Struggling with rest days

[Anonymous]

I exercise fairly intensely and find it helps my stress and anxiety. I run 3-5 miles daily doing intervals and add in elliptical, weights, and body resistance exercises (push ups, planks, etc.).

I alternate days that I do muscle work, but have a hard time (anxiety and stress) if I don't exercise at all. I'm also trying to lose 20ish pounds. What's your rules about rest days, and for people like me who use their exercise as a focus to their day and to help with anxiety and stress, how do you make rest days easier?

I think rest days might help bump my weightloss, but not if I'm depressed or stress eating from missing the feel good parts of running.

I'm not worried about injury. I have stretches, shoes and equipment that mitigates any injury worries.

[Anonymous]

How long have you had this regiment?

[Anonymous]

Why can't you do a light work out on rest days (swimming, power walking, play a drop-in game of basketball, or the like)? Or work an entirely different muscle group?


How many rest days are you giving yourself ?

[Anonymous]

I don’t have rest days for cardio... that you can do 7 days a week. Just pick a day to do something shorter and less strenuous like a walk or elliptical.

[Anonymous]

Run without intervals, and at a slower than normal pace - and likely slower than you are used to. Here's a calculator: https://www.chicagoendurancesports.com/runcalc.htm - calculate your easy pace.

[Anonymous]

I use these days to do lower intensity work that still makes me sweat, and work on muscles that can be worked everyday. Example workout from yesterday:

4 Sets of 20 pushups
Various ab exercises with weighted ball
Walk on treadmill at 4mph, increasing incline every 2 minutes til reach 15, then back down.

[Anonymous]

Do some steady state cardio on rest days, at a lower intensity. You won't get as much out of your intervals without that; mentally and physically you need a break. It doesn't have to be a day off entirely, just something different than the norm can be helpful.

[Anonymous]

How about yoga? it can be difficult, but definitely lower intensity and not hard on the body.

[Anonymous]

Yoga for rest days. Is great cross training for a runner and can be rather difficult if you don’t pick a gentle class. Try hot vinyasa yoga and I think you’ll see you still feel like you’ve gotten a great workout but it’s not as hard on your body.

[Anonymous]

I'm like you - for me, exercise is as much for an anxiety/stress release as for anything else. I work out really hard every day. I've tried to do yoga or a walk, and I find that my mind wanders the entire time, and not sweating makes me feel like I'm not doing anything! On weekends, I like to do different types of things, like jogging with one of my kids, or riding bikes with the family.