🗂️Keep in Mind What to Do If You Skipped an Exercise Day (Besides Feel Guilty)

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Sometimes you need a day off. Sometimes you don’t need a day off, but you take one anyway. If you have any anxieties about what exercise means to you, you may spiral into worry or guilt: Am I a slacker? Am I losing all my gains? And if rest days are so important, why do I feel guilty every time I take one?

You probably know the answers to these questions, which all boil down to: A day off doesn’t define who you are. But feelings of rest day guilt are pretty common, and I’ve felt them myself. So here's a pep talk to help you understand these contradictory feelings, and some options for what to do when you feel this way. Tell yourself these things:

Know that one day doesn’t matter​

Being strong or fit or getting in shape is a years-long goal, if not a lifelong one. Five years from now, will you look back on this one particular day with regret? You probably won’t even remember it happened.

Tomorrow is a new day, so don’t fall into the trap of thinking you’ve ruined your whole week or your whole training program. Either skip the day or make it up tomorrow, whichever will make the path easier for you going forward.

Rest is useful​

A well-designed program will usually have at least one rest day each week; some programs might even have three or four. All are perfectly valid ways to work out. So if you took three rest days this week rather than two, it’s not like all your hard work went to waste.

Your body will put that rest to good use, anyway. Some people will say a certain number of rest days per week are necessary; I don’t know that that’s actually true as long as your fatigue is well managed. But regardless of whether you need a day off, your body can still use one for extra recovery. You’ll feel fresher the day you come back.

You may feel better if you do something​

A rest day doesn't have to be 100% sedentary. Resting too much can backfire. Let's say you need to take a day off from running—cool, great, you're taking care of yourself. But then you may be missing out on the mental health benefits of exercise, and now you're sitting around being grumpy. Go for a walk to get those benefits, or do another low-key activity you enjoy, like yoga or stretching.

You feel guilty because you care​

It's worth taking a minute to unpack those guilty feelings. Often, we feel guilty about taking a day off because we have a plan in our mind (say, we envision ourselves working out every day) and we see that we're falling short. Having a plan, and being able to compare our actions to our plan, are both good things! We may just need to recalibrate a bit.

So when you feel guilty, think about your plan. Maybe your plan can allow some extra rest days, which means you're not off-target at all. Or maybe your plan is unrealistic, and you've been putting inappropriate expectations on yourself. Check whether your benchmarks (or SMART goals) actually match up appropriately with your big-picture dream goals.

Focus on consistency​

A big part of the reason one day doesn’t matter is that, in the long run, what does matter is consistency. If you’ve been hitting all your workouts for weeks on end, and this week you have to miss one, you are still the kind of person who usually hits all their workouts.

Maybe you’re afraid that this one day off is going to send you down a slippery slope, and you’ll end up taking more days off. Well, that’s within your power! Decide how and when you’ll get back on that horse. Plan out your schedule for tomorrow, or for next week, and make sure you’ll be able to make those next sessions.

Problem-solve for next time​

Why did you take this rest day, anyway? If you were feeling worn down, maybe you need a more balanced exercise program that doesn’t leave you feeling that way. Or if you dread a certain workout, maybe that’s a sign that you need to change something—either the workout, or your mindset. If you always skip workouts with box jumps, for example, there are ways to get over that fear.

Just a time management issue? Try some of these tips for getting in regular exercise even when your schedule is already packed.

Consider your overall plan​

Or maybe you’re feeling guilty because you’ve missed a lot of days. That’s a sign that you may be on a path that’s unsustainable. Are you so stressed out from work that you don’t feel motivated to work out? Maybe you need more than a day’s break from working out to see if that relieves some of the extra pressure. Or maybe you need to lift before work instead of after, to see if that gives you enough of a mood boost to get you through a stressful day. Or maybe you just have to solve the larger problem in your life. (Talk to your boss about your workload? Start looking for a new job?)

Bottom line, if you feel guilty about missing one day because to you it’s a symbol of other things going on in your life, zoom out and see what you can do about fixing those other things.
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