The Best Recovery Hack Every Created
There have been numerous articles, podcasts and social media posts on the best recovery hacks for your mind and body. It is a very popular subject as people’s lives have gotten so busy and they are constantly bombarded with inputs from screens, in the form of video, pictures and audio. All of this relentless messaging leaves people physically and emotionally tired each day.
The list of recovery methods is long and can be very confusing. Things like meditation or contemplation, unplugging at night 2-3 hours before bed, eating less carbs and more protein (or the opposite depending on the source), massages, cold showers, limiting caffeine, the list goes on and on.
There are two very interesting things about these methods. The first is that most of them work to some extent. There is solid science behind many of these if implemented as suggested and done consistently.
The second point is that there is usually one hack that is missing from these suggestions, even if it is implied from the results of some of the others. Meditation calms your brain and body down; unplugging does the same. If fact most of them have a desired result that is rarely mentioned. The best recovery hack is getting great sleep.
Sleep: The Greatest Recovery Hack
When we sleep our physical body rests and that allows us to reset and also lets our entire physique recover from our exertions during the day. Sleep is also mandatory for brain function as it clears out our daily thoughts and it has been recently discovered that during sleep fluids in the brain may flush out harmful toxins. The brain literally cleans out “garbage” during sleep!
This is so important that without sleep for as little as 72 hours we can die. It is not an understatement to say that sleep is vital for our lives. Without sleep, we begin to hallucinate and our brains begin to exhibit the same characteristics as a serious head injury!
The good news is that good sleep facilitates physical and mental recovery so well, that even if we practice no other recovery methods at all we will still derive a tremendous benefit from sleep.
So rather than complicate things, as we have mentioned before, often the best solution is the simplest one and sleep, while seemingly a basic solution, is also one of the best to help us rest, recover and be our best.