Just because it’s normal doesn’t mean it’s healthy. When it comes to the world that uses exhaustion like a badge of honor, I’m here to tell you – this isn’t the way things were supposed to be. You can be successful and energized. Let me show you how to get more energy without giving up your life.
Tired? Let’s Talk!
If you’re tired, you’re not alone. Most of the population falls somewhere between exhausted and just going through the motions. Being tired seems to be the American way of life.
But it’s not supposed to be that way.
Energy is something we all have. It’s inside of us. The first law of thermodynamics proves this by stating; energy is neither created nor destroyed but only altered.
You have what you need. Even if it feels like your energy is lacking, it’s not. It’s just being suppressed or channeled in a way that makes you feel like you have none. How your body channels energy changes what you feel, producing action accordingly.
Think of it like a lightbulb. A lightbulb can exist, but without electricity, the bulb never glows. The same holds true for your body. Energy is there, but you must turn the switch on to experience it. How you turn that switch is determined by the safety of your body.
In times of stress, your body down-regulates your energy production, leading it to store, hoard and conserve it rather than use it. In times of safety, health, and nourishment, your body has abundant energy to use to live.
The question isn’t, what happened to your energy, but why is your body altering the flow of it to conserve it rather than use it?
You don’t have to be tired all the time. Your body was made to thrive. Learning how to live that way is the secret to health. Inside this podcast, I dive into what energy is and how to get more. Take a listen to learn this life-giving health information.
How do you get more energy?
The only way to get more energy is to understand how it’s being altered. As stated above, the first law of thermodynamics states that you have the energy you need. You just don’t feel it because of how it’s being influenced.
Everything you do, encounter, speak, or think alters your energy flow. When you alter energy, you change what your body does with what you provide. For instance, how you think when you eat changes what your body does with what you eat. Contrary to popular belief, this leads you to see health through the lens of perfecting the equation that if you eat less than you burn, you’ll lose weight, and losing weight will make you healthy.
But health doesn’t work that way. Partially because health is not about weight loss, but weight loss is a by-product of health. But mostly because your health outcome is based on what your body does with what you provide.
It’s not about how many calories you consume, even though calories are important. What matters is what your body does with those calories.
How your body uses or influences that energy is what creates results.
This is why equations only work for a while. Eventually, the energy deficit threatens your system leaving it to compensate by conserving energy. It’s the workings of your survival mechanism that protect you from prolonged and frequent bouts of stress that threaten your life (even if you don’t intend for it to be a threat).
What stress has to do it?
Stress often gets a bad rap. But stress is not a bad thing. Stress can be one of our greatest assets and the necessary component of change. But it’s only good if we work to support the body’s energy. We have to work to maintain a level of thriving to balance out the stress load.
Understanding this prevents you from fearing the natural gravitational pull of life that leads us to fall out of balance. Living out of balance from time to time is given. But it doesn’t and shouldn’t wreck you.
You should be able to handle the stress of a looming work deadline, a sickness, or waking up with a restless toddler in the middle of the night. You should be able to handle the stress of your environment and whatever life throws your way.
But you don’t or haven’t, not because you’re incapable but because you’ve failed to foster your energy flow, leaving you teetering on the line of your energy threshold.
The energy threshold is a simple tool to understand where you fall on the spectrum of surviving to thriving.
Think of it like a bank account. The closer you get to zero dollars, the harder it is to maintain the daily life necessities allowing you to thrive. Eventually, if you don’t fill your bank account, you’ll plummet into a state of energy debt, igniting the body’s survival mode.
Survival mode is the place that shifts your biology to store, hoard and conserve energy. In prolonged periods, you’ll also witness people start to steal it, which never turns out well.
But it doesn’t have to stay this way. Even if you fall into a state of temporary survival, you can move back to a state of thriving by learning how to nourish and support energy balance.
How to Create More Energy
Energy isn’t fleeting. Even if the way you need caffeine to function makes you believe it. Outside of your unhealthy reliance on the pot of coffee you guzzle throughout the day, energy is more abundant inside your body than you might think.
It might not feel like you have it because life has a way of squashing energy, but once you understand how it flows, you can quickly recharge, so you never have to live depleted.
Everything from the food you eat to how you interact with your co-workers alters the energy you feel. Either in a good way (filling) or a negative way (draining).
