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Skadi Sport Psychology

2 strategies to use for your next rest day 😴

Published about 16 hours ago • 2 min read

Hi Reader,
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Rest day on the calendar. Your bike stayed in the garage, you slept in, and maybe even felt a little smug about it. 😌
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Then Tuesday’s easy spin rolled around, and your legs felt like wet cement.
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If you’ve ever had that moment, standing in the parking lot, legs heavy, wondering what more you could possibly have done, I want to offer you a reframe.
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Rest and recovery are not the same thing.
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A rest day removes training stress, but recovery requires your nervous system to actively shift into rebuild mode. That shift doesn’t happen just because the calendar says “rest day.” Accumulated training load, work deadlines, lousy sleep, even mentally rehearsing your next race can keep your system revved straight through a rest day. You may be resting, but you’re not necessarily recovering.
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This is something I’ve been all too familiar with over the past year while scaling a business. The screenshot of my Oura dashboard below is pretty standard for what I see: Relatively strong metrics aside from stress management. To which my brain responds, “BUT I’M SUPPOSED TO BE GOOD AT THAT!”

The good news? Recovery is trainable! We (including ME) can continue to work on it! Here are 2️⃣ things to bring into the fold for your next rest day:

  • Breathe low and slow. This one sounds too easy, which is exactly why athletes skip it. Breathing at roughly six breaths per minute (your personal sweet spot may vary slightly) maximizes vagal activity, the brake pedal of your nervous system. Ten to twenty minutes on your rest day or before bed flips you into rebuild mode. No apps or gadgets required, just you and a timer.
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  • Guard your deep sleep like it’s a workout. Slow-wave sleep is when your body does its best repair work: tissue healing, growth hormone release, cortisol dropping. Your rest day starts the night before. Cool, dark room, consistent bedtime, and your phone charging in another room.

We wrote a full breakdown on the science, the practices, and how to actually build recovery into your training block.

🎙️This week on the Feisty Women’s Performance Podcast…Clara Hughes reveals how the relentless “push‑through” mindset that fueled her Olympic success also became experiential avoidance in midlife, showing us how to shift from movement as medicine to movement as mindful self‑care. Listen to her story and how she learned to listen to her unbody after years of simply commanding it and telling it what to do.
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​Listen now on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.​

💚Happening inside the Skadi Community this month!
​Join us on November 2 for an open Q&A with Dr. Tim Herzog, Board Certified in Biofeedback and an expert in HRV training for athletes. (Fun fact: Tim is Erin's mentor while she works toward her Biofeedback Board Certification!) During this event, we’ll be doing live biofeedback training. You won’t want to miss this one. Bring your questions!💚

Til next time,
Dr. A

Want to train smarter by understanding your body's stress and recovery patterns?
​Explore HRV biofeedback training—and learn to optimize your nervous system for better performance, recovery, and resilience.

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