Master Your Energy (Part 2 - Your Natural Cycles)

Your Energy Control Switch

Your four interconnected batteries have a control switch that determines if you are in energy expenditure mode or energy conservation mode. This switch is your nervous system which controls your level of alertness (mobilizing your energy for action, fight, or flight) and level of calmness (supporting digestion, recovery, and growth). Your nervous system acts as the go/no-go control panel, pushing more or less on the gas and break pedals depending on what you need.

Your system works best when alternating between being ‘fully on’ and ‘fully off’. Young kids are particularly good at this. One minute they are jumping all over the place, living their life to the fullest. The next, they sleep deeply or relax feeling calm and safe. Just like a car should not be left to idle, we don’t do well when we experience constant stress without going anywhere or doing anything. We don’t perform at our best neither if we keep the breaks on when we should be all in or if our mind runs non-stop without taking a break. Like a car, you should either press on the gas or press on the breaks pedals and you want the breaks to work to prevent you from hitting the wall. The constant low to medium level of stress without releasing the energy through action or properly recover can lead to chronic inflammation and all sorts of health issues, including heart disease, diabetes, weight gain, burnout, and depression. The good news is that your system is built to naturally balance action and rest…if you listen to it.

You Natural Energy Cycles

Since everything is connected via the energy field (defined as “the flow of energy surrounding a person”), it makes sense that what is going on around us, in nature, and in the universe will impact our energy. And, everything seems to follow cycles around us: alternance of day and night, the moon phases, and repeating seasons and months of the solar year. Our biological rhythms are influenced by these processes. If you pay attention you will notice that your energy, mood, appetite, and impulse to be active or slow down to rest also follow rhythms. Let’s cover here how these cycles impact your energy and how you can leverage them for more capacity, focus, and productivity.

Circadian rhythm

The first cycle you want to pay attention to is the circadian rhythm (figure 1), the alternance of day and night, of being awake and asleep, which is influenced by specific hormones in our system: cortisol awakes you; melatonin helps you sleep. Sleep is particularly important to ensure you have optimal energy and alertness during the day. If you skip that part of the cycle, you throw your energy off and destabilize your system. You also need a certain level of activity and challenge during the day to push your body to sleep later.

Your energy and level of alertness during the day tends to be the highest upon waking (highest cortisol levels), then it slowly goes down to reach the midday low (when you feel like having a nap) before going up a little. You also get a late evening peak just before your energy finally drops at its lowest, signaling bedtime. The exact timing of these peaks and valleys is not standardized. You need to identify them for yourself by paying attention to your levels of alertness and sleepiness.

Figure 1: Circadian rhythm and cortisol levels (image source)

Tip #1: Align Your Work with Your Energy

Once you are aware of when you have optimal alertness, you can leverage this insight to align the type of work you do with the energy quantity and quality you have during the day (figure 2). For example, you may want to plan your most mentally demanding or important work when you are at your peak of alertness in the am. For me, I use my mornings to write blogs or reports, draft a strategy or summarize research findings.

Later, when you start feeling more mentally tired, you want to concentrate on doing tasks that are not as demanding such as responding to emails, reading papers, updating your colleagues, participating in meetings that are more tactical in nature. In the afternoon, we are usually at our best for activities requiring coordination, fast reaction time, and cardiovascular and muscle strength. It is a good time to go out for a walk, run, or play.

At the end of the day, when you have your last increase of alertness, it may be when you find it best to do creative work. This can include reading, researching, brainstorming, noting down ideas. The end of the day is also a good moment to reflect on your day and determine what your most important task will be for the next morning. This way, as soon as you get up and are awake, you can get to work on it while your have the most energy and focus. Nature has given us this last-minute boost of alertness before the night so that we can get organized and ‘secure’ things before going to sleep.

Figure 2: Circadian rhythm and activity timing (image source)

Ultradian Rhythm

Your nervous system follows an ultradian rhythm of approximately 90-120 minutes where it goes into action mode then slows down to recover. Each ultradian cycle has three main phases similar to sleep cycles (figure 3). Each cycle starts with a sense of agitation or discomfort as the cortisol (stress hormone) levels rise. This stress response is normal and is a sign that your body and mind are getting ready for action. A certain level of stress is necessary for your brain to pay attention. For me, I know it is time to get to work or do something when I feel the need to move, grab a snack, or distract myself by checking my emails or messages. I now know that this feeling of agitation and discomfort can only be released by getting to work or moving forward. The worse I can do in these situations is to resist action and continue to supress the feeling or distract myself. I have learned that the discomfort of not doing something is greater than the discomfort of doing it.

