Energy & Stress Benefit from God’s Natural Rhythms – Rest & Action Cycle!

Ways to Relieve Stress, Anxiety, or Worry with Action-Rest Cycle

What's Going On In The Body

Just like there are cycles in sleep from light to deep sleep, we have a natural ebb and flow of energy during the day. These cycles of action-rest every couple of hours are important for our physical, mental and emotional health. This cycle is called ultradian rhythm. OSHA and the military built their task rotation and break recommendations around the data on these rhythms. Going more than 4 hours without a break leads to sharp declines in physical and cognitive ability. Taking these breaks when the body signals one is needed, boosts energy naturally and relieves stress, anxiety or worry.

God designed our bodies to require time throughout the day for energy production, output and recovery. These are like circadian rhythms around light / dark and wake / sleep, but a shorter period of time.

Intense physical or mental activities burn a significant amount of energy. There’s a peak period of about 90 min – 2 hours. Then there’s a decline as your body has built up metabolic waste products and needs more fuel. You probably experience this as feeling unfocused, distracted, tired, start feeling a bit more irritable or lose some hand/eye coordination. Your body starts sending you signals it needs something – restroom, sugar, carbs, caffeine, movement, or some other change in activity. This is normal! Your body needs some time for recovery – cellular repair & detox, brain processing, rebalancing systems, tissue repair.

If you give your body approximately 20 minutes in a more restful, less intense, and different physical and mental activity, the body is able to get all of that done and to re-energize you. Fully ready to go, you can go back into another 90 min – 2 hours of peak intensity, highly productive, creative, and focused work.  

When You Try To Control & Ignore

Yet as someone that is always doing too much or feeling that there’s never enough, I’m confident that you hear an inner voice saying things like,

• “I need to push through and get this done!”
• “I don’t have time. My next meeting started already and I’m late.”
• “How can I be tired now, the day just started?”
• “Let me grab just another caffeinated beverage (sugar or high carb snack) and keep chugging away.”

You ignore the signals and keep plowing through to get stuff done. Maybe you take 5 minutes to walk around, use the restroom and replenish caffeine and snacks. This gets you an eensy-weensy bit of energy recovery.

Without recovery, your physical and mental capabilities sharply deteriorate. Continuing to ignore needs and properly replenish, you will be exhausted and no amount of caffeine will help. This is what I call TIRED & WIRED.

I just can’t describe it any better than Pilar Gerasimo:

“In other words, as we skip ultradian rhythm breaks, we get diminishing returns and escalating risks on every level. And the more ultradian rhythm breaks we skip, the worse the damage becomes. That’s why, by the end of the day, so many people are husks of their former selves, walking bundles of deadened and frayed nerves. It’s why so many people get home from a hard day’s work only to fall on the couch in a heap, devour a bunch of unhealthy food, have multiple alcoholic drinks, or wind up in peevish exchanges with their loved ones.”

Long Term Impact

As you can probably imagine, long term all of this adds to the physical stress that the body is under. It’s like driving a car every day and never putting more than a quarter tank of gasoline or other fluids in it. One day the car will fail, because you are running it too close to the edge.

While you may not recognize this as part of stress because you are enthusiastic and deeply involved in what you are doing. The body and mind feel the lack of rest and maintenance time as STRESS. It’s as if you were physically threatened and the body starts going into stress response to focus just on survival systems.

This is a snowball headed toward Hell. Too many hours working. Mental stress from anxiety & worry. Physical stress from not enough rest during the day or sleep at night; overstraining the liver with caffeine, sugar and alcohol; poor quality food and eating habits; and insufficient movement. Relational stress from being too exhausted for God or loved ones…. Without breaking this cycle - illness, breakdown are likely. 1 2 3

RELATED: Empowered Action to Nourish Self and Blossom Grace & Grit

A Tip to Recharge & Unwind … Take Breaks

Vary tasks by skill requirements

Similar to the concept of task rotation for physical labor to use different muscle groups to prevent fatigue and injury, set your workplan for the day based on your strengths and skills. For an introvert, intentionally schedule a task that requires a lot of relational and social skills, then plan for some quiet, analytical or creative work to follow that helps to restore energy. Or vice versa for the extrovert.

