Master Your Energy - Part 5 (Mental Energy)

Many of you start your days being reactive to news and events, experiencing brain frog (memory problems, lack of mental clarity, poor concentration inability to focus), and finding it difficult to focus on what is important rather than being consumed by your endless to-do list. Your capacity to think clearly diminishes as the day goes by and stressors pill up. You feel brain dead after a long meeting or a demanding day at work. To cope with this mental fatigue, you may be turning towards stimulants to feel more alert or numbing your brain in the hope to stop it from spinning random thoughts.

Mental energy can be defined as “the ability to persist for long periods thinking productively about a problem, to shut out distractions [and] to persist in search of a solution.” (T. Schwartz, The Way We're Working Isn't Working, citing the renowned psychologist David Lykken). The opposite, mental fatigue, is a “condition triggered by prolonged cognitive activity.” (Forbes) What Tony Schwartz calls “sustained, single-minded focus” requires a lot of energy, is difficult and uncomfortable, and does not come naturally. We are naturally wired to be on our guards, watching for new potential threats and dangers. The most evolved part of our brain, the pre-frontal cortex “orchestrating our thoughts and actions in accordance with internal goals” (The Science of Psychotherapy) is energy-draining. Our more primitive brain (amygdala or emotional centre) is instinctive and seems to work on less. In a nutshell, more mental energy supports higher brain functions (thinking, being intentional) while the lack of it makes you more reactive, in survival mode.

In this post on mental energy, we will explore what is fueling and draining your mental energy. I also propose tactics to support your mental recovery and performance, mainly your mental focus, power, and creativity. But first, let’s further define what attention is. Because you know, where attention goes, energy flows!

Quality, span and direction of attention

Your mental energy is greatly influenced by the quality and span of your attention. When you can direct your attention to what you want, and you are absorbed by your task, it feels like your mental capacity increases. On the other hand, when you are distracted, your thoughts are scattered. As you get tired and more agitated, you can’t think clearly, problems are harder to work on and you may experience mental, block. You may also end-up feeling overwhelmed, unable to think creatively, and finding it difficult to learn.

Avoiding distractions is not enough to optimize your mental capacity. You also need to relax your focus regularly. Let’s assume you are able to focus deeply on your task. After a while (usually 60-90 min later – see previous post on ultradian cycles), you will sense the need to relax your single-minded focus which requires a lot of energy. Your brain and nervous system will require a break. You can achieve this by alternating between this tactical, logical, goal-oriented brain activity and the big-picture and relaxed thinking, i.e. intuitive, playful, creative, and aim-less activities. In other words, you need to give your brain regular breaks by alternating the “span of your attention” from narrow focus to wide focus, between right brain and left brain.

I like to compare your mental focus to a light torch. When you adjust the light beam to be narrow, you get brighter light directed at the object to see it more clearly, but everything around remains in the dark. When you adjust the light to a wider beam, you see more things around you, but you lose definition. You either see very precise details to avoid tripping on a rock or you get to see what is around you to orient yourself and find your way in the woods. Single-minded focus to big-picture thinking. Narrow-focus attention is more intense and energy draining than deemed and wide-span attention.

What happens when you are neither focused in deep thinking (left brain), nor looking at the big-picture, experiencing deep play and creativity (right brain)? Your mind still works and spend energy, but since your attention is scattered and you are easily distracted, the energy is wasted in meaningless goals, thoughts, and activities. When you spend too much time in this incoherent mode, you finish your day exhausted yet unsatisfied because you have not moved your goals forward nor spent time playing or creating just for the joy of it.

To master of your mental energy you also need to be aware of and control the direction of your attention. Attention can be directed internally (what you are sensing in your body, you thoughts, your emotions) or externally (what is going on outside of you, which you experience through your senses). If you tend to focus too much on your exteroception (see Dr Huberman’s podcast), you may not hear signals that something is off inside of you (such as the need to take of break), neglect your own needs or lack self-awareness. If you tend to focus too much on your interoception, you may be overconcerned with your own image, worry too much, and miss important information from your environment, including how people feel around you. To improve your mental performance, you need to balance your attention between internal and external stimuli and develop the ability to focus on what is most meaningful at any given moment.

