Myth no one. “Energy can only be restored by sleep”
Wrong!
1. There are many ways to restore energy during the day and night, and sleeping is just one of them. Time spent exercising, playing, laughing, having fun, being creative, relaxing, meditating, and switching to other activities can also renew your momentum and increase alertness. And you can do these energy building activities throughout the day rather than wait for bedtime to restore your energy
2. Sometimes sleep can actually drain your energy more than restore it. If you fall asleep while you are experiencing anxiety, muscular tension, and exhaustion, stress toxins can remain in your body rather than being expelled through exercise and relaxing activities. Often this is the case when people complain that they feel like they “hardly slept a wink” or “fought a battle in their maximum energy upon waking up. Some people feel most energetic and alert at other times in the day, such as late at night or by mid-morning.
The main point you should remember regarding this myth is that you are not like a car that starts off with a full tank in the morning but is destined to run out of gas after eight hours of driving. Rather, there are many techniques available to you for refueling your energy reserves a little bit at a time throughout the day.
3. Myth 2 : We All Need Seven To Eight Hours Of Sleep Per Night Wrong again!
Although the majority of people seem to feel best with from six to eight hours of sleep each night, by no means is this a requirement for all people. Many of our most celebrated geniuses unusual sleep patterns.
4. Don Frick, a self-employed writer and producer in Indianapolis 3:30 a.m. there’s absolutely no productive work left inside me. So I’ll sleep until 6:00 or 3:30 a.m. I feel fine going on this way for about five days. Then my body givens me a cue, and I’ll let myself sleep for a nine-hour shift, which totally revives me”
5. These examples are not meant to encourage you to attempt such shortened sleep patterns unless you have a two-week vacation period to experiment with them. In addition, factors such as illness, heavy work loads, sadness, and stress can increase the amount of sleep your body needs. However. Our main point is that these highly creative people listened to their internal voice when it told them they needed rest. And like children usually do, after restoring their energy with a nap or recreation, they were able to jump back into high gear.
Many executives follow a modified version of these sleep patterns as well. Once or twice a day they have their secretaries block all calls and interruptions while they stretch out on their office couch (or floor!)and take a fifteen-to thirty-minute nap. Others have a short deep-breathing re meditation session.
6. Armand Hammer, for example, writes in his autobiography that he got into the habit of taking a half-hour nap each day after lunch. At age ninety, he is working circles around his younger business associates. Doing daily aerobic exercise can also decrease the amount of sleep people require. Exercise provides some of the benefits of sleep in that it helps to release tension and stress toxins, thereby producing a feeling of relaxation and well-being. It also tends to produce deeper and less fitful sleep. Finally many people find that they need less sleep when they reach sixty years and older. In fact, learning to listen to and trust what your own body is telling you is another of the key insights we gained in our research in this area. Each person’s body seems to have its own unique way of working best. And if we just trust that this is so requesting, an amazing new level of energy usually follows.
7. Myth3: “Loss of Energy Is Party of The Aging Process”
wrong once again!
Energy does not have to slowly burn out as we age, like a flame on a candlestick. Instead, our individual energy plateaus appear to be linked much more closely to our health and to our enthusiasm factors include being in sync with our brain dominance; having energizing eating and exercising patterns; being curious about learning new things; having a passionate involvement in life; spending time in playful, fun activities; and daring to dream dreams that really matter to us. Once again, many noteworthy people Pt. Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi, Indira Gandhi, APJ Kalam at present, Georgia O’Keeffe, Pablo Picasso, Thomas Edison, Albert Schweitzer, R. Buckminster Fuller, to name a few –continued to be highly productive and energetic beyond their 60th year. In addition, many business leaders we have worked with have maintained the vitality and spontaneity they had in their youth.
8. Myth 4: “The Main Source of Energy Is Physical Health”
Wrong again!
Although feeling healthy certainly contributes to your wellbeing and energy levels, you also need to be interested and engaged in life in order to want to be active in the first place! And two of the key elements that cause people to vigorously embrace life are having a strong purpose for living and having a commitment to reaching a certain goal.
9. A sense of purpose that goes beyond the details of “the job,” whatever the day-to-day details of “job” might mean. There must be a sense that what I do is somehow congruent with the overall purpose, design, and flow of the universe as I experience it. I’ve got to feel that my work fits with the big picture. For example, I don’t think I could energize myself for work every day if I were a corporate executive of a breakfast foods company that made only sugar snacks for kids, or pesticides that cause cancer, or chemicals that deplete the ozone layer. I can’t overemphasize the importance of this factor. I believe it is some sort of “magetrend”—the need to feel that one’s work is somehow aligned with what’s best for the earth itself. The increasing concern for the environment is today a global issue and is expressing itself through the actions of many corporations; and I would suggest to you that the energy drain many workers feel is because they sense they’re not aligned with what’s best for the earth. This frequently leads to a feeling of malaise and emotional/spiritual poverty. In short, personal energy can’t be discovered if it conflicts with the way of nature.
10. A sense of the “top line.” This is opposed to the “bottom line” which we usually say is the ultimate criterion of the worth of our work. Great achievers have an abiding sense of what the top line is (a concern for people and quality of life), and it is one of the most energizing aspects of their lives. The work of psychologist Abraham Maslow is legendary here. He did a lot work interviewing these sorts of people, the grate accomplishers, trying to uncover what made them tick. These are high-energy people who have learned something many people never learn. Although the top-line factor is related to the ideas above, they go further and begin to border on something spiritual, something transcendent, something that is difficult to put into words. People do all sorts of things to hide from their greatest possibilities and deny any sort of top line, a behavior that Maslow called the “Jonah Complex.”
11. Another fundamental source of vitality is feeling passionately about something. It may be a cause, a person, a creative hobby, or your life’s work. Many people get an entirely new lease on life by becoming enthralled with something new. Yes, passion will rejuvenate you in a deeper, more long-lasting way than simply getting enough sleep and feeling for something in your life is so vital to high energy that we are devoting the next chapter to it.
Along with passion, the most important and under girding element of high-energy living seems to be balance. Learning to live in balance, allowing time for both work and a rewarding personal life, will bring synergy, joy, enthusiasm, and creativity to your life.
