What Puts Your Energy Back
Updated: 4 days ago
It's 3.40 in the afternoon and your energy has gone somewhere. Your eyes feel heavy, the email you're reading has stopped making sense, and your hand is already reaching for the coffee or the phone.
Both feel like help. Both work for about fifteen minutes. And both leave you a little lower than before, which is why you'll be back for round two at 5.
Yesterday was about what drains your energy. Today is the other half: how to top it up on purpose, a little at a time, before you run out. Yoga has been working on this for a very long time, and its answers are much simpler than the wellness industry would like.
Rest is part of the work
The Gita puts the whole idea in one verse. In chapter six, Krishna says yoga ends sorrow for the person who is moderate in eating and recreation, in effort at work, and in sleeping and waking (6.17).
For one who is regulated in food and recreation, regulated in action, and regulated in sleep and waking, yoga becomes the destroyer of sorrow. Bhagavad Gita 6.17
The word that repeats is yukta, which means fitted, joined, regulated. It describes someone whose habits suit the body they actually have. Rest and recreation sit in the same sentence as work, so a break counts as part of the work. You don't have to earn it.
Swami Vishnudevananda, in Meditation and Mantras, names proper relaxation as one of the five requisites of a healthy life, next to exercise, breathing, diet and positive thinking. His reasoning is practical: relaxation techniques conserve energy, and pranayama calms the nerves and increases it. Rest is what lets you keep going.
I've noticed this more since I moved into the ashram. Here relaxation is taught as a practice of its own, with its own instructions. Nobody treats it as a prize for finishing your work. That attitude is worth borrowing.
Two kinds of refill
Near the end of the Gita, Krishna sorts happiness into kinds, and it helps with the 3.40 problem (18.37 and 18.38).
The first kind starts like poison and ends like nectar. It asks something of you first, then pays you back. The second kind starts like nectar and ends like poison. It feels wonderful for a moment, then it costs you.
Coffee on an empty stomach and a fifteen-minute scroll are the second kind. A short walk and a few slow breaths are the first. Getting out of the chair for the walk is the poison part. Feeling clear ten minutes later is the nectar.
It's a handy test. When you reach for something, ask yourself which end you're paying for.
Breathing works fastest
Of everything on the list below, breathing works quickest, and the old texts agree. The Gita mentions people who offer the in-breath into the out-breath and the out-breath into the in-breath, devoted to the discipline of breath (4.29). Patanjali describes pranayama as controlling the out-breath, the in-breath and the pause, until the breath becomes long and fine (Yoga Sutra 2.49 and 2.50).
Long and fine is most of the technique. Breathe in through the nose for a count of four. Breathe out slowly for a count of six. The longer out-breath tells your body nothing is chasing it, and your heart rate and tension follow. Five rounds take about a minute.
A word of caution. In The Complete Illustrated Book of Yoga, the pranayama chapter keeps repeating the same caution: never overdo it, stay within your capacity, and learn the stronger practices from an experienced teacher. The slow 4 and 6 count above is gentle enough to try anywhere. If you feel dizzy or strained, return to normal breathing. A practice that tires you out isn't helping.
Steady and comfortable
Patanjali's famous definition of a yoga posture is surprisingly short: sthira sukham asanam, a posture should be steady and comfortable (2.46). The next sutra adds that it is mastered by relaxing the effort (2.47).
Try that at 3.40. You don't need a full routine, just enough to undo what the chair has done. Roll your shoulders. Turn your neck slowly to each side. Stand and reach for the ceiling. Fold forward with soft knees and let your head hang. You'll feel the moment the effort lets go.
Seven small refills
Here's a list you can stick on the wall. Each one takes between one and ten minutes, and none needs any equipment.
Five slow breaths. In for four, out for six.
A short walk. Ideally outside, ideally without the phone. Even the corridor will do.
Two or three desk stretches. Shoulders, neck, a standing forward fold.
Water, and a simple snack if you're hungry. A fruit or a handful of nuts is plenty. Thirst often feels like tiredness.
Two minutes with your eyes closed. Patanjali calls the turning inward of the senses pratyahara (2.54). Let the glow of the screen fade.
Look at something far away. Out of the window, at a tree, at the sky. Your eyes have been focused at arm's length for hours.
Name one thing that's enough. Patanjali lists santosha, contentment, among the niyamas and says it brings unsurpassed happiness (2.42). Try it for a single sentence: Today, this is enough.
Why they're all small
Every refill on this list is tiny for a reason. Patanjali says a practice takes root when you keep it up for a long time, without a break, and with real attention (Yoga Sutra 1.14).
A five-minute walk you actually take every day ticks all three boxes. An hour-long routine you do twice and then drop ticks none. A practice works because you keep doing it.
So if your refills feel almost embarrassingly small, good. That's the right size.
How to use the list
They work best as small sips before you run out. Once you've crashed, it's much harder to climb back.
So don't wait for 3.40. Take your energy notes from yesterday, find the hour where your numbers dip, and put a refill ten minutes before that hour. Choose two items from the list. Put them in your calendar with a name, such as breathe or walk, and take them as seriously as a meeting with someone important.
It's one of the first things yoga worked out about work. Someone who rests on purpose can keep going. Someone who rests only when they collapse is always running on whatever's left.
Tomorrow: sleep, the biggest refill you have.
Where to read more
The Sivananda-tradition books behind today's piece:
Meditation and Mantras, Swami Vishnudevananda (the five requisites; relaxation and pranayama for energy)
The Complete Illustrated Book of Yoga, Swami Vishnudevananda (breathing practice and its cautions)
Practical Lessons in Yoga, Swami Sivananda (pranayama and moderate diet)
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