Link to emotions and physical health

Your mental health is closely related to your emotional health: when you experience low mood, your capacity to think clearly and create is reduced. It takes you more time to accomplish tasks and you have more difficulty focusing and thinking strategically because you are not in a coherent state (see previous post on Emotional Energy).

Your thoughts also influence your emotional state. Your energy flows where your attention goes: focus your thoughts on tragic events, things going wrong, what you don’t like and you will fuel lower vibe emotions like anger, frustration, hopelessness.

Your capacity to focus your attention on a task or enter in a state of flow, using both you left and right hemispheres of your thinking brain, requires that you not be in a state of fight or flight response. Stress-related emotions shuts down or reduce functionality of your neo-cortex.

If you want to have mental focus and stamina or tap into your creativity, you need to pay attention to your emotional state.

Your can also positively influence your mental energy by paying attention to what you eat and drink, maintaining your gut health, moving regularly, and ensuring you have enough sleep (see previous post on physical energy). Remember too that your thinking habits also impact your physical health via the emotions they create and where they draw your attention.

Balancing alertness and calmness

To optimize your mental energy, you need to find the right level of stress, i.e. the right balance between alertness (sympathetic nervous system activation) and calmness (parasympathetic nervous system activation). You need to be alert to focus, but not so stressed that you cannot use our thinking brain. Too much stress and you lose control, can’t think anymore and feel overwhelmed. Not enough alertness or stress and you feel bored and apathic. Both extremes leave you disengaged and not mentally in the game. The right level of stress or alertness can lead you in a state of flow where what you do seems to be happening with more ease and you find yourself absorbed in what you do, increasing your mental focus (T. Scwartz p. 180). As Dr Huberman said in one of his Huberman Lab podcast, you want a calm mind in an alert body to optimize your energy and performance.

Susan David calls this the ‘Teeter-totter principle’ (Susan D. p. 163) which she describes as finding “the equilibrium between over competence on the one hand and overchallenge on the other. […] that place where competence and the comfort of the familiar exist in a kind of creative tension with the excitement and even the stress of the unknown.” When we live “at the edge of our ability”, we increase our alertness and push our brain to learn and grow without pushing it into a fear response which would shut it down. For more on embracing discomfort and tips on finding the right level of challenge, read my previous blog post.

Stories, beliefs, and triggers

Your brain is a meaning-making machine. It creates meaning all the time to help you make sense of the world around you and keep you safe. Your stories determine your experience, shape your reality. However, the brain “doesn’t take time to verify the truth.” (M. Reynolds, Coach the Person, Not the Problem). Your brain might have created a story that seems logical but is likely incomplete and biased. If you entertained stories that are fueling lower vibration emotions such as fear, anger, sadness, blame, or shame, this can quickly drain your energy. When you drain your energy, you get tired and can’t think clearly anymore.

If the stories you tell yourselves may keep you safe by creating a sense of certainty, they also keep you stuck. Our brains look to “confirm what we already believe – by telling ourselves stories that match our preconceptions.” (Schwartz) Our beliefs "create judgment and fear, two emotions that keep us locked in the stories we live by.” (Reynolds)

When something happens that does not fit our stories and beliefs, we get triggered. This stress response may lead you to defend yourself (blame, deny, react with anger) or worry if you are not consciously aware of your emotional reaction. “Our brains would rather validate our values and needs than question them; questioning the rules we live by can feel scary.” (Reynolds) Triggers distract you from being able to focus your mental energy on what really matters to you.

