Today we talk about the importance of recovery, sleep and rest.
Many of us neglect the above three in life and on our fitness journeys.
Yet without adequate recovery and sleep and minimising stress, we are jeopardising our goals; be they muscle gain or fat loss.
We discuss recovery first and what that means to each of us.
Generally we emphasise taking enough rest days during your workout week and listening to your body as to when to take them. We also talk about how mental recovery is just as important as physical recovery.
To recover mentally we suggest meditation and other activities that you really enjoy.
Sleep is one of the most crucial elements to general well being.
We need a good 7-9 hours of sleep for cognitive function, athletic performance, muscle gain and or fat loss, mood and a multitude of other functions.
These days our pace of life is so fast and we are getting less and less sleep which can have seriously negative impacts on our lives.
Many of us have lost touch with our circadian rythmn and with an increase of blue light from electronic devices our sleep patterns are off.
Hand in hand with lack of sleep is stress. Again with fast paced lives many of us live in chronically stressed states.
We have evolved to do well in stressed states, but these used to be very brief; now they can be all the time!
Again this leads to a cascade of negative effects on our hormones, like cortisol and impacts everything from mood to digestion.
Throughout we try and highlight the need to not just physically recover, but to really be aware of and look after our mental health.
Our fitness and training is important, but without getting sleep, stress and recovery in check then we are really compromising our potential.
We finish with a couple of questions from our listeners including whether men and women should be trained the same and how to deal with midnight snacking!
