Hello, and welcome. Today we're going to talk about energy management with mindfulness. Now looking at the picture on the screen, I'd like you to reflect on a typical day at work for you. Do you feel that you're constantly under pressure? Do you have lots of things that you have to remember, lots of things that you need to do lots of decisions that you need to make people that you need to interact with lots of mental gymnastics. 

For many of us, it actually can feel like we're doing the equivalent of a mental marathon every day, under pressure to perform mentally. So the question I would ask is that if I were able to give you one more hour each and every day, how much would you be willing to pay for that hour, most people would pay quite a lot to have an extra hour of the day to be able to run that mental marathon. 

Now the reality is, time is a fixed commodity, but energy is expandable. So it stands to reason that if we can better manage your energy throughout the day, we can effectively have more time because if we get things done faster and more efficiently, we'll have more time to do other things, like perhaps go home and be with our family.

So it's very important to understand first, what are our sources of energy? And specifically look at from a mental perspective, what are those things that use up our energy? And how can we manage those more effectively? So let's start out with this question, what are your prime sources of energy?

If you think about it, probably one of the main things that you'll recognize is that sleep is really important in terms of our energy. Scientists tell us that most of us should be getting seven to eight hours of sleep every night, in order to be able to perform at our best. Many of us do not get that amount of sleep every day. And in a separate workshop, we'll actually look at how we can make sure that we do get good sleep quality, and are able to use that as a really foundational source of energy.

Another key source of energy is nutrition, it probably no surprise to any of you that what we eat really impacts how much energy we have. In fact, there are two killers to our nutrition in terms of how it relates to energy. And those are ones that many of us use a lot. And that is sugar and caffeine. Although they can give us that initial kick. Once we get over that hump, and we crash, they can be a very unpredictable source of energy. And we'll talk more about that in a whole workshop that we have in terms of energy management and nutrition. The third source of energy is movement. Many of us have had the experience where we're sitting at our desk, or we've been working for a long period of time. And we're just trying to feel tired, low energy. And just by getting up, maybe going for a little walk, maybe doing some simple stretches, or perhaps even going out for a run, or some other form of movement can really give us the energy that we need.

Download Transcript