Energy, Time, and Willpower; The Healthy Triad
March 9th, 2009So last week I spoke on what seems to be an epidemic of lack of energy and stamina.
This week I want to lead into a little secret that you might not hear anywhere else. It’s the answer to “there’s not enough time in the day”, “If I slept a few hours less, I could get that much more done”, and every possible rationalization and reason we can think of to combat our over-stressed, over-committed life style. It is the one and only answer to the time-management, need more energy puzzle.
Ready, here it is…you can’t get any more time out of the day, so stop trying; you are only stressing yourself out and making matters worse.
So, what are you supposed to do then? Get more energy and work smarter, and FOCUS. I know, the work smarter sounds like a cliché’, so let me explain.
In a giving day we are dealing with 2 main limited resources, time and willpower. We are also giving one very powerful practically limitless resource, energy.
When our energy drops, our willpower takes a precipitous dive. So, if we can modify, increase and sustain our energy, we will sustain our willpower which will allow us to manage our time much better.
How do I expect you to sustain your energy? Aside from supplying the adrenal glands with the proper foods and nutrition, the number one way is through focus.
Our society does not support sustained focus and this is a direct correlation to lack of energy, thus lack of willpower, thus even more decreased focus, and before you know it the day has flown by with not much done. It’s a vicious cycle.
I love today’s technology, although I feel a lot of people have fallen into this electronic OCD loop. That’s right; I will coin the disease now, electronic obsessive compulsive disorder.
How many people do you know, maybe it’s yourself, who continuously stop what they are doing to check their email, go to their cell phone, take a cell phone call while being rung out at the pharmacy counter (my personal pet peeve), or have taking to a social networking site like face book or you tube and spend countless hours.
Once again, I like these sites and this technology, I am not putting them down, and you can even find me there, but as a society we are becoming attached at the hip to these things and not giving the proper attention to getting things done, thus the end result…we feel we don’t have enough time in the day.
Did you know our body’s flows in rhythms and cycles? Heck, our whole universe does. Our hormones cycle, the moon cycles, the tides cycle, we are in a cyclical world.
You have probably heard of our circadian rhythms? Our circadian rhythm is roughly a 24 hour cycle in the biochemical, physiological or behavioral processes of living beings.
What most people don’t know is that within the circadian rhythm are what are know as ultradian rhythms which are cycles that are repeated throughout that 24 hour time frame.
What we need to do is honor our body’s natural design and inclination to these ultradian rhythms; mainly sustained times of focus as well as intermittent periods of renewal. Renewal is where the ‘magic happens’ and next week I will be providing you a definitive outline on how you can utilize ultradian rhythms to get more done, have more energy, and sustain your willpower.