14. What If Rest Is The Strongest Rep You’ll Ever Take? Why Rest is Crucial to Your Overall Performance and What You Can Do To Improve It

What if the missing link between your effort and your results is the thing you keep skipping: rest? We go straight at hustle culture and make the case that sleep and recovery are not indulgences but the engine of strength, clarity, and consistency.

You’ll leave with a clear plan to schedule rest like a training session and treat it as non-negotiable. Expect honest reminders, science you can use, and a gentle push to protect your energy so you can perform better tomorrow. If this spoke to you, subscribe, share it with a friend who’s been grinding non-stop, and leave a review telling us one rest habit you’ll try this week.

I am happy we can share this journey of levelling up, together. See you next week!

- Alita <3

https://vitawithalita.buzzsprout.com

Chapters

• 0:26 Birthday Intro And Word Plan
• 2:03 The Case For True Rest
• 3:34 Hustle Culture And Sleep Debt
• 6:30 How Recovery Builds Muscle And Mind
• 9:13 Signs You’re Under-Recovered
• 10:05 Redefining Rest: Active vs Full
• 12:02 Five Habits For Better Sleep
• 15:51 Tools, Consistency, And Scheduling Rest
• 18:07 Closing Reminder And Share Prompt

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:26

Hello, hello, and welcome back to another episode of Vito with Alita. I'm your host, Alita, and today is a special episode. We are on episode 14 on November 14, and not only are we matching up our episode numbers with our dates, but it's a special date because it is my birthday. Woo-woo. So I am excited to come with today's topic, something that I think I can use a little more of, and I wanted to share it with all of you. Now, to sprinkle a little pizzazz with every episode, I'm going to share some words, some vocabulary that I've been learning because hopefully, as you know by now, I'm always looking to improve myself, to improve my mind, my body, and I want to take you along with me. So I downloaded this vocabulary app on my phone, and every day I've been kind of going through it and I've been writing down words, not every single word that the app gives me, but words that I feel like I can truly use in my um language every day. And I bought myself this little like pocket notebook. So I write them in there and I'm truly trying to use them in sentences. They don't always come to mind. So I I kind of had this thought when I was in the shower. I was like, whoa, what if I use these words during my podcast episodes? That way I'm actually applying them. And all my wonderful people here with me are also learning these new words if you didn't know them already. And that way we get to grow together, we get to grow our minds, we get to edify our minds. Haha. Word drop right there. So edify E D I F Y. And this is to improve someone's mind or character. So let's edify our minds together. And every week I will maybe drop a word or two in the episode, and hopefully we can improve our vocabulary as well as our bodies and our minds together. Alright, now that we kind of got that out of the way, let's get into today's topic. So I want to start with a question, and this is also for me, Alita. Alita, answer this question. When was the last time you actually rested? Like truly, truly rested. Without guilt, without checking your phone, and without planning your next move. I say without checking your phone because sometimes we think we are resting, so we start doom scrolling, but don't you sometimes just feel more tired once you do that? So I'm talking about like true rest. I for one don't really know. And if your answer was I can't remember, well, this episode's for you. This is for us, okay? So let's dive in. I'm sitting here after a long day of work, but I was like, you know what? I'm so excited. I gotta bring this topic out, so let's get into it. Because we live in a world that like celebrates hustle and productivity, but sleep and recovery and rest, that's truly, that's truly where the power lies. Those are like kind of like the hidden superpowers of your body. This is where your body gets to repair itself. We'll get into that in a little bit. So today we're specifically talking about why your rest day probably matters more than your workouts. And I want to extend this to beyond workouts. I'm talking even just constantly being on that like hustle mindset, always having to do something, because honestly, it can also be exhausting just for the mind. So we have a little bit of both, like you have to physically rest and mentally rest. And ignoring kind of the rest days for yourself might actually be what's holding you back. So if you're not progressing, you're not seeing progress the way you want, maybe it's because you're not resting and you're just one rest away from your strongest or stronger, happier self. Okay. So why do we resist rest? Why is it such an issue? Doesn't it feel nice? You know, the feeling when you you know when you skip a rest day because you think you're being lazy by actually taking a rest day? Yeah, we've all been there. Don't lie, I know we've all been there, so so why do we do it? Isn't it if anything, isn't it nice that we just get to sit and rest? Well, I think we're all kind of conditioned to think that doing more equals being better, right? We are all assiduous people. Oh, another word, Alita. So assiduous? A S S I D U O U S, which means hardworking, diligent, or persevering, being like taking care, like being attentive with the work that you're doing. So, as assiduous people, we're conditioned to think that doing more equals being better. But the truth is overtraining, undersleeping, and constantly, constantly pushing actually keeps you stuck in like the same cycle. You're always