Have you ever noticed how you feel more energized and alive on certain days, but drained and exhausted on others? Diet, exercise, and sleep have a significant impact on our overall energy and mood. They create the foundation for your overall vitality and health. But there are other things that can have a remarkable effect on our energy. I call these energy drains. They can be easy overlook and ignore.
If you are someone who is looking for ways to increase your energy, here are 7 easy to overlook energy drains for you to consider:
1.Gossiping – When we spend time finding fault in others, we are pulling down on someone’s identity in judgmental and critical ways. But we are also pulling ourselves down into that same negative space, too. It is far more difficult to be creative, kind, energetic, and positive when we reside in this negative and disparaging space.
2.Not eating at regular intervals throughout the day – Our bodies are rhythmic beings. When we skip meals or forget to eat, the body goes into a stress response, unsure of where and when its next fuel source will come from. Our blood sugar will go up and down accordingly, creating even more stress on our metabolism and organs. Eating at rhythmic intervals throughout the day reduces stress and creates a state of safety, and calm in the body which then keeps our energy levels on an even keel throughout the day.
3.Over-giving – Our culture’s Good Girl conditioning has taught women it is their job to caretake others, even at the expense of their own wellbeing. It’s become so normalized that women feel guilty when they take something just for themselves. But giving from an empty cup drains the one who is giving, and breeds envy and resentment. Filling our own cup first, and only giving from the overflow is something most women have to learn to do.
4.Pushing your feelings down or away – Were you ever told you’re too much? Or that your feelings were too much? Most women learn to push their feelings down and away to avoid being seen as hysterical, unreliable or high maintenance,. But pushing our feelings down is a lot like trying to hold a beach ball under water – it’s an energy drain we don’t need.
5.Complaining – In small doses, complaining can alleviate stress, help us find emotional validation or a fresh perspective, and even motivate us to find a different or better solution. Remember, we don’t want to push our feelings down or away. But where complaining goes awry is when we only focus on the problem. We can fall into a pessimistic outlook and feel more and more powerless and angry over time. In addition, complaining can become contagious, resulting in an emotional cesspool that drains everyone’s life force.
6.Clinging to things that are not working –We may cling to whatever isn’t working because we don’t know what else to do, or because we’re terrified to change, or because we’re convinced we can fix whatever is broken – sometimes even when things are beyond repair. When we cling to what’s not working, we continue to pour our time and energy into something that cannot possibly pay us reasonable, if any, dividends in return. Knowing when to cut our losses and move on to better things takes discernment and saves us from depletion and exhaustion.
7.Disconnecting from yourself – We are all hardwired to move away from pain and move towards pleasure. But we also live in a culture that loathes discomfort. We all have thousands of ways to distract, numb, and dissociate from whatever doesn’t feel good. But when we disconnect from our discomfort, we cannot do so without also disconnecting from ourselves. And when we disconnect from ourselves, we distance ourselves from our power. Learning to sit with discomfort for the sake of staying connected to our power is a skill that can be honed over time. This gives us access to the life force and energy that flows through us.
I invite you to choose one example above and commit to reducing or eliminating it from your life. It may take practice, and that’s okay. So often we’ve been doing these things without consciously realizing it. It can take some time and patience for us to change our habits.
But when we do, it’s amazing how energized we can feel. We begin to see how deeply our vitality is affected by the people we keep company with, the environments we spend time in, and how well we manage our own energy.
What would it be like to:
Make gossiping a thing of the past?
Prioritize eating at regular intervals throughout the day?
Make over-giving something you rarely, if ever do?
Keep complaining to 2 minutes, and then let it go?
Commit to staying connected to yourself, no matter what?
These energy drains aren’t helping you. They are depleting your life force and limiting your potential.
If you are someone who struggles with energy, never feels rested, and longs to wake up feeling refreshed and ready for whatever the day will bring, start noticing what gives you energy, and what depletes it.
Try reducing or eliminating one or all of these not-so-obvious energy drains and see how it affects your energy and overall vitality.