If you are feeling overly tired and living for your net Netflix binge, you might suffer from a life full of energy drains. Some of these drains, like your diet, may be self-inflicted. Others may be a natural consequence, like sleepless toddlers or a looming work deadline.
To get more energy, you have to take an inventory of your energy levels daily, maybe even hourly. Then take note of what is energizing or draining you.
Spoiler alert: It’s not just our diet or workplace influencing your energy. Your thoughts and emotions account for the energy you feel (or don’t feel).
Take note of what is filling and draining your tank
Health has been a metric of what is healthy and what isn’t. The problem with such lists is that they fail to understand how your body will respond outside of your external ideas.
What might be healthy for one person could be incredibly unhealthy for you.
The only thing that matters is you do more of what is healthy for you. The way to understand that personally is to pay attention to how your body reacts to what you do.
Is it fill you with energy or draining you of it?
Take some time to list energy fillers and drains in your life. Get as specific as possible. Again, this will be personal, but some ‘common’ fills could be:
- Whole foods
- Sleeping 7-9 hours a night
- Spending time with people you love
- Engaging with a hobby
- Getting outside
- Soul care
The list could go on and on and on. But on the flip side, you can create a list of experiences, people, or projects that drain you. The goal is to do more things that fill you up, balancing out the drains you can’t delegate or delete from your life.
It won’t be perfect. Health never is. But working to support your body will go a long way in changing the story, presenting safety internally so your body can heal and thrive.
When you pay attention to how your body responds, you can better understand what is healthy for you right now. It will change, but this awareness allows you to change what you do based on what your body needs.
It starts by paying attention and changing the story you’ve believed about health.
5 Truths you need to know
This is a big subject that takes some time to explain, partially because it takes time to unlearn what has been taught for so long. But I thought I’d wet your mind with five uncommon truths about energy!
01: You have the energy you need – it’s inside of you.
The first law of Thermodynamics proves this by stating; Energy is neither created nor destroyed. It is only altered. That proves you have what you need, even if it feels like you don’t. The question isn’t if you have energy but what is your body doing with the energy and why?
02: Energy is not a place you arrive at – it’s something you create.
Like health, energy is birthed out of action. You may have it, but what you do with it changes how you feel. If you want to feel more energized, you have to do something to create it. Don’t sit back and wait for it but take action whether you go on a hike, get outside and soak up the sun, call a friend to catch up, sing to your favorite playlist, mix up a smoothie packed with energy or take a quick nap.
Taking action is the only way to produce energy. Pay attention and ensure it’s an action that fills you, not something that drains you.
03: Feeling more energized is not about more – it’s about balance.
When you don’t have something, logic says to go find it. This idea makes perfect sense. But when it comes to energy, to your biology, health is not about adding more. Too much of a healthy thing inside your system can turn bad if you overdo it. That’s because your body needs balance, not more.
A concept that is proven by our addiction to caffeine. Adding energy only works temporarily, not prolonged. In some cases, having too much energy can make you feel jittery and lead to anxiety. Remind yourself more isn’t better. Better (and best) is balance.
04: Food is not a metric of how much energy – it’s support of it.
Calories are indeed a metric of energy. Specifically, a calorie is a unit of energy equivalent to the heat needed to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one °C. That means, yes, calories inside food interact with your energy. But more important than how many calories are the nutrients food contains that support your natural energy production called ATP.
All that to say, stop eating based on an energetic calculation of calories and eat to support your body through nutrients and nourishment. Stop being more concerned with quantity than quality. The quality changes what you do with the quantity.
05: Don’t neglect how you feel – this matters most!
Researchers estimate 70% of your energy is emotional. Meaning how you feel and what emotions you live out influence the scope of your health more than what you do. Stating you can’t neglect your feelings because what you feel is driving your life.
But just because you feel something doesn’t mean you should act out that feeling. That is the power of emotional regulation or control. Learning to understand and recognize how you feel so you can regulate that back to a state of balance.
Emotional regulation helps you understand just because you feel something doesn’t mean you act out of it, but you can live aware of it, shifting that to focus on how you want to feel. It seems minor, but this is a massive change in the outcomes you experience.
Emotionally regulation is a massive part of energy production!
I rounded up these for you:
Energy is a big topic. One that takes time to understand, process, and start to implement. But when you do, it takes the pressure off health and makes it practical. Remember, health doesn’t have to be complicated.
Learn how to MAKE HEALTH SIMPLE inside this life-changing course.
I’d also encourage you to check out these free resources:
