It seems like restoration levels extremely slowly compared to other skills. Does using higher level restoration spells increase the rate at which you skill up?

I'm level 31 with about 70 hours logged and my restoration is only like 40 (Destruction mage). I always heal myself instead of waiting/using pots outside of combat and it just seems to take forever.

I'm sure there are plenty of ways to exploit low damage environmental objects to just powerlevel restoration, but I'd prefer to avoid anything cheesy.