tired, you're always inflamed, you're probably always unmotivated, and the cycle continues. And research from the National Sleep Foundation shows that adults need seven to nine hours of sleep to function optimally. And one in three of us don't even get close. Seven to nine hours, I know with life it gets a little crazy, can sometimes seem so hard to achieve. And obviously, there are circumstances that may not allow individuals to get that amount of sleep, and any sleep is better than none. But if we're here trying to live our best lives, seven to nine is that optimal sweet spot that we should be aiming for. And here's the kicker: when you're sleep deprived, your cortisol, so your stress hormone, the thing that we don't really want, obviously goes up. What else is new, right? And this can slow down muscle recovery, it can increase cravings, and it even affects your mood and your confidence. These are all things that kind of sound counterintuitive for living our best life, right? So so yeah, you can be crushing your workouts, you can be being you can be waking up early, sitting at your computer, being so productive, but you might still feel a little bit off. And that's because your body hasn't actually had time to rebuild. And I'm talking about rebuild here in the context of like muscle building. Surprise, muscle building takes place when you're resting, not when you're in the gym. When you're in the gym, you're actually muscle tearing, you're causing these little tears in your muscle, and these tears have to repair and rebuild. And guess what? That happens during rest. Same thing with your brain, when you're like, let's say you're studying for something. That time when you are strengthening those neural connections takes place, for example, when you sleep. So let's not underestimate here the power of rest and always keep it as an afterthought. So let's go through a little bit the science of recovery. I'll focus a little bit on the weights part of it, but you can kind of apply this to other areas. And I don't think, well, actually, I am trying to convince you that rest is probably the most important thing that you can do. So when you lift weights, run, or even just train hard, you're literally, again, I mentioned this, you're breaking down your muscle fibers. It's during the rest and the sleep that your body is repairing those fibers and making them stronger. And this is because your growth hormone, which as the name implies, is the one that helps your muscles kind of repair and grow. This spikes during deep sleep. And your brain is also using sleep not just to repair muscles, but think of how much your body is doing to support you. So this is during sleep when you're flushing out toxins, you're balancing hormones, you're even just resetting your emotional state. Like, think of like, I don't know, if you've ever been in a bad mood and you just kind of wake up feeling a little bit better. You're just sort of resetting yourself and allowing that reset to take place. So skipping sleep isn't just missing rest. It's it's like training hard, but never actually saving the progress that you're making. And I'm gonna go through maybe some signs that you are not resting properly. Again, I'm applying this mostly to let's say muscle building and things to look out for, but honestly, these things can apply like across the board. If you're just not giving yourself that time to rest and giving yourself that time to sleep. So if you are always feeling constant soreness, plateaued results, so those two kind of in the context of muscle building, irritability or fatigue, and even just a lack of motivation, like something you just don't want to work and you don't know why. It's maybe it's not that your plan's not working or that maybe you're just lazy, it's that just your recovery is not working. So now I kind of have a proposition for you. We should maybe redefine our rest days. So, to do this, let's talk about what rest actually means. Because it's not just laying on the couch all day and scrolling on your phone. Laying on the couch all day, maybe, maybe that's what your body needs, but that's not really the essence of what I'm talking about. There are two kinds of rest days, okay? You can have like an active recovery rest day. Again, in the context of training, but these are still, I think, important when you want to take a break or rest from the task that you are doing. So you have active recovery. This includes anything that's like low impact movement, walking, yoga, mobility work, even stretching. This helps with like blood flow, reduces soreness, it keeps your body moving without the actual mechanical stress as if you were going to, let's say, lift weights or run. Now, the second type of rest is a full, full rest. And this is when your body and mind need complete downtime. And this downtime comes with no guilt. There shouldn't be that little voice creeping up in your head saying, I should be doing more. You gotta shut that down real quick. We're just allowing your body to recharge. Both types are valid, both types are powerful, both types are needed, and both are productive because productivity is not just about the output and how much you're working, it's also about the recovery that will fuel the better output. Okay, let's bring in a little metaphor here because who does not like a nice little metaphor? You have a cup, the cup is empty. How are you supposed to pour water from an empty cup? Sleep is gonna refuel that cup. Refill it. Now you can pour all the water you want. Alright? So, as always, let's make this actionable. Here are some few simple habits that us assiduous folks can use to make a huge difference in our recovery game. Step Uno. This is going to be creating a wind down routine. So 30 minutes before