This is a follow-up to my previous article: "Why Managing energy instead of time?" based on Jim Loehr's book, "The Power of Full Engagement." In this article we will explore the techniques for maintaining a regular high level of energy, before getting into that, I would love to share two more useful concepts of peak performance.
Performance improves with practice: a machine can generally work faster or longer to achieve better productivity, in contrast, human's performance has the potential to improve in several dimensions, for examples, a tennis player can improve in speed going from doing 10 serves to 15 serves in the same amount of time. Control of where the ball lands on the court. Power, the greater speed the ball travels in a serve. Endurance, play more games before diminished performance or fatigue. Efficiency, expenses less effort and energy in a practice session and shorter recovery time. Process, better preparation between practice sessions. Technique, discover new and improved ways to perform a task, to maximize strength and minimize weakness. There are some overlaps between these dimensions, however, each dimension stands on their own unique way.
The general approach to improve performance is to apply moderate stress to a task followed by a period of recovery then repeat the whole process. Stress is the additional effort and energy required to perform a task beyond our comfort zone, for example, running one more lap around the track than last week. Recovery is a period of rest or of doing easy tasks that allow the body to recover physically, emotionally, or mentally according to the type of stress. Recovery allows the body to restore its energy to full capacity, and to build up its physical, emotional, or mental ability to rise up to the new level of performance required by the task at hand. The repetitions of moderate stress followed by recovery results in larger improvement of performance. A moderate level of stress gives the body room to recover and to catch up. Excessive stress overwhelms the body causing physical injuries, or emotional trauma, or lost of self-confidence.
Determine the areas to work on to boost your energy to a higher lever and to sustain it.
Implement a concrete plan of actions to create habits for regular and timely replenishment of your energy to prevent depletion.
Implement strategies for energy conversation
Loehr identified four types of energy supporting to peak performance: physical, emotional, mental, spiritual energy. We will explore how to apply the above energy management process to each of these four types of energy.
Physical energy
is the foundation that supports the three other types of energy. It is generally well-understood by the population at large. How do we apply the energy management process to raise and sustain a high level of physical energy?
Areas for improvement include nutrition, physical exercise, rest, sleep. Nutrition is a large territory in itself that would span multiple articles. For starters, I would recommend the easiest way to embark on your new journey of optimized healthy nutrition is with one of the following meal planners:
The next major contributor to physical energy is physical exercise, particularly, aerobic exercises like walking, running, cycling, swimming. Again for starters, I would definitely explore the gentle form of Japanese slow jogging — you can find a discussion in great details on this new form of exercise in this article, “The Japanese way to health and wellness.”
Rests: make sure to take regular short breaks during your work sessions, studies show that be brain is able to be fully engaged in a task for 90 minutes uninterrupted before concentration begins to erode. It is recommended to schedule short breaks every 90 minutes throughout the day to give your brain a chance to refresh and replenish its energy. It works best to go for a walk for fresh air and a change of scenery to give your brain a short complete break from the tasks at hand to refresh.
Sleep: Next, related to rests, is sleep: adequate and quality sleep is often neglected in the name of productivity, fast-paced, or tight deadlines. Sleep time is when the body restores and replenishes itself. Lack of sleep deprives the body the opportunity for restoration, over time the body will accumulate chronic stress from depletions. Chronic sleep deprivation is also linked to overeating and obesity.
Emotional energy
Emotions can replenish or drain your energy reserve. Uplifting emotions like feeling inspired, empowered, valued, appreciated, loved, accomplishing, competent, or confident, ..., recharges your batteries. Conversely, feeling unappreciated, disappointed, rejected , angry, lonely, upset, or hurt,..., drains your energy. Emotions are generally results of the type of response we choose in reaction to an external event, based on your internal interpretation of the situation at hand. For example, the rain brings joy to farmers because it helps their crops grow, on the other hand, city dwellers would likely experience annoyance, or melancholy. The more we practice to focus on the bright sides of things, the more we feel uplifting emotions, and sustain higher levels of energy. In other words, a glass half-full is more likely to fill up while a glass half-empty tends to empty out.
It is essential to remind ourself often of the interconnection between physical and emotional energy. For example, the we are physically tired, we tend to be impatient, easily annoyed, or overwhelmed which, in turn, spirals us downward into energy depleting territory. It is advisable to take measure to replenish your physical energy first before tending to your emotional, mental, or spiritual energy.
The second component of emotional energy is the health of our close personal relationships: if these are in good shape then we have a strong source of replenishment for out emotional energy in the forms of support, motivation, inspiration, love, intimacy, connection, and belonging. On the flip side, if we feel disconnected in our close relationships, feelings of guilt, shame, or loneliness will likely follow, and will impact our ability to fully engaged on our work, and in the long run, will drain our emotional energy. Loehr suggested to incorporate into your process for managing energy, an action plan and tiny habits to strengthen your close relationships. For example, to build connection with his young children, a father create a habit to leave hand-written note to his children every morning before going to work. Another father, make a habit of leaving work in time to have dinner with his family every evening. The main take-away here is that health of our close relationship is equally important as our physical health, it requires regular nurturing to help us to perform at our peak performance at work.
To be continued…
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