Figure 3: Ultradian rhythm (image source)

If you start moving forward towards what you need to do or your goal, after 10-15 minutes of sustain effort, your body releases dopamine which calms your nervous system just enough to bring you in the deep state of focus. Dopamine also raises your energy and motivation to keep going and improves your performance. After 60-90 minutes or so of efforts, your nervous system starts to get tired and you slowly loose focus, start yawning, and feel the need to stop. You get the urge to go grab a coffee or a snack, talk to a colleague, or visit the washroom. This is the signal that you need to take a short break to reset and recharge.

Tip #2: Recharge as you go

Ideally, you not only sleep well every night to recover, but you include regular rest periods during the day to hit the pause button and reset your nervous system. Professional athletes know that rest and recovery is 50% of their training. Athletes also take regular breaks to rest and refuel during a training session. They don’t train or run for hours at the time before they stop to drink water, bring down their heart rate, catch their breath, and refuel as needed. If they keep going, their performance will diminish and so are their returns on investment. 

Tip #3: Use time constraint to increase your focus

If each cycle starts with your stress level rising, sometimes you need some additional pressure to get aroused enough to get into it and motivated enough to get pass the initial discomfort. One good way to achieve that is by determining a finish line. When you know when the effort will end, whether it is determined by a set time or completion of a specific task, you tend to work harder and can sustain the effort and stay focused knowing it will end. It is like running a marathon. I can endure the pain and discomfort because I know it will end after a set distance. I also know I will be able to relax afterwards and celebrate with my friends. If I didn’t know when it would end, it would make the pain intolerable, and I would probably not even start the race!

So, to help you get into your work cycle and go pass the initial discomfort, arrange to meet a friend for coffee or for a run at a specific time 60-90 minutes after you get started. Or determine a specific number of emails you will answer or pages you will review before you allow yourself to do something you enjoy. In other words, establish the finish line and the rewards you will get before you start. If what you are doing requires multiple work cycles, break it into chunks or time blocks and plan your breaks in between.

Other Natural Cycles

If your biological processes follow daily cycles, you also need to pay attention to and balance your action and recovery on a weekly, monthly, and annual basis. Your energy is not the same in February (middle of the winter in the Northern hemisphere) than it is in July. Spring brings a sense of renewal and expansion and Fall, a need to slow down and focus on planning for the shorter days ahead. Women are familiar with their monthly cycle which aligns with the moon cycle and we traditionally recognize the need for at least one rest day per week. What about years? Well, different periods of life bring different energy levels, focus, and purpose. 

Tip #4: Adjust your pace and plan regular time off

As a general tip to help you master your energy, I suggest that you plan a rest day every week, a few days off every month, and a few weeks off every year. Take time to celebrate what each season brings to you and try to go along with it. Winter does not mean doing nothing and sitting in front of the TV all evening. However, it is a time to slow down a little, go within, take stock, and prepare for the next cycle. Also take time to celebrate holidays, birthdays and other events during the year. They help establish a rhythm and provide the necessary pause from stress and work that we need.

Living in Alignment with Your Nature

The key about your energy resides in allowing yourself to live at different rhythms and alternating between action and recovery, between doing and being. It is about reconnecting with yourself, living in alignment with your nature, and allowing more flow and ease in your life.

I hope this introduction to how your energy works was useful and got you thinking about how to plan and manage your work and life to account for and leverage your energy cycles and balance action and rest. I know it is challenging as most of us live in a society that is disconnected from nature and always favors high productivity as if we were machines.

Here are some questions to help you turn this information into action steps:

· How can you modify your daily schedule to align your peak work with your peak energy?

· What can you use as a reminder to take a 5 to 15-minute break between work blocks?

· Where can you improve on planning for daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly time off? Take a few minutes to time off in your schedule.

If you are not aware of your own cycles, start by paying attention to how you feel at different times of the day and the week, and take note of how this is impacting your focus, productivity, creativity, and ability to face high demands and stressful situations.

In the next 4 posts of this series, I will go deeper in each of the energy and health pillar and provide strategies to optimize and recharge each of these batteries.