I’m trying something new with my habit tracking. I, like so many others, find it easiest to set up daily habit tracking. It’s a simple expectation, just do the thing every day. Don’t let yourself miss more than one day, go go.

But this misses an important element of the change process: rest. You need rest for your system to adapt to the changes you’re trying to make.

Running every day sounds like a good way to get in shape. It’s also an easy way to hurt yourself if you’re not careful about how much you run. Writing every day is great until you completely burn yourself out because you’re not careful to replenish your store of things that excite you to write about (hi, this is me).

Right now, I’m trying to work on my ankle mobility. Two days into stretching every day, my ankles are sore and I can tell I’m about to hurt myself. Two! In the past, I would either push through (and hurt myself) or tell myself that I’ll get back to it when I feel better (and never get back to it).

Now, I’ve made rest a part of the Things I’m Allowed To Do to help my ankles. Yesterday my habit tracker got an R so that I’m still in my ankle streak without hurting myself. Today might as well.

This reminds me of the book Good to Go by Christie Aschwanden, which explores the scientific evidence for various recovery modalities. Despite the lack of evidence supporting many of the recovery modalities, they’re a chance for high achieving athletes to do something while resting. As Aschwanden says,

“I’ve come to think that different recovery modalities just represent variations on the same few approaches to recovery—soothing your muscles and body so you feel better (even if nothing is actually changing in a physiological sense), providing a ritual for taking care of yourself that gives you a sense of autonomy and self-efficacy (what many people think of as being proactive), and finally, creating a formalized way to stop everything else and help you focus on resting.”

The little R in my habit tracker feels similarly active. I’m doing something, while doing nothing. Hopefully it keeps me healthy, while also keeping me moving. Rest on.