When is the right time to return to life as a combat sports athlete from the worst kind of personal tragedy? Is there even a right answer?

Perhaps not, but in the case of Walt Harris — whose stepdaughter Aniah Blanchard was killed in late 2019 — taking barely half a year before returning to the UFC to face fellow heavyweight heavy-hitter Alistair Overeem in a main event wasn’t enough time to get his mindset right. 

Likewise for the subsequent bouts against Alexander Volkov and Marcin Tybura over the ensuing 13 months, with all three ending via TKO loss.

“I think I came back, after I lost my daughter, way, way too fast,” Harris told The Post during a recent Zoom call. “I was running from what I was dealing with, and I felt like the only way to deal with it at the time, I thought, was to fight, to train, which it helped me in some senses. 

“But I wasn’t doing enough self-maintenance outside of the gym. I wasn’t taking care of myself, thinking about things, and from a mental standpoint. I felt like every fight that I had after that, I was physically where I needed to be. But mentally … I can tell you exact moments in each fight where I was winning, and then I just checked out.”

After two years and a month of what he called “rebooting,” Harris (13-10, 13 finishes) says he’s in a better place mentally to return to the octagon this Saturday (10 p.m., ESPN) against Josh Parisian on the main card of the latest UFC Fight Night card.

The decision to take time away from the sport, arrived at with the help of his therapist, wasn’t limited to simply not taking a fight for what would become 25 months. 

Harris also stepped back from training altogether, limiting himself to being a fan at events and hanging out with peers in the mixed martial arts world.

But in January, Harris started getting the itch again, a feeling he said hadn’t sunk its teeth in for quite a while, and posted an Instagram selfie captioned, “Coming soon real soon! Currently under construction” with the hashtag #SomethingsBrewing.

The spur-of-the-moment social media post brought Harris all the right validation that he should “follow this feeling through.”

It also attracted the attention of perhaps the most accomplished fighter in the young history of mixed martial arts: Jon Jones, who called Harris as he and a friend returned to the latter’s house for dinner.

“I get a call from ‘Bones’,” said Harris, referring to the current UFC heavyweight champion and former longtime No. 1 light heavyweight, “and he’s like, ‘What are you doing?’ And I was like, “Uh, [to] be quite honest, I’ve been sitting on the couch, and I’m not in shape.’ And he goes, ‘I don’t care. … When do you want to leave?’ ”

Jones flew Harris out within a week to where was training Albuquerque, N.M., in preparation to face Ciryl Gane for the vacant UFC heavyweight crown.

The two-month experience training with the all-time great lit a fire under Harris, who has been friendly with Jones since they shared space on 2016’s UFC 197 pay-per-view card — Jones in the headliner, Harris deep on the prelims, each picking up a victory — and Jones requested to share his locker room with the former Jacksonville State basketball player.

“His mentality is elite, the way he approached the mental side of fighting,” said Harris of his biggest takeaway from time in Jones’ company. “Yes, he’s the most skilled, the most talented, but his mind is something I really, really admire, and I have always admired.

“… It was just the way he approached the fight game, how he studies. He would have us bring notebooks to practice and take notes on certain things and he would allow us to watch the film and then give our input. And I kind of brought that back into my camp.”

Harris opted to center the training camp for his return against Parisian (15-6, 13 finishes) this weekend at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas back home in Alabama, rather than take up Jones’ offer to head to New Mexico again as both were otherwise preoccupied throughout the past few months.

But Harris, who turned 40 last month, fully intends on working again with Jones, who on Friday was announced by UFC president Dana White to be defending the UFC belt against former two-time champ Stipe Miocic at Madison Square Garden in November.

“I decided, hey, this is my first fight back. Let me stay home,” Harris said of sticking by his Homewood, Ala., home with his family. “Let me get around what I’m used to, and then maybe next fight, we’ll go out there, the team, and we’ll do another camp out there.”