As I’m heading out for the day, my phone alerted me that my battery level was at 20% and prompted me to switch to low power mode. “How could that be?” How could my phone only have 20% charge when it was plugged in overnight? Except that one of the kids had unplugged the cable from the wall adapter to charge their device! After the flash or frustration (!), I could feel that sense of unease that comes from going out into my world a low battery.
Yet how often do we do this – head out for the day with a less than full charge mentally, emotionally and physically?
Three Ways to Plug In (and Have More Energy)
Staying with the phone metaphor, here are a few tips and reminders. Most of this you know already, but we forget, we drift off course and we underestimate the benefit they bring.
1. Sleep – The Ultimate Plug In. Nearly one in three adult Canadians experience sleep deprivation (Sleep Statistics Canada). Which group are you in? For many of us, sleep is seen as a discretionary activity to steal away time from when needed for other activities. Yet, the research is clear, sleep matters a lot. As Matthew Walker emphasizes in Why We Sleep, “The physical and mental impairments caused by one night of bad sleep dwarf those caused by an equivalent absence of food or exercise.”
Further, John Hopkins sleep researcher Patrick Finan, M.D. estimates that sleep deprivation results in a 33% increase in your risk of developing Alzheimer’s! That alone should get your attention. Worst of all, sleep deprivation affects your judgment such that you don’t notice its effects; you don’t even realize your thinking is impaired.
2. “Close Open Apps”. Our phone and laptops tend to burn through their battery faster when multiple apps and programs are open and all running in the background. Similarly, we lose a lot of mental and emotional energy when we are multi-tasking and have many “apps” open in our mind at once. The remedy? Close those “apps”! Turn off all but the most essential notifications. Unsubscribe from everything you can. Use the Focus Mode in programs that have it. Create time blocks and intentionally strive to focus on only one task at a time.
3. Unplug Mentally. While our body thrives on regular movement – which is also a source of energy – our minds need the opposite: stillness. Most of us have a mind that rarely stops thinking or taking in new information. What our mind needs is a chance to unplug, to quiet and to experience stillness. Breathing exercises like Box Breathing (4-4-4-4 Breathing) or Extended Outbreath Breathing (5-2-7-2 Breathing) help our mind to settle and clear. Better yet, bring your full attention (as best you can) to the breath for several minutes and - bingo - you just meditated! For many people, these techniques are a powerful reset for a busy mind so that it can see clearly again.
How about you? How’s your energy these days? How’s your busy mind? And if it isn’t where you want it to be, how can you plug in and better recharge? It just might be the best gift you can give yourself for a better day tomorrow.
These are just a few of the tips taken from a webinar entitled Plugging in and Charging Your Battery. To learn how tips like these are helping organizations get more done in less time, please reach out to me at scott@mindfulwisdom.ca.