How to Take a Mental Break From Training, According to a Performance Psychologist

As an athlete, or even someone who just exercises regularly, taking time off can feel akin to stepping outside yourself: If I’m not a person who does this activity, who am I?

Unplanned breaks from exercise, whether due to injury, travel, or other unforeseen circumstances, are rarely as simple as a few days of rest and relaxation. It can also mean losing time with a community, ending a streak, or stepping away from a program you’ve been committed to for months. Often, you might blame yourself for what feels like a failure that’s out of your control. But you’re not alone.

For many of us, our identity is wrapped up in our sport—it’s no longer something we participate in—it’s a way to show who we are.

“A lot of athletes experience this struggle, and it doesn’t mean anything is wrong with you,” says Justin Ross, a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in human performance.

It might not feel like it in the moment, but time away from your regular fitness routine can actually be a good thing. It can give us a chance to recalibrate, remember who we are without our sport, and reignite our sense of joy.

“It turns out taking a break is really important for us, both physically and psychologically,” says Ross.

Why It’s Hard for You to Take a Break From Training

Being unable to do your sport even for a brief period of time can feel like a much greater loss. We tend to understand and empathize with the loss of a loved one, but an athlete who can’t train actually experiences loss in a similar way, explains Ross. “We call it disenfranchised grief,” he says, because that grief is very real but less easily understood by others.

At a low level, you might experience a sense of uneasiness, like you’re lost. But it can go deeper than that, too. For many of us, our identity is wrapped up in our sport—it’s no longer something we participate in—it’s a way to show who we are.

“No longer do I go for runs: I’m a marathoner. No longer do I do multi-sport: I’m an Ironman,” says Ross. “And once we start to lock in those identity structures, it’s not just something we do. It’s who we are. So the absence of training feels like a threat to our very identity.”

Ross works with patients to help bring awareness to why a forced break can be so challenging, explore that anxiety, and begin to reestablish their identity as a constellation of traits and interests. He helps them understand that taking a step back can be an opportunity to redefine who they are without that thing they do.

If You’re Injured, Lean into the Recovery Plan

An injury, especially when it comes while you’re training for a major goal, can make you angry, both at yourself and at the nebulous concept of being sidelined in general. Ross sees the process of dealing with a break that’s thrust upon you as having three distinct time periods.

Once you recognize that time off doesn’t have to be associated with failure, building breaks into your plan can help you not only recover physically but also mentally, bringing back a sense of joy and excitement.

The first is the moment the injury happens, when there’s mounting anxiety around what this means and what to do. Next comes the recovery process, when a diagnosis is given, and a treatment plan is in place. During this time, the sense of loss still looms, but “there’s some comfort too,” says Ross, because there’s a clear path to recovery and athletes tend to do well with a regimen to follow. The third phase, the return to your sport, can often be the hardest, he adds. It comes with a new sense of worry about what that will feel like, whether you’ll be able to pick up where you left off, and a concern that you might be sluggish or weak.

How to Take a Mental Break From Training Without the Guilt

Though we can’t always know when an acute injury will occur, we can often avoid overuse and overtraining injuries by scheduling time off. Once you recognize that time off doesn’t have to be associated with failure, building breaks into your plan can help you not only recover physically but also mentally, bringing back a sense of joy and excitement.

Schedule Breaks in Advance

Looking at your training plan on a micro level, try to take a rest day at least once a week. If you zoom out to the entire month, quarter, or even season, “It’s OK to take days to weeks off at a time to recalibrate,” says Ross.

Consider blocking off an upcoming vacation or work trip as a recovery week. That way, instead of searching for the nearest gym or trying to sneak away from family time for a sweat session, you can enjoy the break and rest easy knowing it was part of your plan all along.

During that time off, you don’t have to sit around eating chips on the couch (although you’re free to do so!): it’s a great opportunity to do something different and use what you have available. Somewhere tropical? Ditch your cycling shoes for a lap swim. Near the mountains? Swap your usual run for a casual hike.

“When we get really narrow in our limited scope of what we do and how we train, often the things that fall away are adventure and curiosity,” says Ross. “So I think rebalancing there can be really powerful.”

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