Is there a ceiling on how much/ often to practice guitar?

Have you ever thought about this?

I have thought about this quite a lot.

The question is: "How much to practice guitar daily?"

A quick answer from different guitar teachers is to practice 1-2 hours a day to be a semi-professional guitarist!

But here's the kicker with 2+ hours of practice daily...

...your mind wants to rest too!

To be exact - your mind needs to absorb all that good stuff from your practice time and comprehend.

For example, when you practice 1 hour of guitar improvisation over backing tracks, the next day you suffer in some aspects like melodic control, finger dexterity, timing and overall arm/ hand fatigue.

Why?

Because the body needs rest after consistent daily practice.

That's why I like to take some breaks in between my guitar practice days.

If you want to focus on let's say technique for 1h a day then it's a bad schedule to follow.

Much wiser to practice technique for 1h every other day or even only 2-3 days a week.

By the way, I am an advocate of keeping breaks and play guitar not more the 1h a day or 2h every other day.

Remember, guitar is supposed to be fun. It's a hobby.

If you are a pro guitar player then it's expected to have some bad mood days.

But for amateurs like us, guitar is exciting. Like I say - it's FUN!

So, what's the optimum here?

I would say for me it's probably not more than 1h daily or 2hours 2-3 times a week.

Anything more and my body responds by fatiguing.

And remember, there's a mountain of different stuff to practice - songs, technique, triads, arpeggios, recording, songwriting, improvisation, ear training, etc.

So my advice is to keep everything under check.

To your success! Bye!