Embrace Your Rest Day

Ah, the Rest Day. Sometimes my favorite day of the week (sometimes it's not because I feel like I should be out doing something). There are a lot of reasons that rest days are good and important and I thought this pin summed it up nicely:

If you're going to the gym and really working your body, you NEED a rest day at least once a week (sometimes you need two, listen to your body and it will tell you what you need). I take a rest day on Sundays and on Wednesdays. (Sometimes I switch my rest day to a different day depending on scheduling or what day I'm supposed to wash my hair - yes, I plan out when to wash my hair. When your hair is as thin as mine, you do whatever you can to make it as healthy as possible which includes making sure you don't "over wash" it. Life with thin hair is tough.)

There are a lot of different Pins that lead to sites that tell you why you need a rest day and, to me, it comes down to this:
1. It gives your body time to REPAIR itself. When you're working out, your muscles are tearing and they need time to heal. Your rest day gives it that time and helps prevent injuries that happen from overexerting your muscles.
2. It lets you mentally REJUVENATE. I don't know about you, but it takes mental energy for me to go on a run and tell myself not to stop until I hit my goal. It takes mental energy to understand and tell myself that I'm not actually hungry, I'm just bored and want to be eating something (I'm a snacker and a sucker for samples). It takes a lot of mental energy to go for those last 15 seconds of a plank. Your rest day lets you take a break from that, focus on other things, and rejuvenate that metal energy so you don't get burnt out on your workouts.
3. You get extra REST time. Life is busy, and I know that I tend to let sleep be one of the first things to go from my schedule. I'll get up earlier or stay up a little later just so I can cram everything into my schedule. On my rest days, I get to take that extra hour or so and can stay curled up in my bed or cuddled on the couch with a pillow. And because it's a rest day, I can embrace it and not feel guilty :-)

There are plenty of active things that you can do on your rest day that aren't strenuous work outs but you're still moving your body. You can go for a walk, clean your kitchen, do some stretching, things like that. When you get into a habit of working out all the time, your body wants to be moving and doing things but remember to take it easy on your rest day and don't feel guilty for taking a day off!!!