Exhausted? 7 ideas to refresh yourself and quickly get going again

get going again

Nobody’s perfect so give yourself credit for everything you do right, and be kind to yourself when you struggle.~Lori Deschene, founder of Tiny Buddha.

I don’t know about you but heading into a new school year had me feeling exhausted before it began. Not only is the pandemic not over, but it’s also beginning to look like it may be a very long time before we find a way to co-exist with the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, as we have done with the roughly 160 varieties of human rhinovirus.

Or as Bret Stephens put it in his recent shared column with Gail Collins after she asked how he was feeling: “Exhausted. Covid-19 is turning out to be a lot like Bartok doing opera: more sinister than you think, worse than it sounds, with lots of doors leading to awful places. When can we finally get back to some Mozart?”

Going back to masking in enclosed spaces, trying to maintain social distance in confined areas that do not lend themselves well to this purpose, and dealing with the rage that everyone feels regardless of vaccination status, has made me feel like never leaving home. And we know that’s not a healthy attitude!

So, I started to think about what I could do when I am feeling physically overwhelmed with exhaustion to rev me up and help me to think more clearly. Stressed brains are not well-functioning brains, and when your work requires intellectual acumen, that is a problem.

7 practical ideas to quickly refresh yourself and quickly get going again

1. Get outside if only for a few minutes. One of my teacher friends has a courtyard she can walk around at lunch. It’s only a small patch of grass surrounded by a three-story building, but just getting out into the air instead of eating inside seems to change her mood. “Just a little bit of perspective helps,” she says, “and the next three hours seem easier.”

2. Try moving meditation. You may say, “Meditation’s not a quick hit for refreshing myself.” It can be. Meditation does not need to be sitting on a cushion, looking at a fixed point, noticing your breathing.

Moving meditation only requires awareness of your surroundings. You can walk to meetings, classes or labs while observing how your body moves, how your feet feel connecting with the ground, noticing the sounds, sights, and smells all around you. Yes, you are probably going to start thinking about the upcoming lecture or the class discussion that did not go as anticipated. Remind yourself to simply return to engaging in the present moment.

3. Stay hydrated. Although the human body is 60% water, most of us are chronically dehydrated. Dehydration is associated with foggy brains and fatigue. Not conducive to the life of the mind. Obviously, you can drink a glass of water, or preferably several glasses of water, in the course of a day.

There are a surprising number of alternatives to water that can hydrate you. Fruit, vegetables, yogurt, soup, milk, and smoothies all count. You can use juices and sports drinks but check the sugar content to avoid a later energy crash. Try cutting such drinks 50% with water to keep the flavor and up the rehydration effect. You can also flavor your water directly with something like cucumber to make it more palatable. Alcohol is a known dehydrator, so if you want it, try to match each glass with an equivalent amount of water.

Last but not least, most of us (including me) were taught to avoid coffee and tea as dehydrating, but apparently the diuretic effect is significantly less the hydration you can get. Green tea is great, but if you prefer your tea black, that’s fine. Consider using one of the warm spices like ginger, clove, or cinnamon for a zing that refreshes.

4. Wake yourself up quickly. Eat a mint. Peppermint and wintergreen are good for waking you up, and citrus is a good pick-me-upper, especially lemon or lime. Breathe in refreshing essential oil, again citrus and peppermint are good choices. Rosemary, sage, bergamot, and cinnamon, basil, pine, ginger, juniper berry, lemongrass, and thyme are all energizing. You can keep mints with you and essential oil in a backpack or at your office.

At home, you can try tying eucalyptus to your shower head and create a spa-like effect. If you are daring enough, take a cold shower. If you can’t face a cold shower, try just running a cool cloth over your face, or splashing water on your face and letting it dry on its own. If you really like to startle yourself, take an ice cube and run it over your face and neck.

5. Avoid social media for a short time. No surprises here. Doomscrolling will exhaust you quickly. When you are on a break, don’t leap to check your social media accounts, and stay away from the news. If it’s really important it’s going to be repeated so often on all media channels you will not miss it. Social media can lead you down the rabbit hole of negativity and deplete your energy reserves more quickly than you can say, “white rabbit.”

Not to mention feeling angry when you end up in a place where everyone agrees with you on how terrible everything is. Barbara Rosenwein, professor emerita at Loyola University Chicago and author of Anger: The Conflicted History of an Emotion, says social media can make you believe a minority view is the majority view. People validate each other’s anger and amplify it. “Over time the possibility of feeling righteous anger has become democratized. Everybody feels almost obligated to feel it,” Rosenwein said. And anger is exhausting.

6. Find ways to engage in human touch. Definitely a hard call during a pandemic, but humans beings need touch. Being touch starved can lead to greater anxiety, depression, stress, difficulty sleeping and relationship problems. Babies who are not held or cuddled suffer from deprived oxytocin systems making it harder to read social cues or even be more sociable later in life. If you feel safe, get a massage, get your nails done, have a haircut. Hug an animal. Hug other people in your pod or bubble.

If you can’t hug someone else, hug yourself. Yes, that’s right. Hugging yourself for even a few seconds can release oxytocin and make you feel better. Imagine the kind of hug you need right now. Strong and intense? Soft and soothing? It doesn’t hurt to give yourself a positive message at the same time, like “You’ve got this.”

7. Congratulate yourself. Just getting through the day is an accomplishment. It’s tough out there. We all get that we are frustrated, angry, disturbed, stressed and generally cranky. At the end of each day, you might want to write down 3 things that went well, and what you did to make them happen.

Let go of any guilt you feel. Here’s a helpful rule for letting go of guilt: Ask yourself, “Did what I do hurt anyone else?” If the answer is “no,” there’s no reason to feel guilty. If your action (or inaction) did actually hurt someone else, then you can consider how you could repair the relationship, or do get done what needs to be done.

Now that you’ve gotten some ideas on how to refresh yourself in a hurry, I must remind you (as I remind myself regularly) to practice all the normal self-care to keep your energy up: get good sleep, do exercise that fits your age and stage, eat the diet that is right for you, engage in some spiritual practice even if that is just acknowledging gratitude for the good things in your life, and keep positive social connections even if only on video calls. Most of all, remember we are all stressed out and practice self-compassion and compassion for others.

If you need help to get going again contact Hillary for a free 15-minute consultation.

 

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