The most powerful triggers come from your shadow. Our shadow is “the weaknesses, shortcomings, and unacceptable aspects of ourselves that we typically seek to disown.” (Schwartz) The “more oblivious we are to our limitations, the more likely we are to unwittingly act them out or project them onto others.” When you are self-conscious, when “you worry about what you look like, what people will think, whether you will do a mistake, this consumes a lot of your psychic energy.” Think of it like a computer having multiple programs running in the background, slowing down processing and draining your battery. When you learn to accept the whole of who you are, you no longer have to defend your value and what was is triggering you can become a source of learning and transformation. It frees up your mental and emotional energy.

Habit of worrying

If you have the ‘habit of worrying’ as would say Dr. Brewer (Unwinding Anxiety), you may feel mentally drained quite often. Worry is triggered by a stress response or a feeling of anxiety which goes unnoticed. When you are feeling stressed, your primitive brain takes over and looks for danger. Your brain senses the stress response and gets to work to do something about it. Your brain starts working on what can potentially happen and what you could do about it, which could be an endless loop.

“From cave people to scientists, our brains have never liked uncertainty. It feels scary. Uncertainty makes it difficult to predict what is going to happen. […] When uncertainty abounds, we get anxious and start scratching that itch that says, “Do something.” Stress or anxiety becomes the trigger that urges our cave-person brain out of the cave and into the night, as it tries to figure out what to do.” (Dr Brewer)

Worry represents an attempt to engage in mental problem-solving on an issue with an uncertain outcome. “When worry gets triggered by a negative emotion (e.g., fear), it can also become reinforced as a way to avoid the unpleasantness of that emotion.” It becomes a habit: the trigger (negative emotion or thought) leads to worry (behavior) which brings the reward (avoidance/distraction). The more you worry instead of taking action, the more anxious you become. The more anxious you become, the more you tend to worry. This creates an endless feedback loop making things worse. This mental habit of worrying to avoid or distract yourself from discomfort can be very draining mentally!

Curiosity and presence

To reduce the impact of stress on your mental energy, you need to be able to disengage the stress response when you get triggered. I covered self-regulation of “triggered” emotions in the previous blog post. From a mental point of view, you can engage use curiosity as an antidote to fear or stress response. When you adopt an attitude of curiosity, you remain open to possibilities, you move away from the fear response. This requires you to first notice your emotional reaction and suspend any thoughts or judgments that are triggered by these emotions. By upholding these as if in front of you, you detach yourself from them and can examine their validity and usefulness.

Being present can also help you move away from thinking about the future or the past, both bringing the focus on a judgment of an experience. This judgment or interpretation is what creates an emotion. “Therefor, if you can consciously choose to focus (your) mental energy on the present moment, you can actually be free of judgment” (David Burns’ book, Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy ) and therefor free up your mental energy. The best way to achieve being in the present is by focusing your attention on your body. The body always is in the present. You breathe, move, smell, hear, see, taste, and see in the present. By bringing your attention to your breath or your sense, you anchor your attention in the here and now.

Watch your words

The words you use can have a great impact on your mental strength. They are a reflection of your mindset. For example, using want-to statement rather than have-to’s or should’s powerfully engages your internal motivation. When you use “I want”, you bring your actions more in line with what really matters to you. You align your reward-seeking system in your brain (passion) with your rational, self-control brain (intellect), eliminating your internal conflicts between what you want and what you think you should do. When these two parts of the brain are not aligned, i.e. when what you want is not in line with what you think you should do, “(your) brain is literally fighting with itself” (S. David), which can be energy draining.

Choosing to focus on the positive experience sometimes requires a mindset shift which can be done by changing just one word: you don’t “have” to; you “get” to or “choose” to. You choose to cook dinner for your family, rather than have to do it. “Reframing your habits to highlight their benefits rather than their drawbacks is a fast and lightweight way to reprogram your mind” (James Clear, Atomic Habits). It can help change the feeling you associate with a situation and thus, improving the quality of your energy.

