How to achieve long lasting energy?

You want the kind of sustained, invigorating energy that lasts of lifetime that keeps you doing interesting and engaging things deep into you ninth decade and beyond, that fires you up with enthusiasm for every new project and every new day. Think Art Linkletter. That’s the kind of energy we’re talking about.

To achieve that lasting, sustainable energy, you need to do some serious relaxing. It sounds like a paradox, but it’s not. Think of relaxing as a temporary stop at the gas station that allows you to refuel your tank. You can put off that pit stop for just so long, but eventually, if you don’ relax, you’re going to run out of gas.

Relaxation is the key to replenishing your energy stores. It has to do with something called homeostasis. In medicine, the prefix home means “stagnation”, “inactivity”, or “motionless”. Get the picture?

Homeostasis is also the maintenance of a stable internal environment in the body despite changes in the external environment. It’s what keeps you in balance. It’s the inherent tendency of any living organism toward physiological and psychological stability and equilibrium. When one side of the seesaw goes up, the other side goes down. When both are equal distance from the ground, the seesaw is perfectly balanced, or in homeostasis. From your body’s point of view, this is a desirable state.

HOMEOSTASIS: YOUR BODY IS LAZY!
Truth be told, your body is a bit like a slacker teenager. It actually likes to lie around on the couch and resist change or activity. While you might feel like doing jumping jacks, running a marathon, or writing the novel of the century, your body will always try to “recover” from that activity and bring you back to its ideal balanced state – the body’s version of lying around on the couch and relaxing.

That’s balance. Nothing too much going out, nothing too much going in. No muss, no fuss, no stress. Input equals output. Perfect…. Well, homeostatis.

Here’s why” The part of your nervous system that acts as a control system, maintaining balance – or homeostasis – in the body is the autonomic nervous system, and it contains two major parts: the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous systems. They typically function in opposition to one another.

The sympathetic nervous system is the one that’s aroused when you’re running around, burning through your day, writing reports, shooting archery, playing soccer, doing laundry, hunting big game, whatever. It’s the sympathetic nervous system that elevates your heart rate and gets sugar into the bloodstream when you need to run form a predator. It’s the sympathetic nervous system that’s responsible for your primitive fight-or-flight response, whether that means fighting a woolly mammoth in prehistoric times, or fighting the traffic on the Los angles freeway.

But, aha, it’s the parasympathetic nervous system that calms you and restocks you body with the chemicals you used up running around playing Master of the Universe. While the sympathetic nervous system is responsible for fight or flight, the parasympathetic nervous system is responsible for rest and digest. You can’t have that ideal state of balance, of homeostasis, without the two nervous systems cooperating.

THE ELEPHANT ON THE SEESAW
Here’s hat happens if you don’t give the parasympathetic nervous system equal time. The sympathetic nervous system becomes like an elephant sitting on that seesaw. When it finally decides it needs to take a rest and dismount, the seesaw goes crashing to the ground and splinters into a thousand pieces. Why? Because there’s been nothing on the other side to balance it.

Relaxation is the other side the energy coin. Constant whirlwind activity needs to stop for a refueling. That’s where relaxation comes in. I’ve seen so many people in my travels who consider relaxation “time wasted”. “It’s sitting around doing nothing”, they claim. Not even close to the truth.

Relaxation is your body balancing the seesaw, activating the critical parasympathetic nervous system, acting as a corrective to that elephant of an overactive sympathetic nervous system, and creating the kind of balance and harmony your body craves – homeostasis.

I’ve never studied martial arts, but friends of mine tell me that their most powerful strokes come from a position of balance. AS an avid tennis player, and I can tell you that’s certainly true in tennis. I suspect it’s true in most sports and indeed in most areas of life in general.

You just can’t perform at full strength with full power if you’re not in a balance state, and without allowing time for the body to recuperate, balance will always elude you. Without balance, you’ll always be withdrawing from your body’s energy bank account, and eventually your stash will run out. For optimal energy, you need to balance those withdrawals with deposits in the form of relaxation.

If you don’t make time to relax, you ultimately won’t have time for anything else. Relaxation is a critical part of your energy prescription. You can rest assured that all those movers and shakers that you see burning through their day with boundless energy have spent plenty of time behind the scenes replenishing, restoring, and refurbishing their energy signature with some serious downtime.

You should, too.

So recharge your batteries. Regularly. Religiously. Without fail.

It’s critical to your health, and essential to your energy.