The idea of burning too many calories seems very unlikely, but it can very possibly be true. The rush of adrenaline from finishing an intense Workout is thrilling and addictive, so it makes sense to want to go to the gym as often as possible and push your Body to the edge every single time, but this can surprisingly be very damaging to yourself, and you may want to stop. Several of us ignore how important it is to have a resting day, and we have to pace ourselves when it comes to cardio, weightlifting and bodybuilding, ab workouts, and most other workouts.

To the contrary of most people’s beliefs, taking a day off every week can help your muscles rest and get ready for the next day at the gym. This is a lot like resting in between reps and sets, it helps your body get ready and prepare for the next workout and prevents your muscles from getting overtired and crashing.

Damage on your body, skin, and overall health.

First, let’s talk about the damage you’d be doing to yourself if you don’t take at least one day off from working out. The first thing you’ll notice is your state of mind starting to get more and more negative. Suddenly, everyone you used to adore has completely switched to being the most annoying people you’ve ever met. As wild as it may appear, the problem here isn’t the people around you, it’s actually you.

When you don’t take a rest day, you’ll subconsciously start to become more and more irritable. You’ll start to think more pessimistically, noticing the bad things going on rather than the good things. You’ll start to wonder why your body doesn’t look the way you want it to look, especially since your working your butt off every day of the week. Overtraining naturally leads to self-critical thinking, which is the cause for this new pessimistic attitude you’ve taken on without even noticing. Your mind will start to slip into a downward spiral, and you won’t even realize why.

Contrary to popular belief, working out every day doesn’t actually give you a physical advantage over everyone else, but it actually gives you a disadvantage. Exercising every day means your muscles will start to get exhausted, and they won’t have a chance to recover. Have you noticed you’ve been feeling sore in several new places, such as your joints? This is a sure-fire sign of overusing your muscles.

Overuse of the muscles, ligaments, and tendons will cause a constant inflammation in your body. This increases the chances of injury and breaking a bone or tearing a ligament is going to set you way farther back in your workout regimen than a rest day ever will. To add on to this, not fueling yourself correctly after a workout can cause you to even lose muscle mass, the opposite of most of our goals.

Fatigue

When people exercise every day of the week, they do it with the hopes that their body will feel and look better than ever before, with the courtesy of quicker results. However, exercising every day of the week actually does the exact opposite of that. Consistently practicing high-intensity workouts will cause your endocrine system to start to fatigue. When your endocrine system starts to fatigue, it will start to produce cortisol. Cortisol is a steroid hormone that is produced by the zona fasciculata of the adrenal cortex inside of the adrenal gland. Cortisol is responsible for a wide variety of processes throughout your body, but it’s mostly known for regulating metabolism, and the immune response.

Cortisol is also known as the ‘stress hormone’ which has very negative results on the body. When you practice a healthy amount of exercise, the endocrine system keeps the cortisol in check, and your body will become better at dealing with physical stress. However, when you overwork your body, you will also overwork your endocrine system, meaning you’ll start to produce more cortisol and you’ll generally start to feel worse and worse, mentally and physically.

Immune System Issues

Your immune system will be compromised, and your performance levels will start to worsen. Maybe you’ve had a cold for a week or a month longer than you should, maybe you’ve gotten the flu more than you’ve ever had before, and these are very clear signs that your immune system is in need of some help.

The reason your immune system is starting to weaken is because of the increased amounts of cortisol and adrenaline running through your system. Higher cortisol and adrenaline levels tend to suppress your immune system. Your performance levels will start to suffer, which means instead of striving and doing better at the gym every day, you’ll actually start to get worse and worse. Your muscles will start to regress until you can give your body a day off.

Stress

Over-exercising your body means you will also be putting an excessive amount of stress on your body until you give yourself at least a day to rest and recover. More stress on your body means it’ll be more difficult for your body to relax, meaning it’ll be even more difficult to go to sleep. As ironic as it seems, sleeping problems will start to become more frequent than ever. This means that not only will your body be exhausted, but your state of mind will also be.

If you identify yourself as a gym junkie or even someone who just enjoys exercising and have been experiencing any of these symptoms, it’s very probable you have been overworking your body and need to give yourself at least a day of rest.

Letting your body recover from a workout is essential if you want to see positive results in your body. If you do give yourself a day of rest but still suffer from these symptoms, you should consider changing your workout regimen to something less intense. It’s very easy to get rid of these damaging conditions, the only thing you have to do is let yourself rest. Massaging your sore muscles will help relieve tension and promote blood circulation, which will also promote the healing of soft-tissue damage. Hydration will help your recovery be as efficient as possible and will maximize your performance on your next workout. The most important thing is your health and how you’re feeling, and rest is almost as important as the exercise portion of your workout regimen.

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