3 Reasons Why You Feel Low On Energy

Our lives are busier now than ever before. We live in a world that keeps us

constantly connected in various ways, and it is a real struggle finding any amount of time to re-charge or re-gather ourselves in order to be able to wake up tomorrow and start again. Many things throughout our day drain our energy levels, and offer very little if not anything to re-charge them. Good news though! There are areas in our lives, things we choose to do that we can look at and see where the energy is leaking from. We can then learn and practice how to stop the leak and build it up again….and the practices are a lot simpler than you may think.

1) You are multi-tasking. You think you can save time by doing more than one

thing at a time. You may even think you are really good at multi-tasking. Reality

check; no one is good at multi-tasking, even the ones who claim to be. It

actually isn’t possible to multi-task and accomplish things properly. You aren’t

focused in on one thing and therefore you are being pulled in all directions on all things, stimulus overload equals system shut down!! You have anxious feelings and your mind becomes cluttered with stimuli from a number of sources. You begin to react to the task at hand instead of respond, and your reactions cause up to 25 minutes of you being essentially offline. This is driven by the cortisol raging through your body, inhibiting any rational or logic response or action to those tasks at hand. You then have hours worth of perhaps “repairs” or “re-doing” ahead of you. If you simply focus on one thing at one time you work through each task from start to finish within the time it takes, thus giving you a sense of accomplishment….a feel good experience….then move on to the next task being all charged up and full of the hormones that allow you to feel really great about  yourself because you have accomplished something. Celebrate those accomplishments, each and everyone of them, even the small ones.

2) You are forgetting to listen to signals your body is giving you. In other words,

maybe you could be a bit more mindful or plugged into you! Your body knows, your intuition knows. The struggle is lowering the volume of your mind enough to hear the real story. Studies have shown that a regular practice of mindfulness thickens the cortical layers in regions of your brain that control attention (Lazar et al. 2005) this also helps reduce negative emotions, energy draining feelings. Try being mindful about what you are doing, saying, eating, reacting to. The thing to remember in the beginning when you are becoming aware of these actions, is start out slow. Experience mini episodes of mindfulness and then work your way to lengthening them.

3) You are not “playing” enough. Remember what it felt like as a kid living out

those long summer days. You hit your pillow at night feeling so great, so fulfilled about the day you had. You were probably out with friends, exploring, adventuring, not thinking about anything you “had” to do, or the time and when you had to rush to the next thing. Of course we don’t have the time we

had as a kid now, but there is no reason why you can’t capture moments of

those feelings throughout your week or hopefully day. Push the pause button on

the “have to do’s” and draw out your sense of playfulness. Try playing with your

kids, colouring or creating, turn up the music and dance a little, be curious about

learning something new, the sky’s the limit with what you can be playful with.

Ok, here is a simple practice you can start right now! Try This Breath Technique For Enhanced Mental Energy. Who couldn’t use a moment, or many moments throughout the day of increased mental energy and those feel good sensations. Try out Murcha pranayama (retaining breath)……draw in new life energy (prana) as you inhale and soak your brain with all this empowering energy. Begin by being seated, at your desk at work, at home, at the hockey arena, wherever you are, this can be done. Close your eyes, take in a few conscious breaths. Do not hold these initial breaths, just use them to settle. This in itself is beginning to enhance mental energy and purify your lungs. Once settled with a few breaths, draw in a deep inhalation to your body and hold it….bend your neck to lower your chin in toward your chest. Hold this breath and position for however long feels comfortable. Now lift your head and release the breath. Repeat as many times as you feel you need. It is always important when using different or new breath techniques to never strain and always honour your body and what feels comfortable.