On the other hand, have to motivation “ramps up temptation because it makes you feel constricted and deprived.” (S. David) It contracts and drains your energy, leaving you feeling powerless. When you can find “I want” in a situation, you tap into your intrinsic motivation, doubling up your mental energy and determination. Want-to goals as per Susan David “reflect a person’s genuine interest and values (their “why”).” This does not mean to simply think positively and ignore how you feel about a situation. If you cannot find something that aligns with your value, a change may be in the order. This makes knowing what you truly value critical (this will be covered in the next blog post on spiritual energy).

The power of intentions and sense of self

To become the master of your mental energy, you need to understand the power of intentions. When you set clear intentions for what you want to experience or achieve, it gives clear instructions to your mind regarding what to focus on. Intentions activate a “readiness potential” (S. David) that prepares you for action. Once you name what you want, once your “real desires are articulated”, the actions you must take “are easier to declare and commit to.” (Reynolds) The best solution to a dilemma that is draining your mental energy can often become clear or recognized “as soon as (you) declare what (you) really want.” (Reynolds)

“Our brains care deeply about what we believe. […] When we have a reduced sense of our own agency and effectiveness, it weakens the “readiness potential” in our brains.” (Susan David, Emotional Agility). To optimize your mental power, you need to have a sense of self-agency and self-efficacy. Self-agency or autonomy is defined as the “feeling of being the author of one’s behavior or the sense that some actions are self-generated.” Self-efficacy “involves the degree to which people are confident that they can perform the behavior they wish to execute and that they can exercise control over challenging situations in order to achieve their goals” (Lifestyle Wellness Coaching, Gavin and McBrearty). When you feel you lack control of your experience and don’t trust in your abilities to handle the situation, you diminish your mental power.

One way to make your intentions even more powerful is to “tweak (your) sense of self […] even when the tweak if purely grammatical.” (S. David) If you say “I am a runner” rather than “I run”, this sends a signal to your brain that you believe you are a runner and since your brain will want to protect your identity, it will be ready to support actions consistent with your sense of self. This is what is called identity-based motivations. Our sense of identity also influences how we perceive difficulties and challenges, thus how much focus and determination we will engage in face of them. “People interpret situations and difficulties in ways that are congruent with currently active identities and prefer identity-congruent to identity-incongruent actions. When action feels identity-congruent, experienced difficulty highlights that the behavior is important and meaningful. When action feels identity-incongruent, the same difficulty suggests that the behavior is pointless and “not for people like me.” (NCBI)

Habits are more efficient than willpower

How you speak to yourself, who you think you are, and the intentions you set from a place of want can make all the difference in optimizing your mental focus and stamina and achieving your goals. By improving your mindset and relying on identity-based motivations, you need less mental energy to do what you want. Still, conscious action and change requires willpower. And when you are tired, your willpower or mental capacity diminishes.

To consistently act in alignment with what you care about and what is important to you, you need to install habits. Turning intentional behaviors into habits frees up mental resources and increase energy available. “The ultimate purpose of habits is to solve the problems of life with as little energy and effort as possible.” (J. Clear) Habits are behaviors that become part of who you are, part of your identity. And as you saw previously, this creates internal motivation to maintain these behaviors in face of difficulties. Your mental energy is used more efficiently in support of what you want to do.

Practical Tips

We’ve just covered a lot about the brain and what is fueling and draining your mental energy and impacting the quality and span of your attention. On the one hand, you saw that stress, negative emotions, and worry drain your energy. Your sense of identity, your beliefs, your stories, and your shadow can trigger a stress response and block your energy. The language you use, such as “I have to” can limit your mental power. Your willpower is great to create intentional changes, but it demands a lot of mental energy and thus, has its limits. On the other hand, a positive sense of self, including self-agency and self-efficacy, clear intentions, empowering language such as “I want to” or “I get to”, positive emotions, curiosity, and presence are all factors fueling your mental energy. When you find the right level of stress and remove distractions, you increase the quality of your attention and improve your ability to think, create, and learn. When you install habits that serve you, you act in alignment with what you want without having to think about it which is more energy efficient.

Now, let’s get practical! Here are some suggestions of actions and practices you can implement to support your mental recovery and performance, mainly your mental focus, clarity, and creativity.

1. Build your muscle of attention

Your ability to pay attention needs to be developed just like a muscle. You can improve your mental strength and endurance by working at the edge of your limit than allowing for proper recovery. You work your way up by gradually increasing the time you spend focusing or adding resistance (distraction) to your focus. Meditation is a great “gym” for your brain. You should install a daily practice to build your muscle of attention. You also need to practice being mindful and paying attention in situations that matter to you. For example, if you find it hard to focus on reading, set a timer for 5 minutes and practice reading without interruptions until the time is up. When you feel distracted before the time I sup, gently bring your attention back to your reading. Next time, try to read for a slightly longer period. You can also improve focus by practicing paying attention to what you do while there are distractions around you (e.g., focusing on your breath or reading while in a busy bus).

2. Take frequent mental breaks

When you are using your thinking brain, you are “stressing” your system, i.e. activating your sympathetic nervous system to support alertness and brain activity. As you saw in previous blog post, after a while, your nervous system needs to reset. These natural ultradian cycles of about 90 minutes happen naturally. Learn to respect these natural energy cycles by taking regular breaks during the day, ideally between 5-20 min every 60-90 minutes. If you pay attention to your energy and mental focus, you will sense the need to take a break. Make sure to relax your mind during the breaks.

3. Prioritize your mental energy

Based on your circadian rhythm, your mental alertness and energy is usually at its best in the morning. Plan to do your most important or demanding work first thing in the morning (as soon as you feel awake enough) or when you start your workday to align the mental demands with your capacity. Avoid using that precious time to read emails, scroll on social media or read the news. If you feel agitation and discomfort as you are getting ready to sit down and do the work, remember this is normal and a sign that your body is getting ready to act. If you start acting on your goal, that tension or readiness potential will transmute into action and disappear from your awareness to be replaced by deep focus. See previous for more on your natural energy cycles – Part 2).

4. Practice remaining calm under stress

Meditation and mindfulness practices will help you train your ability to be present and calm, which will help you notice your triggers and unhook from them. Yet, this may not be enough to develop you ability to remain calm when facing stressful situations or when strong emotions get triggered. To develop your mental power under demanding situations, you can practice calming down by slowing down and deepening your breath when experiencing physical stress. Physical stress could be a cold shower or bath, sauna, high intensity exercise or maintaining a challenging pose in yoga. Keep these exposures intense but brief and allow for proper rest and recovery afterwards. The aim is to practice having a calm mind in a stressed body, not to overstress your body.

5. Cultivate your right brain

To provide downtime for your thinking brain (left hemisphere), choose activities that have no aim or that are creative playful such as drawing, crafting, walking, dancing freely, and playing with your kids. Walking is particularly good to clear your mind. Often, it is during our down times, “doing nothing” or walking aimlessly, that we gain insights and creative ideas. The specific activities that will light you up and help you loosen up will be specific to you. Experiment to find what allows your controlling brain to shut off and welcomes more ease, fun and joy.

6. Create habits to avoid relying on willpower

Willpower requires a lot of mental energy, while habits are things we do without thinking about it. To save your mental energy, turn activities and behaviors that are important to you and fueling your health and wellbeing into habits so that doing them feels natural and easy. This will allow you to use your mental power for more demanding task, learning and creative or new projects. James Clear, in Atomic Habits, provide a lot valuable tips on how to create new and good habits including making the desired behavior obvious, attractive, easy and satisfying.

7. Undo your habit of worrying

In his book Unwinding Anxiety, Dr Brewer describes a powerful strategy for undoing the habit of worrying (or any habits not serving us). It starts with mapping your habit by identifying the trigger, the behavior, and the result or reward as we have seen above. Practice mapping your habit loops until you are ready to add the additional step of asking yourself: What do I get from this behavior? As Dr Brewer writes, “When you ask this question, put your thinking mind on hold for a few moments and then drop your awareness into observation mode and notice what is happening in your body. […] pay attention to the body sensations, thoughts, and emotions that come as a result of the behavior.” Repeat this process often until you become aware of the habit loop and the current reward value (what you are getting out) of this behavior. Once disenchanted with the result, you need to find “an internally based bigger-better offer that helps you step out of your old habit loop”, i.e., a substitution strategy for your old habit. To undo your worry habit, find an alternative behavior that will bring you a “Bigger Better Offer” without feeding your anxiety and worry habit loop.

8. Find the right level of stress

To be focused and at our peak mental capacity, you need to find the right level of alertness. This means, enough sympathetic nervous system activation (stress). You can become better at finding the right level of stress by choosing to embrace discomfort and noticing how you feel in different uncomfortable situations. Discomfort is a feeling of unease generated by a stress response. Next time you do something difficult, new, or unfamiliar, bring your attention to how you feel: Are you more alert, engaged, and excited? Do you feel out of control and shutting down? If you find you are not in the right zone, ask yourself what you can do to increase or decrease the importance or challenge. For more on embracing discomfort, read this previous blog post.

9. Find the “I want” in your challenging situations

You saw in this blog post that the language we use has a lot of power on us. It can uplift or drain you. When you catch yourself saying “I have to” or “I should”, stop for a few seconds and reconsider your situation. Is there a “I want” in this situation? After all, nobody if forcing you to do what you do (even when your life is threaten, I supposed you would choose to comply to save your life). So, what makes you want to do it? Let’s take an easy example: driving my son to his soccer practice (ok, this is not challenging per say, but it is part of my to-do list!). There are days I really feel like this is a have-to: I would rather do something else and avoid traffic. But, I choose to do it anyway. Why? Because I love my son, he is passionate about soccer, participating in sports is good for him, etc. I can tap into this why for doing it and turn my “I have to drive him to soccer because it too far and he cannot drive by himself” into “I get to drive him to soccer because it is important to him and I want to support him.” Think of a similar scenario. Notice how your mental energy shifts between saying I have to and I get/want to. The former creates an internal tension dragging your energy down; the later, aligned with your values, frees your energy and uplifts you. You regain your power over your situation. Congrats!

10. Set intentions

Your thinking brain, consciously or not, is always working on creating meaning and solving problems. You might as well tell your subconscious mind what to pay attention to. So, give clear instructions to your brain by setting intentions and using affirmations. Intentions are not like goals. Goals are results we seek in the future. Intentions are about how we want to be in the present moment, what you intend to do next. Setting intentions is as simple as taking 1 minute to think about the day ahead or your next activity and choosing how you want to show up. It is most powerful if you right it down or say it out loud 2-3 times. For example, you can write or say: “Today, I am going to be present for my loved ones.” You can also set an intention right before a meeting such as: “I will listen to my colleagues and be curious about what they think.” Your intentions have to come from your heart and help you embody the best version of yourself. They must be meaningful to you or they will have no power. Take a few deep breaths, tune in, and let your inner voice guide you.

11. Move into action NOW

If you know you have to or want to do something, take action now, even a very small step forward, rather than postpone and wait. When you procrastinate, you may be avoiding the feeling of agitation this task is bringing up in you, but you will consume a lot more mental energy. Until you act, your brain is working on solving “that problem”. It is like dragging the thing you need to do in the back of your mind rather than putting it down. “Contrary to popular belief, procrastinating is more taxing for your brain than working on the task you've been putting off. "When we procrastinate or avoid, our anxiety about whatever we’re avoiding tends to increase," says Dr. Boyes. This, in turn, depletes your mental energy.” (Forbes) When you turn intentions into actions, you release this mental energy into movement, into a concrete step forward. If there are no obvious ways to act in the moment, you can write the next step to take down on your to-do list or even better, schedule a time when you will work on it. This way, you can let go of thinking about it knowing you will come back to it at a specific time or be reminded of it via your to-do list.

