Pressed Sip and Learn

Beyond Balance: Managing Energy, Not Just Time

with Rachel Posner



Takeaways


  • Mindfulness practices including breathing techniques are often focused on stress relief and relaxation.

  • Of equal importance is learning how to energize the system.

  • Deepening our awareness of our stress levels AND our energy levels is essential to sustaining energy.

  • Your breath is a huge resource for both lowering stress and raising energy.

  • Compassion training - a deep desire to alleviate suffering - will help you avoid burnout, strengthen your parasympathetic response and support contentment and well-being.

  • Implementing supportive practices on a daily basis will both lower your stress levels and raise your energy levels - consistency is key.


Practices


3 Minutes To Check In

Click here for an audio meditation

Once you’ve listened to the audio once or twice, you’ll be able to do this on your own, anywhere, anytime.

Often times, we move through our entire day without paying attention to our physical needs. We spend hours at a desk trying to get through "just one more thing". We stop paying attention to basic needs like hunger, thirst or muscle tension and our stress levels steadily rise. When your basic needs aren't being met, your nervous system registers a threat and releases cortisol and adrenaline making you irritable, reactive and anxious. Taking pauses throughout your day to notice what's happening in your body can be an energy management game-changer.

This practice will help you:

  • Check in throughout the day

  • Increase your ability to pay attention to the needs of your body

  • Foster a conversation between your body and mind, keeping them on the same page

  • Get better at responding to those needs, both by lowering your stress level and raising your energy level


Grounded Energy: A Breathing Exercise

You can do this breathing exercise anywhere. Feel free to stand, lay down or sit. If you’re in a chair, make sure you are sitting up straight. Set a timer for 3 - 5 minutes (depending on how much time you have). 

  1. Start by noticing how you are breathing. Don’t worry about taking a huge inhale, just let the breath move a little lower in the body until you feel your belly moving more than your chest.

  2. Begin 4-part breathing. Inhale, take a pause at the top, and then exhale and take a pause at the bottom.

  3. Rate your stress level and your energy level on a scale of 1-5.

  4. Take 5 - 10 rounds of breath and count the length of your inhale and your exhale with an intension to start slowing things down. Try to make the exhale longer than the inhale.

  5. Notice if that helps your stress level to drop.

  6. Now being to shift towards an expansion of energy. Count a 4-6 second inhale and a 4-6 second exhale with a focus on bringing more energy into your body as you breathe in.

  7. Notice if that helps raise your energy level.

  8. Adjust the ratio of breath depending on whether you’re wanting to focus on relaxation (longer exhale) or energy building (longer inhale). Remember that you have to calm the system before your can energize it.

  9. Stay with this as long as it feels helpful.

If you’d like more guidance, join me for this box breathing exercise. This is a 12 minute meditation but only the first 5 minutes is consistently guided and after that, it is mostly in silence. Feel free to set your own timer and take as much time with this as you like.

Move Your Body

One of the most effective ways to increase energy is to move!

When you move you release neurochemicals that reduce stress and give you more energy.

Try moving for 5 minutes every hour. Whether that’s a quick walk through the office, a few gentle stretches, or a minute shake-your-body moment. It doesn’t matter what it is - just move!

And remember that if you are on the fight/flight spectrum, you’ll want slow, gentle movement. If you are feeling depleted, heavy, or checked out, you’ll want more intense, active movement.


Compassion Training: Loving Kindness

Click here for an audio meditation

Compassion training is an excellent way to strengthen your parasympathetic nervous system. It can also be a key component of energy management and avoiding burnout. And most important, it leads to feelings of well-being.

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