The Next 72 Hours: Recovering After You’ve Given It Your All

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it but I joined a new musical ensemble back in January.

Saint Xavier University is a mile from my house and they have a University Chorale there composed of university students and alumni, university faculty and staff, and community members. A number of fellow musicians that I have sung with at different parishes here on the south side of Chicago are members of this ensemble. One of my goals for 2026 was to step up my game, musically speaking, and I joined the Chorale in January at the start of the new semester.

It has been a great experience, and I have enjoyed growing as a vocalist and meeting great people. As a matter of fact, our Spring concert was last Friday. 

The two hours before the concert were spent warming up and running through any trouble spots in the music. There were a number of parts that were difficult, complex, or required a lot of breath support or a lot of sound, as it were. And during that rehearsal, our Director said, “Don’t spend all of what you have in rehearsal.” Meaning save some energy and breath and voice for the actual performance. 

Because, yes, all of those commodities are finite.  Energy, obviously. Breath - yes, we can just take another breath in a moment, of course, but sustaining breath support to sing long phrases and high notes also takes work and the muscles we use get tired and we can run out of the energy to support our breath, too. And voice - voice is absolutely finite. There are days when I attend meetings and then teach for 4 hours and then go to a rehearsal, and yes - the voice runs out!  At the end of those days, my voice and I are both truly depleted! 

My Director then amended his statement to say, “In terms of energy and voice, never spend all that you have.” Even in performance. “Because if you spend it all, it will take you three days to come back from that.”

Don't spend it all. In this case, “it” is voice and energy and breath. Don't spend it all. Especially not in rehearsal, and even not in performance. 

And there’s the point, there is his point: If you spend it all, metaphorically speaking, it takes three days to get it back. 

He was speaking to all of us with that statement, which I also find interesting. There are college students, aged late teens to early 20s. There are University alumni, faculty and staff, and then community members like me.  The age range among 60 of us is from approximately 20 to approximately 80+ years of age.

And honestly, that's still a universal piece of advice, that when we spend “it” all, in terms of energy and focus and performance, or whatever “it” is for us, when we spend it all and have nothing left, replacing it is not a matter of an hour of rest or a night’s sleep, or drinking a glass of water or eating a snack. Gone is gone. Done is done.

And per my Director, it takes three days to build it back up. On average, of course. Because for some of us, if we “spend it all”, it may take more than 3 days to catch up. And some lucky few may not need quite so long.

In a related conversation last week, a friend was commenting that she needed three days to catch up after three rigorous days of travel. We call that re-entry, and I agreed wholeheartedly! In past articles I have mentioned my theory that for every day of travel, we need at least a day of prep before and a day of catch-up and reentry after arriving home to get ourselves back on track!

And the point is:

• To recognize that this occurs.  

• To be aware of when we may have “spent it all”, or spent most!

• To know for ourselves what we need to do to recalibrate. And,

• To actually taking those steps.

Let’s put this in real life terms. I wrote this on a Sunday. And I mentioned this quote to my husband that morning when I was feeling very tired but still needed to go and cantor 2 Masses at a local parish because they hired me to be there.

And when I mentioned my Director’s quote, Greg said “72 hours”.  And he is right, of course. I love it when I am quoted back to me, and I also admit I need reminders! A few months ago, I wrote about “The Last 72 Hours” and how, at any moment, how we are feeling physically and emotionally are a product of our last 72 hours. But thinking of my Director’s quote, we also need to pay attention to and plan for The NEXT 72 hours.

Looking back at those last 72 hours: 

The concert was Friday night, after a full work week and a presentation on Thursday night. And then Saturday, we drove to Michigan and back to be with my family.  I did not eat high quality food while we traveled, there was breakfast and a late lunch of fast food. I NEVER drink enough water when we travel. And then there was some added family stress. No wonder I was feeling tired.

More importantly, looking ahead for the next 3 days, what am I going to do about feeling depleted?  

I’ve recently written about self care. And grace. I talk regularly about the importance of rest and sleep, and routines for our survival and maintenance tasks because they are vitally important. 

Depletion and “Spending it all” occurs. Consider, we have weekends for a reason. Somewhere along the way, smart humans realized that we humans need rest after working all week. We aren’t meant to continue to “spend it all”.  Of course, later that afternoon (Sunday), my husband asked “when does the weekend begin?” because it had been so busy! But that is a topic for a future week.

In the same way that we identify how we are feeling right now as the product of our last 72 hours, we also can think, after doing hard things, I'm tired and drained and I can do things to help myself recover over the next 72 hours. 

Within three days and maybe sooner, after taking steps, I can expect to be back to a normal level of energy and focus, feel back on track, feel closer to normal, whatever that means for me.  Because we need to each know for ourselves what normal feels like.

What have we learned?

Don't “spend it all”, whatever that is for you.

Don’t “spend it all” because it takes 3 days, give or take, to catch back up.

If you do “spend it all”, don’t expect success if you try to spend it all again the next day. Because there's not anything left to spend. 

If you do “spend it all”, or even just too much, be aware. Be aware of what that looks and feels like to you. Then lower your expectations of yourself, show yourself some grace and kindly and gently and compassionately endeavor to do the things that will help you refresh your energy and focus, your physical and mental wellness.

More importantly, be aware of what those next 72 hours look like for you and for me to get our energy and focus back. Do the work ahead of time, so you have the tools and knowledge in place to help yourself.

Some of those tools may include:

Grace.

In my article and episode about Grace from a month ago, I reminded us all, you and me to Be more understanding with yourself! “Be merciful. Be lenient. Bail out, pull out of the fire, let off the hook, grant immunity, spare, pardon, forgive, absolve, reprieve, give amnesty, excuse, exempt, free, discharge, forbear, pity, release, bail out, go easy on, grant a pardon to, let go, refrain from hurting.”, etc.

Routines.

Rely heavily on your routines, the basics of survival.  Make sure to complete those long-designated daily tasks. Drink the water, take the supplements, eat the healthy breakfast, and meditate. Get specific with your routines, too, with tools like Meal Planning and your PACT Goals around tracking wellness metrics like hydration, movement, sleep, etc. 

Self Care.

I hope you have that list for yourself that I suggested that you make. So when you wake up feeling depleted, knowing you spent all you had energy wise, be ready to take the extra steps to intentionally take care of yourself. Take the nap, phone the friend, take the walk in the sunlight, order take out instead of cooking. 

We know that a characteristic of amazing and high performing people like you, my community, is to occasionally - or even often! - “spent it all”.  Let this article be the reminder to you and to me to be careful not spend it all! To be aware if we did!  And to take the steps to bring us back to a smooth operating order in 3 days.