Rest and Recovery

TLDR: We’re always on the go, then add strenuous exercise in the mix… what are we missing? Rest! Recovery! It’s vital for our physical and mental health!

Hello, my friends!

I’m a go-person. A do-er. I like staying busy and being productive. Between my full-time job at the restaurant and doing things for my coaching business, plus taking care of my household and fitting in my own workout times, I stay pretty busy most days.

This wasn’t always my life. Before I started my health journey, I basically just lived to work and worked to live. Other than that, I was very sedentary during my time off. I slept a LOT (as in, far too much…), and binge watched tv for hours. Now, I know there is nothing wrong with either of those things necessarily, but besides work, that was my life. Just very inactive.

Then I began my health journey and felt so much motivation and momentum that I didn’t want to stop. I didn’t want to take rest days and I got in an extreme mindset of never slowing down because if I was “resting” then I wasn’t making progress. But, as it does, the lack of rest caught up with me after a while. I could feel it in my emotions, I could feel it in my body… I was just all-around exhausted.

So I started looking into ways to be proactive in my rest and recovery. I still didn’t like the idea of taking a day to do *nothing* but I knew I needed it every now and then, as well as regular “active rest days” where I still remained active, just on a lighter scale.

For me, my daily go-to is yoga. I use quick sessions as a wake-up tool in the morning, a stretching routine before heading off to the gym, and longer, 45 min. to an hour, yoga flows for low-impact activity on my rest days. I also try to incorporate restorative foods on my rest days to help my body recover and restore my energy levels. Now I feel like I’ve found my flow and know better how to listen to what my body needs each day. Not every day will be high-energy, so learning when to *go* and when to *rest* is vital in making progress with our health!

So, here we go! Ways you can help your body, mind, and spirit rest and recover!

Let’s Eat for Rest and Recovery

So, your life is busy. You're already constantly on the go and now the holiday season is here and, while it is exciting, it can also add to the stress of your already busy life. And maybe you have fitness goals and are still making time to hit it hard at the gym or get your morning runs in every day... You're juggling it all.

While it is impressive that you can get it all done (seriously, you're a super hero!), we CAN NOT forget one health factor that can literally make or break your health and fitness goals - REST! Without giving our bodies the chance to rest and repair and recover, we're literally hindering our gains... not to mention the mental toll it takes on the rest of our lives. We're more easily irritated, fatigued, and mentally foggy.

As we take a day or two to rest or actively recover, there are things we can include in our diet to support the recovery process.

One important note... make sure you hydrate! Sometimes it is easy to forget to drink enough water on rest days because we're not sweating as much as we do on gym days but being properly hydrated is important for the body to recovery. Along with plenty of water, you can try hydrating before bed with a relaxing (decaf) hot tea to unwind before going to sleep.

Let’s Move for Rest and Recovery

Whether you are training hard at the gym, involved in a physically demanding sport, or just busy with life in general, we all need to plan times (and specific days) into our schedule to do something restorative for our bodies. Recovery time is just as important as training time, but we often forget about it or are scared to take a break, for fear of losing our momentum.

But recovery should be prioritized. Your body deserves to go through this healing and restoration process.

This can be done through either passive recovery, which is completely resting with little-to-no physical activity, or through active recovery, which is performing light or low-intensity exercises. Both types of recovery are needed for our bodies (and minds!) but active recovery is the recommended approach - especially for those who don't like taking days off from the gym or for days following an intense training session as it improves your body's recovery.

Learn to really *pay attention* to how your body feels and listen to what it needs. For most rest days, active recovery is the way to go but if your body (and/or mind) is telling you it needs rest, then give it rest! Take a day and let your body do what it does - restore itself - then get back into your normal routine the next day. Your body - and mind - will thank you!

Wellness for Rest and Recovery

I realize not everyone is regularly working out at high intensity, if at all, and I also know my posts this week have been mainly focused on ways to help recover from intense workouts but my hope is that *all of you* are benefitting from this information. Rest is also important in our every day lives, just as much as from exercise. Hey, life is *hard*... Just regular, day-to-day life takes a toll on our bodies and our minds and we need recovery time from all of that just as much as recovery from exercise.

The idea of "self-care" has really taken off these last couple of years as more people have had more time at home (I'm looking at you, early covid lockdowns...) and have learned the importance of taking care of our *whole* selves. Yes, we need to eat nutritious foods and exercise regularly for the health of our bodies but we can not forget about our minds, our spirits, our souls.

What restores YOUR soul? Practice it, put it in your weekly schedule, make the health of your spirit be just as important as the health of your body.

Get some rest this weekend. Do a light activity, get some fresh air if possible (I know, it’s getting cold out…), and treat your body with care. It will restore itself and you will be ready to go again!

Have a healthy and happy weekend!