If you do nothing on the weekend and are completely inactive, psychologists recommend changing these bad habits

The weekend rolls around and you say to yourself that you’ve earned a respite, which is true. But how you use your well-earned time off can make all the difference for how your brain recovers for the upcoming week.

Psychologists warn that overindulging on food, drink, slouching, and streaming during your 48 hours of “freedom” can be detrimental to our brains and lead to burnout just as fast as working too many hours. Yes, we need to disconnect, but we need to do so in a manner that lets our brains relax while at the same time they remain stimulated.

Weekend habits that may be leading to burnout

We are constantly told to do things in moderation and maintain a routine to lead a better more fulfilling life. Studies have shown that swinging from one extreme to another can leave your brain struggling to keep up with what is happening.

Burning the candle at both ends, over scheduling activities, drinking more than we normally would, indulging our taste buds, or binging on a whole series on Netflix, all have the effect of leaving your brain and body fatigued by the time Monday rolls around as you don’t give them time to repair.

Instead, you should be using your weekends to constructively stimulate your grey matter and muscles with activities that they don’t get to do during the work week, a form of “cross-training,” according to Psychology Today. This helps develop curiosity which helps awaken dormant neural connections, strengthening them against exhaustion.

It is also important that you let your mind and body relax, but not rot. You need to be “intentional about letting your prefrontal cortex truly disengage without drifting into mindless consumption.” This means turning off notifications on your phone and disconnecting from social media so that you can put as much space between you and your workplace or other sources of stress as possible.

You should “treat downtime as an active investment,” says the outlet, which will pay valuable dividends in the long run.

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