145 The Science of Physical and Mental Recovery | Dr Shona Halson

Wearables claim to know your every move, but are they actually helping you recover? Dr Shona Halson is a renowned expert in sports science and recovery strategies. We get into the nitty gritty of the science and real life strategies you need on Performance Intelligence.

Invest time to listen to this episode and you’ll hear:
-If screen time can ever count as real recovery
-The truth about wearables
-How VR and AI are reshaping the recovery game
-Why leaders and coaches need recovery just as much as athletes
- Easy, actionable tips you can try tonight

In this episode, Andrew and Shona discuss:

0:10 Shona’s definition of recovery, training is important,t but you need to recover and the research into mental recovery that led to Shona’s work at the AIS.

6:30 How to make physical and mental recovery sound normal to the average person, there’s a lot of magic in the mental side of recovery, and crossing mental and physical recovery.

11:00 How Shona measures recovery, is wearable tech all that useful in recovery, and knowing all your stats isn’t always the best thing for some people.

16:20 Sleep is the most important factor in recovery. Every athlete is different in how much knowledge you can load them up with in the pre-season, and Shona’s example of how this had played out with a team she worked with.

25:30 The strong link between learning and sleep, Simone Biles taking time off and coming back even stronger, and the shorter off-season players have compared to a few years ago.

33:10 Some examples of how you can add some recovery to your life, Shona’s role in starting up the recovery centre at the AIS and the concept of a recovery rocket alongside the recovery points system.

44:05 Coaches need some recovery for themselves, being tired and fatigued changes everything about your mood and some of the external factors, such as family, can impact recovery.

52:00 Getting exercise in the time that works for you, walking to get your brain going, and we don’t understand the effects that screen time has on us.

56:40 Video games aren’t recovery, the growing use of VR in recovery, and using AI along with VR to assist imagery.

1:03:15 How Andrew gets people to change their behaviours and where you can find Shona.

Listen to the Real Science of Sport episode mentioned: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-real-science-of-sport-podcast/id1461719225?i=1000712107079
Read the Recovery Umbrella article: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34941807/
View the Recovery Rocket:https://performanceintelligence.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/recovery-rocket-1.png

https://performanceintelligence.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/recovery-rocket-2.png

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