Healthy Workout Breaks for Your Body & Mind

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Workout breaks are normal.

Sometimes forced and sometimes not so forced.

Recently, I had to take a step back.

I have been really honest with myself over the past few years and what I have learned is that slow and steady wins the race.

The race that I am in, is with myself.

No one else is my competition and I find myself a great candidate to compete with.

Working Out

Growing up I was always enrolled in sports.

My dad’s side is very athletic.

I would have rather participated in dance and theatre, which I did, but sports was where I really learned about physical perseverance, which lends itself to other forms of perseverance needed in life.

My dad is now retired military, and when he would train for his next fitness test I would also get to tag along.

Running a few miles on a Saturday morning, lugging behind, complaining, “I can’t.”

Literally, no sympathy came from my father who would make me grab the back of his t-shirt, and we would continue running until we were finished with the course.

Track and Field were no different. He would train me with the false, “one more lap.”

Then as I would complete the lap, he would say, “one more lap.”

It was always “one more.”

Super annoying if you ask me.

I think he enjoyed training me because I was very stubborn, and I wouldn’t always let him boss me around. I was equally sassy, and sometimes I would just walk away and refuse to move altogether.

But it really taught me a lot about stamina, strength and conquering mental blocks.

Dealing with Stress – Workout Breaks

I have always had a heightened nervous system. I cannot explain it.

Very sensitive over here, and so as I got older, I learned to control things by controlling my body.

Thing is, you cannot really control much in life, truly.

So, issues with food and exercise were an issue for most of my life if I am honest.

Exercise remained the one constant in my life that allowed me to exude all the energy and angst and pent-up frustration on my own.

As I entered my later 20s, I turned to drinking more, working out less.

Falling off your routine when you don’t have a healthy relationship with food or exercise can be tricky, but I did it.

If I am honest, I went through a lot of trauma in my late 20s and early 30s that I am just now able to mentally come out of.

What Did I Learn

Healing is messy.

Any issues with food or body or exercise is messy.

I changed my mindset. I did it without professional help, but I did it.

No longer was food good or bad, it was just food.

I take note of how it makes me feel, and I adjust its place in my life accordingly.

No longer was exercise all or nothing, I view it now as a lifelong activity, and I get to take breaks now.

What changed? I think just realizing that I have ADHD and giving myself healing, honesty and investing in myself changed a lot.

I bought a Peloton. I thought it was crazy expensive, but I also knew that I was still afraid to go to the gym due to Covid….so I bought it.

Now I can work out from home. No excuses.

Life, however, can keep you from a workout–sometimes you get sick.

Sometimes you have to take a break.

I try to go 12 weeks on and one week off. This time though, it was three weeks off.

For once, I am not freaking out because I know it’s a lifelong commitment. Exercise will be there. Food will be there. It’s fine.

Why am I sharing this?

Because it is 100 percent normal and okay to take a break from your routine once you’ve realized that you’re committed to it for life.

Even if you aren’t committed fully for life, you still deserve breaks.

If you don’t take breaks your body will make you take a break. Trust me.

This thirty-something version of me is investing in the 80-something version of me.

Take the break. Get back up. Try again tomorrow.

xx