Managing, Replenishing, and Growing Your Energy Levels

May 17th, 2012
By Susanne M. Dillmann, Psy.D, Post Traumatic Stress / Trauma Topic Expert Contributor

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All too often, a lingering impact of traumatic experiences—particularly ongoing/frequent traumatic events in childhood—is that energy levels become compromised; meaning that you simply do not have enough energy to tackle certain tasks. Not only do you not have enough energy, but often times the traumatic experiences also prevented you from being taught how to manage your energy levels—everything from recognizing when you are running low to knowing how to build your energy reservoir, as well as stamina.

Before looking further at this issue depth, take a quick moment and think about all the energy it took to get through today; think about the physical energy, as well as emotional and mental energy. Of these three types of energy, physical energy is possibly the most obvious. We all have experienced times when we are simply too tired to engage in a task; in other words, we all have had times when our physical energy is just not up to the task at hand. Several factors, including sleep, nutrition, exercise, medications, and substances, all impact your physical energy level. These factors also impact your emotional and mental energy levels. Emotional energy is used when you interact with emotions, be it in a productive or unhealthy manner—it is used when you identify an emotion, express it, act on it, calm it, understand it, and so on. Mental energy is the energy needed for and used up by thinking, planning, making logical decisions, and executing (following through with, completing) your decisions and plans.

Due to traumatic life events stunting, so to speak, your development of sufficient energy reservoirs and energy management tools, it is important to include the development of these skills in your healing work. Broadly speaking, there are three categories of skills you will want to learn for each of the types of energy: the skills necessary for monitoring your energy level, those needed in order to manage your energy, and those that will increase the staying power of your energy.

Let’s look at monitoring your energy level. How aware are you of your physical, emotional, and mental energies? Is there one type of energy that you are more aware of? Do you recognize when these energy levels are full and geared up for action? When they are at the midpoint or when you are close to being empty? Or do you only become aware of your energy level when you are past empty and burnt out? Being aware of energy levels before you hit burnout is quite important because such awareness will allow you to refuel before you run out of energy. Physical energy can be a great one to start practicing these skills with. Take some time throughout the day—say every hour or two—and check in with both your awake/tired levels as well as your full/hungry levels. When you check in with each of these physical experiences, determine on a scale (you can visualize a gas gauge having marks at full, ¾ full, ½ full ¼ full, and empty) just where you fit in: are you past the point of energy but not quiet at tired, are you not full but not hungry—a sort of middle ground? Depending on where you are, you can determine what you need to do to manage your energy and satiation levels, such as take a nap, go on a walk, eat a snack, say no to the offer of a snack, etc.

Once you know where your energy level is, you can determine what needs to be done to keep that energy at a workable and beneficial level. For example, let’s look at emotional energy. Say your emotional energy is still at the ¾ full mark, despite it being late in the day—maybe now would be a good time to call a friend and extend support, or maybe you can take time to reflect on, process, or journal about a recent upsetting experience. If you notice that your emotional energy is close to empty but you still have a few emotionally taxing tasks to do, then it would be wise to carve out a bit of time to refuel yourself: reach out to an emotionally supportive friend, take a break and head to an emotionally restorative place in nature (even if it is just smelling the neighbor’s roses), or take a few moments to breathe deeply, read an encouraging piece of prose or poetry, and so on. If you become aware that you have experienced several days on empty, then you may want to consider ensuring that your weekend is dedicated to replenishing versus extending your emotional energy.

If learning how to replenish your energy reserves is one side of a coin, then building stamina is the other. This skill requires a great deal of gentleness and care—many survivors of trauma push themselves to have too much stamina, not allowing themselves to honor their limits. Keeping this in mind, it is important to state that building your stamina is an important pursuit. Just like with building physical stamina, developing a deeper mental energy reservoir requires practice in small increments. When you notice that you are approaching but not yet almost empty (say somewhere just beneath a ¼ full), gather your mental energy and sustain your focus as well as effort for another solid 10 to 15 minutes. Rather than exiting the activity to replenish your energy level, stay engaged and practice hanging in there. If you simply do not have enough mental energy to stay with your current task, then switch to a less-demanding activity but keep using your mental energy.

Feel free to play with these ideas. Apply the ones that resonate with you, and practice each type of skill: monitoring, replenishing, and building stamina with each type of energy: physical, emotional, and mental. Be as creative as you can be, and brainstorm additional ways to grow these skills. In so doing, you reclaim crucial abilities and further your healing. Practice these skills in a safe environment and in a manner that can only benefit you; never do anything in the name of healing that actually could bring damage to you. As always, keep in mind that you do not need to heal on your own. Reach out to support groups, loving friends, supportive family, and trained professionals. We are all here to help you grow.

Related articles:
The Relational Cost of Trauma
Part 3: Source Energy Optimizes Life—Escalating Source Energy Through Trauma Resolution

©Copyright 2012 by Susanne M. Dillmann, PsyD, therapist in Escondido, CA. All Rights Reserved.

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