two approaches.
Each of these processes supports the other; just a little moderate exercise will help your sleep. With sound sleep you find it easier to resist junk food. A balanced, integrated approach is far better than going overboard on any of these. We have all met people obsessed with one particular approach, be it running or a certain food or the latest yoga. A healthy, well body will provide stacks of energy and it's pretty straightforward. We'll actually look at these in the order Meditation, Diet, Exercise and Sleep and will refer to the “MEDS” approach.
And mental – the drivers or components of great mental energy are:
1. Switch perspective. We're naturally going to talk about stress and you'll be aware of how much harm it can do to your mental energy i.e., your focus and will and simple sense of perspective. However, there is a powerful tool, which is often intuitive but with practice can save you so much heartache and that is to switch your perspective, to change your perception. Thus: it's the biggest argument ever with your girlfriend about mismanaged finances (debilitating) or it's an opportunity to sort out your shared money and responsibilities and start saving for the future (enlivening). Mmm … powerful! But perhaps you are thinking, it's not as easy as that though is it? Stick with us.
2. Hands on, brain off. One of the many attractions of alcohol is that at the end of a demanding day we can “get out of our head”. More and more of us do spend our days in our head. Staring at screens and PowerPoint slides. Handling email. Huddled in meetings. Reading the Metro or a book on our iPad mini on the tube. It was never meant to be so. We're a mind-body creature. We love the physical side of things: we need to bake more bread! Seriously? Sort of; much more coming up about how getting more physical paradoxically gives us more mental energy.
3. Understand the bigger picture. It's tiring when you feel you are merely a cog in a machine. You become dulled: you commute, you drink coffee, you go to the gym. But what's it all about? We need a bigger picture. No – you need your bigger picture because when you do, you'll fully come alive. TBC!
4. Group connect. A friend or two. A lover maybe. Possibly some family. A listening ear, a sympathetic word, a supportive hug … these are the people who put things in proportion; keep you grounded; help you get through the tricky times. Everybody needs to connect. More in a later section.
Again, each of these processes supports the other: some “hands-on”, e.g., baking bread can help keep your mind from overworking and generating extra anxiety. With some work on your bigger career goals you will find you are much calmer about the coming re-org at work. And again, a balanced, integrated approach is far better than going overboard on any of these: ruthlessly setting goals which MUST be hit for every aspect of your life will simply set stress levels soaring rather than what you had hoped. We'll actually look at these in the order Hands, Understand, Group connect and Switch and will refer to the “HUGS” approach.
MEDS will support HUGS and vice versa. If you do a little on each of the eight directions there is no reason why you cannot get the healthy reserves of energy you seek. And if any particular aspect is having a hard time, e.g., there is a newborn in the house and sleep in understandably broken, then the other strands of MEDS and HUGS will compensate.
The Story
Marcus is tired. He's tired of life. Tired of his job. Tired of his teenage kids. But most of all he's tired of feeling tired. And he doesn't know what's wrong. He remembers himself as a graduate trainee starting out some fifteen years ago in corporate banking as someone who could drink anyone under the table and still do a stunning pitch and win the deal at 9:00 am the next morning. But no longer. Life is about airports, email, PowerPoint and quarterly reviews. And his demanding teenagers; did he mention those? Er, yes he's married. Sort of.
Marcus is tired. Sometimes he can hardly get out of the business lounge chair, join the conference call on time or be bothered to celebrate his own birthday. Oh, what he would give for some serious energy.
But we're going to help.
The Q&A
You haven't mentioned illness at all. Surely that affects your energy?
You are right of course. What we can say is that if you follow the strategies we will talk about in MEDS and HUGS you'll have more energy to fight such illness. And if you do go down with the flu, you'll bounce back up more quickly.
Of course when you are ill the main thing is to respect that illness and if you feel tired, then that is for a reason: the body seeks rest, so rest!
The Solution
1. Decide that you are going to get your energy back.
2. Or increase it.
3. Or make it more consistent.
4. Be willing to tackle both the mental side.
5. And the physical.
6. Start.
2
Meditation: Relaxing Your Mind
The Challenge
One reason we don't always have the energy, the enthusiasm, that “buzz”, for life is stress. Stress, that “catch-all” modern term for the wide range of irritations from interminable transport problems to difficult clients, that brings our mood and our energy down. Stress is a very individual sufferance, affecting us in a variety of ways but most would agree one sure fire way to experience the feeling is overload. For all of us there is a threshold when too much traffic, too many emails and too many demands from toddlers will cause us to crack. Thus one of the best defences against stress is the opposite of overload: down time, quiet time and minimized data input. Data input: yes, that's anything from watching another TV programme to Facebook updating. Putting it bluntly, our brain needs a rest so that it can cope again.
The Detail
You see, once upon a time, data deprivation was built into our lives. Imagine it's 1968 and a business person is waiting for a train; while he waits, what does he do? Possibly reads the paper, possibly has a cigarette. But there's no coffee to go; he is not checking his phone. On the train journey he doesn't catch up on email and nobody can phone him. Are we saying those were better times? Of course not: simply different. But what we can recognize is that down time, recovery time, meditation time was built into the day. Now it's up to us.
So how do we go about getting some data deprivation, some meditation into our day? Here are some ideas, starting really simply and you can see how far you wish to take it as you notice the results for yourself.
Level 1: The break, the breathing, the observation. It's very easy in this busy, busy, busy world in which we live to be awoken with an alarm and then tumble though the day with no real break, no real fresh air, no real perspective, no real pauses, no real grounding and then finally collapse exhausted at the end of the day. The first and simplest level of data interrupt is to take a break as often as you can during the day. Short, discrete, maybe even as little as five minutes. At the break get away from your desk, step outside if you can. Sip some water, look up and around. Stretch. Breathe fully and just notice what's happening around you. This simple grounding process is very powerful and is easy.
Level 2: The switch off. Once you can achieve a few of those during the day, the next level is the total switch off. Lunchtime would be good and certainly your evening when you get home. At lunchtime are you sitting at your machine and half doing a spreadsheet and half eating your tuna baguette? Leave the spreadsheet alone. Have an electron-free 45 minutes. Although of course it is nice to catch up on personal texts, even leave that for a while and take a walk.
Level 3: A simple breathing meditation. Try the following simple breathing meditation technique:
Sit easily and comfortably in an environment where nothing will suddenly disturb you and as close to quiet as possible. An upright