12. Protect yourself from distractions

This is an obvious one, but so important that it is worth mentioning yet again! First, eliminate unnecessary distractions, both internal and external, to focus on one thing at the time. Internal distractions are related to your thoughts (see next tip), feelings, and physiological processes (e.g. digestion). If you are too hungry, suffering from back pain or indigestion, you will find it more challenging to focus. External distractions are related to your environment, including objects and people around you as well as sounds, smells, sights, room temperature, etc. Second, protect yourself from frequent interruptions while you are working and focused, especially notifications (emails, text messages, and apps).

13. Declutter your mind and your space

If you have too much on your mind, you may be using up mental energy just to keep all this organized, not forget them or problem-solve unconsciously. “Keep as much as you can outside of your brain.” (Lifehack) Clutter in your environment can also be mentally draining if it distracts you or reminds you of all the things not finished and you need to do (clean dishes, finish a project, pay bills). Take time to build the habits that will help you keep your mind clear: set reminders, take notes, keep a calendar, batch your admin tasks, and deal with easy task right away. Also create the habit of putting away things as soon as you are done using them: wash the dishes after each meal, put dirty clothes in the laundry room basket, put away you your coat in the closet. There is nothing more mentally draining than looking for things when you need them! You can also consider simplifying your environment and lifestyle and eliminate excess that tends to cumulate and clutter your home and your mind. This applies to your to-do list and diverse commitments: delegate, reduce commitments, ask for help.

14. Let go of control and wanting to be right

Our brain wants certainty and a clear path forward towards a goal. To achieve this, it creates meaning and find solution to help us navigate our daily life. However, our mind as a tendency to believe and protect itself. If you are stuck in your head, you can waste a lot of mental energy trying to control things to reduce uncertainty and protecting your point of view to avoid being wrong. To avoid this endless energy-draining mental activity, practice being present (our brain works in the past and future). Focus on what you can control and let go of trying to control what you cannot. Remind yourself that what you believe may not be true and adopt an attitude of curiosity: ask questions, look out for alternative views, bring in a sense of playfulness. These practices will bring in a sense of ease, allow your brain to relax and free up your mental energy.

15. Care for your brain health

Your mental energy relies on a healthy brain. This organ needs to be fed the right food and nutrients (including healthy fats such as fat rich in Omega 3’s) and remain well hydrated. A performing brain also requires that you engage in regular movement and exercise. Remember too that you gut bacteria have a mind of their own, so maintaining a healthy gut is essential to have clear, positive, and coherent thoughts. Finally, don’t underestimate the important of metabolic health and hormonal balance. Chronic inflammation and hormonal imbalances can create brain frog. See blog post on physical energy for more details.

16. Hire a coach to get unstuck

A Coach can help you examine your assumptions, beliefs, and stories that are holding you back and creating internal conflicts. Coaching, using reflective inquiry, and dialogue are powerful ways to help you suspend and see your own biases, judgments, and beliefs. Being exposed to different perspectives in a respectful and open way allows you to bring your “unconscious bias to light”, giving you “a chance to consider holding on or letting go.” (Reynolds) A coach can also “help you name what you want” and once you are able to articulate what you truly want, it becomes easier to commit to. Not acknowledging, naming, and acting on your true desires can be what is really draining your energy. If you wish to explore working with a Wellness Coach, go ahead and book your free discovery call today. Together, we will explore your current energy challenges and what next steps you could take to boost your mental power.

Time to give your brain a break!

This post covered a lot and I am guessing most of you could not read it all in one go. If you are reading this, you may be struggling with maintaining focus, avoiding distractions, or simply experiencing brain fog and fatigue.

Don’t worry!

Pick one proposed tip that you found resonated with you.

Focus on trying this one out for a few days.

Assess how your mental energy shifts.

Remember: Don’t overthink it. Be present. Just act now.