Yes! I have independently discovered this exact same thing for myself, though my terminology is almost the opposite of yours—I think I had always thought of “rest days” as days mostly spent in front of the TV or online (corresponding to your Recovery Days), whereas what I now realize I need to do regularly is “doing whatever I want” days, which I also sometimes call “desire days”—I end up doing a lot of things I don’t really think of as rest but which are much more restorative than just resting.
(If I’m really tired or anhedonic on a designated “desire day”, I end up just doing “rest day” stuff anyway; sometimes this is the right choice, other times it doesn’t really help but it’s better than doing “rest day” stuff on a day I had meant to get stuff done, so it’s possibly still better than not setting that day aside.)
Some things I’ve ended up doing on desire days:
cooking, baking, making jam
putting on some music, opening the windows, and dancing around my living room
reading French poetry
learning new songs on guitar
having a somewhat useful emotional crisis
doing some self-therapy, like writing down my thoughts / working out what I care about
figuring out how much I owe in donations this year
reading and taking notes on Nate Soares’ Replacing Guilt series
reading the 80K career guide
playing a typing game
doing things that I’m annoyed about having put off for a long time
fiddling with spreadsheets to make a useful graph of my mood-tracking data
Yes! I have independently discovered this exact same thing for myself, though my terminology is almost the opposite of yours—I think I had always thought of “rest days” as days mostly spent in front of the TV or online (corresponding to your Recovery Days), whereas what I now realize I need to do regularly is “doing whatever I want” days, which I also sometimes call “desire days”—I end up doing a lot of things I don’t really think of as rest but which are much more restorative than just resting.
(If I’m really tired or anhedonic on a designated “desire day”, I end up just doing “rest day” stuff anyway; sometimes this is the right choice, other times it doesn’t really help but it’s better than doing “rest day” stuff on a day I had meant to get stuff done, so it’s possibly still better than not setting that day aside.)
Some things I’ve ended up doing on desire days:
cooking, baking, making jam
putting on some music, opening the windows, and dancing around my living room
reading French poetry
learning new songs on guitar
having a somewhat useful emotional crisis
doing some self-therapy, like writing down my thoughts / working out what I care about
figuring out how much I owe in donations this year
reading and taking notes on Nate Soares’ Replacing Guilt series
reading the 80K career guide
playing a typing game
doing things that I’m annoyed about having put off for a long time
fiddling with spreadsheets to make a useful graph of my mood-tracking data
proofreading things for people
laundry