Why You Feel Bad on Your Off Days (And What To Do About It)

Rest days are a commonly used tool to manage your workload in your exercise routine.while they are not technically necessary, it’s a good idea to give your body extra time to recover between workouts. Or, more precisely, it used to be.

The problem is that it gets grumpy on Sundays, which I designate as my rest day. M.Maybe that’s the rhythm of the week, I thought—The fact that I had to return to work the next day ( ‘Sundays are scary’ sometimes called). But the same thing happened when I changed my day off to Saturday. I am frustrated, disappointed, bored and restless. And it wasn’t just on weekends.Whenever I gave myself a day to decompress after vacation, or skipped a workout because life got in the way, I found myself getting cranky, frustrated, and sad. could it have been bad for me?

Exercise helps mental health

It took me an embarrassing amount of time to combine two and two in my own life, even though I write frequently about the benefits of exercise on this very website. Exercise is good for mental health. It’s a kind of stress relief, and self-care in the sense of “actually taking care of yourself” (not in the sense of “buying bath bombs”).Anxiety and Depression Association of America pointed out, “A brisk walk or other simple activity can make it easier for a few hours. [from anxiety or depression symptoms], similar to taking aspirin for a headache. To put it bluntly, exercise is not replacement A tool for treatment and medication, it is a powerful tool that can be used by people with and without a clinical mental health diagnosis.

So by enforcing rest days, we were depriving ourselves of one of the simplest and most accessible tools for managing our mental health. that Or rather, the answer was obvious. I had to get off my ass.

Doing something has a cost — my body has to expend energy, it has to repair itself — but doing nothing Also There are costs.at first i I am skeptical of the idea that rest itself is a problem. But one day I said Go for a walk on your day off and see if anything changes. just a walk. It’s not a killer workout, an hour on a spin bike, or an extra weightlifting session (although I’ve experimented with all of these as “rest” day exercises, and they’re all effective at getting rid of my crankiness). . stroll.

What to do on a “rest” day instead of rest

First, determine how much recovery your body needs and what activities you will be doing. can still make it To give permission fully restore itIf you only exercise three days a week, going for a walk on your off days is definitely a good idea. Only 5 minutes.You’re not letting your body recover from a full workout, so you’re not defeating the purpose of rest days. Our post on active recovery days would worktoo: yoga, hiking, or Swimming, to name a few.

One of the great things about exercising is that the more you exercise, the more work capacity you build.If he spends two hours at the gym on a weekday, he can probably do a quick 30-minute jog. their day off.it’s not holiday, but it doesn’t have to be either.of important factor is your body getting recovery time Required, but not necessarily required means a full day.

right hand key Remember the balance considers both of you physical health When your mental healthIf you exercise so relentlessly that your body can’t rest, problem in itself. forced exercise injuries, hormonal problems, red s, or increased susceptibility to disease. It can also be a sign of mental health problems. eating disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorders. i am not proposing what you should exercise always, jYou need to take care of both your body and yourself. brain—and Rest is not the only way to do that.