No, I don’t mean stop working out. But are you taking rest as a serious part of your workout plan? At least as important as sticking to your fitness goals – maybe even more important is getting the proper rest.
There are two kinds of rest to consider:
1) Proper sleep. Your body NEEDS proper sleep to recover and repair itself from tough workouts. An average person needs at least 7 hours of sleep a night, but since you’re working out, you probably want to try and pad that by another hour and shoot for a solid 8 hours a night. If that sounds difficult for you, remember, sleep is a habit. You may be a night owl, but after a few tough nights of trying to get a full 8 hours, your body will slip into the new habit.
2) Proper recovery time. You need to make sure that you’re giving your body time to recover from what you just demanded of it. Thats why many people stick to an “on again, off again routine” or working out every other day. This lets the body recover from a tough workout which means that you’re less likely to injure yourself. If you don’t want to take a day in between workouts, then workout differently, or work a different part of the body. So if you lift heavy on Monday, maybe you do yoga on Tuesday, Or go cycling or swimming – you get the idea
At the end of it all though, you need to give your body a break – or it will ultimately force you to take a longer break than you want by way of an injury. Trust me on this, I speak fro experience here. But that’s a story for another time.
Brain. Body. Food. 