Not having mental energy is like your brain running on empty, making decision-making difficult, affecting concentration, killing productivity, and even leaving you in a terrible mood. However, there are keys or ways to replenish it. It’s true that many things slowly drain your energy, such as encountering an energy vampire at work, sacrificing sleep hours, or taking on more and more responsibilities and tasks without a break, but that just means when energy is low, it can also be replenished.
What Is Mental Energy and How to Increase It
Excessive work, family problems, or bad habits can leave us mentally drained; here are ways to recharge. Mental energy helps you concentrate, better deal with daily challenges, solve problems more effectively, and avoid being crushed by a mistake.
It’s relatively easy to accurately measure how much energy we consume by lifting a weight or walking a certain distance. The calories your exercise bike measures are a measure of energy. The brain also consumes calories, specifically 20% of all the body’s energy. However, there doesn’t seem to be much difference between the calories the brain consumes when solving math equations or when relaxed listening to music.
When someone says they have no energy, it’s not that they lack calories in their diet (the opposite is normal), but rather they lack the desire, mood, or will to perform a mental task. One possible explanation for mental energy is related to mood. Therefore, here’s what you can do to increase it.
Seek Something That Makes You Feel Positive
Negativity drains you, prevents you from seeing a way out of problems, and can increase stress, so it’s crucial that when you feel mentally drained, you seek activities or things that lift your spirits, and make you feel more positive, happy, and optimistic. They can be as simple as walking your dog, listening to your favorite podcast, taking care of your plants, playing your favorite game, or treating yourself to a coffee date.
Disconnect From Work
Living glued to work 24/7 is also one of the reasons you feel increasingly exhausted and unmotivated, so it’s important to set boundaries and learn to leave all that behind when you finish your schedule. You need to make time and space for personal things, spending time with friends, hobbies, and sleeping without thinking about tomorrow’s tasks or what went wrong.
Get Moving
Exercise has many benefits for the mind and body. Moving not only gives you energy, but also helps you sleep better, reduces stress, and increases dopamine levels, which is one of the feel-good hormones. You don’t need to go running or jogging; simple stretches for a few minutes will suffice.
Take Short Breaks
You don’t need a 10-day vacation to recharge (although sometimes they are essential), short and regular breaks are very important and can give you that instant energy boost. From a nap at your desk, resting in your seat, sleeping on public transport, they’re all essential for energy. Also, lying down for 5 minutes on a bench or in a park is important.
Find Allies
Just as some people drain your energy, leaving you feeling negative, others can have the opposite effect, always lifting you, making you have a fun time, and infecting you with their optimism and positivity. It’s important to have someone like that in your life.
This story was written in Spanish by Perla Vallejo in Ecoosfera
