You’ve logged 40 hours this week and it’s Wednesday. This is the 4th week this month that you’ve seen the sun rise and set from the seat of your office. You’ve missed dinner for the 3rd day this week, and haven’t gotten to workout once yet this month… You’re exhausted.
We all know the feeling of getting home after a long day of work, kicking our feet up and sinking into the couch. The couch feels like a thousand-dollar tempurpedic mattress in those moments. Fatigue can consume us. It lingers and steals like a thief in the night. Sometimes we don’t even feel it until after the second or third day in a row. It’s difficult to get back to normal and like we’ve talked about in the first couple weeks; base and core become critical to handle the fatigue.
Rest is critical. When we don’t rest and reset, we create opportunity for our base to atrophy just as our muscles can. We’ve all heard the stories of athletes who have a nagging injury, or a pulled muscle they just can’t overcome. Part of the reason this happens is because they just keep going. Pushing and pushing and pushing themselves to the brink; ultimately limiting their max capacity. Playing football at a competitive level, I learned quickly to love and enjoy the bye week. Usually towards the middle of the season, it was an opportunity to rest, reset, and get refocused. A few extra days off that week meant a time to get caught up on school, get our bodies rehabbed in the training room, or just have a day or two extra that week to get caught up on sleep. The bye week became a crucial part of the season.
What does this have to do with fatigue and our daily lives? We all need a buy week. A vacation, or a weekend of lounging and resting. Time to rest, reset, and get motivated again. Life is a lot like sports. In sports you have workouts, practices, games, training tables, meetings, etc.… the list goes on. In life you have work, social obligations, responsibilities at home, chores, a significant other, and trying to fit in working out. Seeing the similarity yet? The time commitments that force us into a busy packed schedule. When this happens it’s easy for fatigue to set in. We get focused on one thing more than others, and to-do items start to fall through the cracks. We start to get so burnt out that we wonder why we’re in the job we’re in, what our value is, etc.
What do we do? We retreat to our base that we established a few weeks ago. When we do that, we have a safe place to rest, reset, and recover. God laid it out plain as day for us saying in Exodus 34:21, “Six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during the plowing season and harvest you must rest.” Even when life is the busiest it could be… rest. So how do we do this? I don’t have a 4-step plan to waking up feeling energized and motivated, but I’ll gladly share some things that have helped me.
First, create space for rest. Schedule your priorities, don’t prioritize your schedule. This will allow for more control in your day and give you the ability to rest more. Another thing is get away. Whether it’s a round of golf on the weekend, a weekend trip to Nashville, or a night out on the boat fishing, these are things that have helped me get the space I need to rest and reset. And a third thing… SLEEP! I suck at this and will be the first to tell you how horrible the effects are. For all you late night thinkers and early risers… I know how it feels, I can relate. But create space, go to bed earlier, sleep in on the weekend. Let yourself rest.
It’s not always easy to manage, and fatigue is a real thing, but as humans we are strong. We can rest, reset, and recover to attack the next day stronger. One thing to leave you with because this has been a huge help to me, giving my fatigue and stress to God. Matthew 11:28 says, “come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” No matter how busy life gets, how tired I am, I can retreat to my base, lean on my beliefs and find rest.
Don’t let your mind or spirit atrophy. Just as we need rest for our muscles, we need rest in our daily lives. So instead of a HIIT workout, a lifting session, or a long run; use this post and ‘workout’ as an opportunity for yourself.
WORKOUT:
Some rest/recover activities: go for a walk, stretch, foam roll. Maybe for you it’s time to turn the alarm off and skip the workout all together today.
Hammer and Anvil 