Where you can start your day with an intense activity like writing a report, then do some filing for a bit or other less intense task before going back to the same or another intense activity.

Upgrade your snacking

Plan for better-for-you snacks and select something that will nourish & replenish your energy. And actually take the few minutes to enjoy it!! (Interested in escaping the snack pack and picking better for you options, here's a free guide!)

• Don’t just graze and eat mindlessly whatever is available & convenient 
• Minimize 100 calorie packs or convenience single serve snacks are highly processed, full of empty carbs and inflammatory seed oils
• Choose whole foods like fruit, vegetables, dairy, meat, nuts, seeds – something with protein, healthy fats and fiber. It will satisfy and give better building blocks to restore energy.
• Saying grace & enjoying it slowly with sensory awareness, helps you relax and improves digestion.

Lunch break for rest & digest

Actually, take lunch for yourself and fuel yourself with a nutrient dense meal made of clean, real ingredients. Something more satisfying and sustainable than sugar, caffeine, empty carbs and seed oils.

• Not a multi-tasking lunch while you are doing a ton of other things. It improves the effectiveness of your digestion.
• This is particularly needed if you only took a 5 minute break in the morning. Use this time to really recharge for the afternoon so you can be at peak performance.

Multi-tasking to benefit yourself

While I advise against multi-tasking when you are trying to accomplish focused work and maximize productive, there are times when you can do something that helps you reduce stress & restore energy

• Take advantage of meetings where you can go off camera and you are mainly listening - stretch, stand up, move around.
• If you are taking a phone call that doesn't need note-taking, go for a walk and get some fresh air.
• Take notes in a more creative format. Mind mapping allows for more connections to be seen since you are breaking away from linear bullets. Doodling is still a time honored way to emphasis key points to revisit in your notes.
• Listen to music as you do some low mental effort work like filing or transcribing 
  • Sing and dance a bit to re-energize
  • Calmer music can soothe stress
• If music is too distracting or inappropriate, low volume bi-naural beats on your headphones might be an alternative to help unwind or to encourage singleminded focus 

Set boundaries

If you’ve gotten into the habit of accepting work that requires 12 to 14 hours a day to stay on top of projects. See where you can delegate or get back to a more reasonable load, where you can make time to care for yourself. If you love what you are doing and you and your loved ones are truly okay with 12 plus hour work days, make sure you include breaks for peak performance.

Micro-breaks

Habits are hard to break. When you don’t feel like you can get a 15-20 minute break, increase the number of micro-breaks that you take. These are 1-5 minute short duration activities to stretch, move, text, say a prayer or call a loved one just to break up all the sitting that can occur at work. These small actions can lead to better habits over time.

RELATED: Be Kind to Yourself, Even If It Is Only A 5 Minute Break

Experiment for Yourself

You are bio individual! Only you and God knows what the right break pattern and activities are for you. Play with some of these ideas or use these to seed some brainstorming of your own. Try some of these tactics for yourself for a week. See what makes a difference and works for you. I am confident that you will feel more energy and be able to enjoy more of your day. You’ll also find yourself more productive, creative, or strategic than when you skip breaks.

My hope for you...

Doing too much and feeling not enough can leave you little time for self-care. Yet, finding just a few minutes for a restful break a few times a day will energize and restore your zest and vibrancy. Rest is precious and critical to nourishing body, mind and spirit. Finding your bio individual balance, will make a significant difference on the amount of energy you enjoy through the day.

I pray you can find some relief from the daily tired & wired by breaking the cycle with one or two small changes in your working habits. You'll be pleasantly surprised to see how each tiny habit can blossom over time and restore your energy. Investing in your self-care allows you to do so much more at work and home. As you break the cycle of exhaustion and stress, you also begin to impact your disease risk factors.

Please share any feedback you have in the comments below.

Interested in this approach and want to learn more about how you can go deeper into using your existing time management skills to help you improve your work-life harmony and reducing your stress?  Book a free consultation.