at 5:45 PM Eastern. We close a little before sunset and open a little after, on Marlinton, West Virginia time.

The first unplug

Long before anyone talked about a digital detox, there was the Sabbath. “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God” (Exodus 20:8 to 10, ESV). God rested on the seventh day, and he made it for us too.

The Hebrew word, shabbat, means to stop. In The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, John Mark Comer points out it can also carry the idea of delight: you stop working, and you enjoy God, the people around you and the world you live in. He calls hurry the great enemy of a healthy inner life, and he puts the Sabbath next to silence and solitude, simplicity and slowing down as practices for getting free of it.

We started keeping it because we believe it. We keep it on the website too, because it's the whole idea of this place.

What a day of rest does

Loma Linda, California, is home to one of the largest communities of Seventh-day Adventists in the world. It's also one of the “Blue Zones,” the places where people live longest. Adventists keep the Sabbath every week, from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown, along with a simple diet, close families and a strong faith.

The Adventist Health Study followed about 34,000 California Adventists and found they lived several years longer than other Californians. Those with all of the healthy habits lived about 10 years longer than those with none. Rest is one part of that life, not the whole of it, but it's a part almost anyone can start this week.

You don't have to be religious to feel it. The filmmaker Tiffany Shlain and her family have kept a “Tech Shabbat” for years, every screen off from Friday night to Saturday evening, and wrote about it in 24/6. Darren Hardy, author of The Compound Effect, keeps Saturday as a family day with no work and no phone. People who get a lot done often guard a day when they do nothing at all.

It's the same reason we ask for two nights. It takes about a day to stop reaching for your phone. The good part comes after that.

Try it this week

If you want a place to try it, start with our guides. And if you're reading this on a Saturday, go outside. We'll be here at sundown.