What I Tried First

After my father-in-law moved in with us, I began paying close attention to how my energy shifted over the course of a long teaching day.

Excerpt from Finding Yoyu

The first energy hack I tackled had to do with water. By the time I got home, I was dehydrated. I knew I would feel better if I drank enough water. But even though I brought two bottles of water and a small bottle of green tea, I would forget to drink. My bag was just as heavy on the way home because my water bottles were still full. Guzzling the water after class wasn’t an option because then my bladder would be holding the water and I’d need to use the restroom before I could get home, which wasn’t possible in the midst of a crowded commuter train. I had to find a way to drink during the day, so I made drinking part of my opening routine for every class.

Growing up in the 1970s in the US means I grew up watching Mr. Rogers. No matter what happened during the episode, you could count on him changing his shoes and putting on a sweater. Similarly, I adjusted my nursery-school routine so that the kids could count on me to drink water and green tea. No matter what vocabulary we studied or what games we played to practice their ABCs, they knew I’d start the class with a sip of water and green tea. If I forgot, they’d remind me: “Marci, Marci, water? Green tea?” It became a ritual and a language lesson. First, setting my basket of teaching supplies down, I’d pull out the bottle, hold it up, and wait for the kids to tell me if it was water or green tea. The side benefit was that all my students could pronounce “water” perfectly, a common challenge for Japanese people, as the “r” sound doesn’t exist in Japanese.

In your everyday life, it might be awkward if you suddenly start making a big show of drinking water and holding up a bottle, waiting for friends and family to acknowledge you, but I hope you get the idea. What mattered is that I made drinking part of what I do so that now I don’t forget and never come home dehydrated.

Another fix was to change what I ate for lunch and when I ate it. Observing myself, I knew I had good energy up until lunchtime, but then my reserves plummeted. By the time my last class started at 2:00 p.m., I was already out of yoyu. That class was my worst of the day. I was sleepy, unfocused, not paying attention or even caring if the kids made progress. The kids had fun, but I didn’t feel the same satisfaction with the afternoon class as I did with the morning classes. I had to find a way to keep yoyu throughout the whole day.

I love, love, love children. However, noise is one thing that drains me. Being with large groups of people does too. So I decided that instead of joining the kids for lunch right after the three morning classes finished, I would stay upstairs, where it was quiet. I used the 30 minutes before the kids started coming upstairs from the cafeteria to make notes about what went well in the morning and plan my afternoon class. Then, after most of the kids had finished lunch, I headed downstairs to join them in the cafeteria. By the time I sat down to eat, I already felt rested and prepared for my afternoon class, and I could still enjoy lunch in relative quiet.

I also changed what I ate for lunch. When I stopped eating rice and other grains, the sleepiness after lunch disappeared, and I had more energy for the last class.

Finally, I started going to school 30 minutes earlier. The train ride was still grueling, but I had more time to decompress before my classes. Even though I spent 30 minutes longer at the school than before, the extra time helped me feel less rushed, so I had to expend less energy getting ready for classes.

—from Finding Yoyu

If you’re new here and wondering what yoyu means, you can read a simple explanation here.