If You Feel Physically, Mentally and Emotionally Tired
22 Ways to Boost Your Positive Energy
Have you ever gone through a time when you felt physically, mentally and emotionally tired? Maybe you’re even feeling that way now. At one time or another, we’ve all been there.
When we’re feeling emotionally, physically and mentally drained, sometimes it can be difficult to find the time and energy to get everyday tasks done, let alone figure out what’s causing our exhaustion.
While it’s different for each of us, there is often a huge connection between how much physical, mental and emotional energy we have and how much we are listening to our inner voice, or accepting our inner truth in this moment of time.
Exhaustion or low-grade fatigue often happens when we are not honoring what we really want, what our intuition is telling us, or those little things that bring us joy.
Listening to Your Inner Voice
Remember the first Matrix movie? I’ll never forget the scene where the main character Neo is offered two pills. If he takes the red one, he will know the truth about his life. If he takes the blue one, he will remain under the trance of the Matrix and go back to his life as it once was.
Life is constantly offering us the same two choices. Many of us are so busy that it can feel as if we are in a trance. Many of the reasons we don’t always listen to our inner voice are unconscious. We may not want to feel emotions we have kept buried for a long time. We may believe we need to make big leaps rather than realizing that lasting change often happens slowly, one small new energy boosting habit at a time.
Like Neo in the Matrix, we may hesitate to uncover certain truths, knowing that once we shift our consciousness, it’s often difficult to go back into a state of being on automatic pilot. The good news is, when we see ourselves and our lives more clearly, we also often recognize new opportunities or ways of being or looking at life we couldn’t access before. Rather than feeling tired and stuck, we start seeing new possibilities.
It can be helpful to remember that just listening to our inner voice doesn’t necessarily mean we have to do anything differently in our outer lives. The solution might be much simpler than we think. Often, there are little, micro changes we can make that will lead us over the long-term to feeling a greater sense of purpose and passion. (Check out the 28-Day Flow Challenge or 20 Questions to Find Your Passion for ideas on how this can work.)
The good news is that the more we trust our intuition and make what our inner voice is telling us a priority, we start to feel more confident, positive, energetic and less emotionally, physically and mentally tired.
Once we start listening to our inner voice, we will realize that we also have lots of support with living with more passion and purpose—especially from our true self, who has exactly what we need to get us moving on our higher path.
Listening to our inner voice, and following its guidance naturally makes us feel healthier and energetic, more aligned with who we really are. We might think of choices that are aligned with our truth and increase our emotional, physical and mental energy as the green pills (the ones to “go” for) and choices that drag us down and make us feel tired (the ones to “stop” choosing) as red ones.
When We Don’t Listen to Our Inner Voice
Choosing The “Red” Pill
Many of us unconsciously choose activities that keep us in a trance and drain our energy, rather than boosting it. Not taking the time to listen to our inner voice and follow where it is leading often causes us to feel more tired.
Here are 22 habits that often cause emotional, physical and mental exhaustion.
- Spending time with people whom we don’t feel like us for who we are
- Not asking for what we really want or need
- Procrastinating or avoiding certain jobs, projects, people or problems
- Doing things just because we think we “should”
- Over-doing—either over achieving or working too hard, or giving too much of our money, energy or time without it being appreciated or reciprocated
- Not honoring our own boundaries—saying yes when no would be the healthier choice
- Trying to decide too many things in too short of a time
- Eating sugary foods or caffeine, alcohol, drugs or substances that provide a temporary mood boost, but cause a crash reaction later
- Not sleeping enough
- Not exercising enough
- Not drinking enough water
- Spending long periods of time in front of screens
- Spending long periods of time indoors without natural sunlight
- Having too high expectations of ourselves or others
- Ignoring our instincts or intuition about something or someone
- Blaming others for our problems
- Nursing grudges or a victim mentality—for example, telling the same stories over and over about what is wrong in our lives or how someone wronged us long ago
- Wearing clothes that don’t fit right or decorating our house in a way that doesn’t really reflect who we are
- Not fixing broken things
- Not putting things away after we use them or not finishing projects we start
- Not letting go of things that no longer bring us joy
- Over-promising (or not keeping the promises we do make, especially to ourselves)
When we are in an emotionally-exhausted state, we often look outward for solutions. Looking outward to solve the things not working in our lives can take many forms. We might look to sugary foods, alcohol, drugs or caffeine to give us the energy boost we want.
Temporarily, these may give us the energy boost we are looking for. Long-term, however, these strategies often lead us, our lives, our relationships, and our own emotional, mental and spiritual state of mind to become less rather than more healthy.
We also might look for other people’s advice, blame others for our problems, overwork to numb our pain, or seek approval from people who don’t have our best interests at heart. When we are feeling emotionally, physically or mentally tired, we have all looked for quick pick-me-ups “out there” at some time or another.
It can take great courage to see our patterns for what they are. Sometimes we choose the red pills or choices because they act as painkillers, temporarily keeping us from feeling emotions or facing truths we don’t want to face. In the long run, however, activities that numb our feelings or keep us in denial drain us more than help us.
When We Listen to Our Inner Voice
Choosing the “Green Pill” Instead
The first key to waking up in our lives—literally and metaphorically–is to increase our awareness of how we feel after the choices we make. We can just tune in and notice, does this lift my energy or cause it to drop or feel stuck?
We often know what we need to boost our emotional, physical and mental energy. We just need to take the time to listen to our inner voice, and find others who can support us in following our intuition and doing what brings us joy.
Self-awareness is almost always the first step toward change. Anytime we do something that increases our joy rather than diminishes it, we are on the right path to listening to our inner voice and feeling less emotionally, mentally and physically tired.
While everyone has his or her own formula for waking up, here are 22 activities and choices that can boost our passion, sense of purpose and overall energy.
- Spending time with people who seem to genuinely like us for who we are (even if that sometimes means spending more time alone)
- Doing activities that we enjoy doing for the sake of doing them—regardless of whether we think we are good at them
- Spending time in nature
- Breathing deeply and standing up straight
- Spending time in silence
- Achieving things on our to-do list
- Keeping a gratitude journal, having a gratitude practice or simply training our brains to focus on the good in each moment
- Being around happy people
- Taking time throughout the day to tune in and ask, “How am I feeling?” or “What is my truth?”
- Letting ourselves feel our emotions fully, and move through them
- Meditating or doing a spiritual practice
- Making a commitment to accept others, our lives and ourselves just as we are
- Repeating positive affirmations like, “everything is happening just as it should,” or “I am becoming more and more energetic every day”
- Simplifying and saying no
- Forgiving and letting go of the past
- Clearing clutter
- Drinking lots of water
- Getting enough sleep
- Taking active steps to achieve a goal or dream
- Taking time throughout the day to relax deeply and focus on the present moment
- Letting go of relationships or things that bring us down
- Setting small goals and sticking to them
Like any habit, it might not be easy at first but with a little practice, one day at a time, we can choose activities that give us more emotional, physical and mental energy rather than take it away.
We each have the ability to, like Neo in The Matrix, not just wake up to the truth, but also to listen to our inner voice, and move toward living a life of purpose and passion, one choice at a time.
© 2021 Laurie Smith, Photo credit: Mahesh Patil/shutterstock