bed, is 30 minutes is a lot, make it 10. Just pick a time slot before bed where you're sort of dimming the lights. I'm not sitting, I'm not saying like yes, sit in the darkness. Like right now, I'm in my room. I just have a nice night light that's on, on like a warm tone type of color, and you know, it's sort of prepping my mind from being out in the bright light all day to say, okay, maybe sleep is coming soon. All right. So step one, like we mentioned, is to create a wind-down routine. This is where you're dimming the lights, you're not scrolling your phone, and maybe you're doing something like a light stretch, maybe you're journaling. I have an episode on journaling. You can listen to that too. I feel like that may help you. Step two, we're going to try to keep consistent with sleep and awake times. Now, I honestly struggle with this one the most. The most. Like, I'm not even gonna lie. Because if we truly, truly, truly want maximize or take advantage of this tool that we have, which is sleep, we should also be trying to keep some sort of rhythm. Our body absolutely loves rhythm. We have an internal clock inside all of us, and it just loves same time wake up, same time sleep. And this includes weekends, which is why I'm having such a hard time with this one. But honestly, if something we can take away is that we should try to keep it as consistent as possible. So our sleep and wake times should be as consistent as possible. Number three, cutting out caffeine after 2. 2 p.m. is like an arbitrary number. It could be late earlier, a little bit later. But I'm just saying too to give you like a little starting point there. That's because honestly, caffeine stays in your system for hours, and some people are more attuned to it, some people maybe don't feel a difference, but even if you are still able to fall asleep, maybe you're not sleeping as deeply, like your heart rate is still elevated and stuff due to the caffeine in your system. So cutting out caffeine or only having one or two cups in the morning may help to improve your sleep. Number four, we want to actually fuel the recovery. Again, more related to muscle building, but if you're not fueling the recovery, if you're not eating properly, then the sleeping is is not that it's not working, but think about it. Like if you're sleeping to repair your muscles, your muscles need protein and amino acids. If you're not eating enough of those, how are you building? So it's not just about the sleep, it goes hand in hand with the training and the fueling. So you gotta fuel your recovery. And last one, embracing mental rest. Your brain needs a break too. And this can look like meditation, journaling, or just if you just lay in bed, stare at the ceiling, and just be there with your thoughts. Your mind needs rest just as much as your muscles. Try treating sleep and recovery as non-negotiable training sessions. So you probably wouldn't skip leg day. Actually, maybe you would, I don't know, but let's I'm hoping you're not out there skipping leg day. So don't skip your rest either, okay? A little bit of a side note, but I recently got an aura ring, and aura rings are so good for folks who want to truly track their sleep and get like more insight or data related to their sleep. And it has been so insightful in my opinion, and I think a lot of what I'm trying to say comes from stuff that the aura ring has has kind of told me indirectly through the app, things like getting deeper sleep, looking things, looking at things such as like your heart rate while you're sleeping, or the aura app always reminds me to sleep consistently, and and it kind of prompts me to sleep around the same time every day. So so these are all things that I'm not saying you have to go get an aura ring, but just if you have one, good. If you don't, you don't need it, just these simple steps can help you. I'm just trying to say how even this tool that's supposed to help us improve our sleep is kind of giving those same little tips. So just putting it out there for you for free. So you're welcome. Anyway, I made this episode on sleep because as I mentioned earlier, this is a little special episode. I love sleep, I need to be better at it, and I think we can all improve our our sleep schedules, and why not try to do it together? Am I right? So next time you feel guilty for resting, just remember this one thing rest is not a weakness. Honestly, it's it's actually wisdom. I'm just saying your strongest self is not just built in the gym, your most productive self is not just built by constantly working, it's built when you're asleep, when you're recovering, recharging, giving your mind a break, and then when you show up again, when you continue and you're consistent with it. If today's episode resonated with you, I want you to do one single thing this week. Just one task. Other than use the words assidious and edify, because obviously we are trying to improve our vocabulary together. I want you to schedule your rest. Literally write it in your planner. I started doing this where I started writing things that may seem a little bit arbitrary, and just because it's written there, I feel like I kind of have to do it so that I can check it off the list. So just write it in your planner. Make it part of your routine. Don't make it an afterthought. Don't say I'll do it later. It's okay. It's not okay. You gotta rest. So if you found this episode helpful at all, share it with someone who you think's been grinding non-stop. They probably need this little reminder too. It was super fun chatting with everyone. Thank you for tuning in to Vito with Alita, where we talk about living strong inside and out. Until next time, take care of your mind, your body, and your energy. See you in the next one. Bye-bye.