Although you can use social recovery throughout the day, it’s only effective if the environment is relaxed. Going to coffee with a colleague only to discuss work won’t do you much good. That’s why we recommend this strategy for the end of your workday. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. When we are feeling stressed, often our natural inclination is to retreat inward and wall ourselves off from the outside world. In the worst cases, the stress lingers and grows and we put ourselves at risk for a vicious cycle of rumination: Just ask an athlete who finished an intense training session and isn’t
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