Give Yourself Permission to REST

Raise your hand if you track some aspect of your movement every day. In this age of wearables, we’re constantly aware of different metrics – step counts, calories burned, movement streaks. We live for those little virtual reward badges, and will push ourselves to our limits to get them. (Before I had a smart watch, I would mark a coloured X on my calendar every time I hit my predetermined goals. So raise your hand if you do that, too!)

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE data. I love having a quantifiable measurement of what I do every day. I love goals, and I love hitting those goals. I think that these metrics can be extremely helpful for people in many ways. But at what point does the necessity to see a watch face light up “you did it!” take over our lives? If these achievements are a measure of success, does that mean that we are failures if we don’t reach them? Spoiler: No, it doesn’t.

There is a wealth of research available that demonstrates the importance of rest as a part of a successful training program. It allows tissue to heal, energy to be restored, and gets the body ready for the next challenge. On top of the physiological benefit, it also helps in maintaining a better psychological balance as we navigate through our lives.

While we can all agree that rest is important, it’s still possible to get caught up in our schedules. I have to admit that my workout schedule lately has left little room for rest: I have been lifting consistently, I have slowly been ramping up my running, and with my new spin bike my cycling has gotten more intense. I have scheduled breaks for each of these elements, but this week I realized that the rest days never really overlap. And I’ve been noticing more and more just how tired I am. Oops.

With all of this in mind, I am taking a step back and combining my THREE schedules into ONE so that I can have more confidence in my recovery. I’m recognizing the error, and I’m correcting it.

How do you incorporate rest into your schedule?