Additionally and often due to their non-covalent nature, tough hydrogels exhibit pronounced self-healing and selfrecovering properties. To characterize those, cyclic tensile tests are carried out for which the sample undergoes successive loading and unloading phases. The maximum strain of the tensile cycle is chosen to be lower than the failure strain of the sample. After the loading phase, the stress is released and the hydrogel ideally contracts to its original shape (Figure ). Such a cyclic tensile test allows the calculation of the hysteresis work W hys , which describes the energy that is lost or dissipated during one deformation cycle (loading & unloading). Whether this work is desirably large or small depends on the hydrogel's intented use. For instance, in damping applications a system is required to absorb and dissipate energy to be able to mitigate a shock or vibration and enhance system stability. In this case, larger values for W hys are needed (Figure ). Conversely, sometimes lower dissipation energies are clearly preferred, for example, when a minimization of energy loss is critical to provide resistance to multiple loading cycles (Figure ).