Tips for managing recovery

Recovery from work:

Mental well-being and healthy lifestyle habits promote recovery from work. Get enough good quality sleep, eat healthily and regularly, and stop thinking about work-related matters in your leisure time. Relax, and do things you enjoy. Remember to also focus on your personal relationships.

What do you already do? What next?

• I take breaks during my work
• I remind myself to focus on one thing at a time.
• I make sure that I eat during the working day.
• I eat healthy, balanced, regular meals.
• I regularly evaluate whether I recover enough between working days.
• I put aside enough hours for rest, work and leisure time.
• I moderate my workload I separate work and leisure time from each other. In my leisure time I stop thinking about work-related matters and do relaxing things.
• I have a suitable balance of social relationships and my own peace and quiet, both at work and during leisure time.
• I make sure that I hold on to the things that are important to me and promote my recovery. These may be, for example, meeting friends, hobbies, or a good book or movie.
• I relax without alcohol.
• I exercise outdoors and take part in different forms of exercise several times a week. A good level of physical fitness helps you endure strain and promotes recovery from all types of work.
• I manage stress using healthy methods, for example, enjoyable hobbies or exercise.
• I get enough good quality sleep.

The role of exercise in recovery:

Stress and mind load:

• light exercise, yoga, pilates, etc. helps with recovery.

Office work:

• Light, moderately strenuous exercise promotes blood circulation and metabolism (eg active breaks)

Physical work:

• More effective exercise helps maintain the required level of fitness for physically demanding work tasks and helps with recovery

Recovery from physical exertion: “priority”

Avoid overtraining:

• The number of hard workouts per week or the load of a single workout should not be too hard in relation to your fitness and ability to recover from exertion!

Adequate sleep, relaxation and stress management (passive recovery):

• These play an important role in recovery, but do not overcome “overtraining”!

Nutrition:

• ensure adequate energy supply from different energy sources + adequate water intake to provide nutritional support for recovery

Active recovery:

• light recovery days (light exercise, outdoor walking, stretching)

Other measures:

• massage, sauna, cold-hot treatments, compression treatments, etc. If you experience recovery,  these can be involved.