REST DAY Guilt Taking rest days can be hard, especially when you are passionate about training. We all experience rest day guilt in one way or another, at some point in our lives but knowing how to overcome it can be difficult...
Rest days, a lot of us have a love-hate relationship with them. One half of us loves taking a break and chilling out for a day but the other half feels guilty for resting and wants to go train. We often have a fight in our minds and we either force ourself to take a rest and feel guilty for it or we carry on training and don’t allow our bodies to rest properly. Whichever you choose it can be hard, we know! So to give you all some advice on overcoming rest day guilt we spoke to 23 year old Aimee Spillane from Surrey, to find out how she manages to overcome rest day guilt. Aimee has been training in the gym for around 5 years now so has a lot of experience with rest day guilt and overtraining. She first fell in love with the gym when she discovered weight training and has been passionate about it ever since. “When I discovered weight training my love for fitness grew, I was never a sporty person at school, but I started going to the gym to ‘look better’. That mindset has completely changed now and training has become way more than that to me. I love weight training because it makes me feel strong and has SO many mental benefits.” Like anything
in life, once you find your passion, taking a break from it can be hard. Similarly with fitness many of us feel that guilt from not working out. The guilt can either come from a positive or negative place and it’s important to determine which one yours is coming from. Some feel the guilt from body shame. If you go to the gym simply because you want to look a certain way or are unhappy with your appearance then you most likely feel the negative guilt and may feel like you are ‘falling off track’ and if you don’t train everyday and that it will ruin the progress. If this sounds like you then be aware that you may be struggling with mental health issues such as Body Dysmorphia. On the other hand, you may feel the guilt coming from a good place of passion. If you love training so much that you just want to be involved with it everyday it can be hard to take a break as you generally miss the atmosphere and the feeling of training. Whatever your reasoning is behind rest day guilt it is a normal feeling to have. So now you know where your guilt is coming from
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