Monday, April 29, 2013

if energy is a tank that we can fill and empty, then these are the ways I can manipulate it

The other day at Costco I saw a yoga workout DVD and I was like "this actually looks kind of good!" and then I asked Adam to talk me out of it, because um, impulse buy. He was like "how long is the workout?" and then "okay, if you use it for an hour then it'll be worth it." So in order to follow up on that I did one of the "workouts." I like to think of it more as stretching and relaxing because workout sounds so exhausting. There was a guided relaxation at the end and it helped me feel so energized! Then I was reading this post about things that make us feel drained vs. things that energize us, and I thought it would be good for me to think about it (drains aren't necessarily bad or anything, they just need some balance).

Things that drain my energy:
-reading Twitter drama is actually kind of stressful, even though I find it highly entertaining sometimes
-thinking about chores I have to do and not doing them or making a plan to do them
-when I feel like everyone on Facebook is doing fun things except me (my theory is that many people just post when they are doing something awesome, so you are comparing your normal life to many people's most awesome moments of the day/month/year, which duh, isn't going to be as awesome).
-doing kanji reviews and failing a lot of them
-not knowing what to cook
-thinking about having to drive somewhere (I know this is pathetic)
-worrying about what other people think about how I don't care what they think (some obvious problems there)
-cub scouts

Things that energize me:
-Doing yoga in the morning, I guess?
-dance parties with myself (need more of this in my life)
-going outside
-sleeping (duh)
-playing certain games for under an hour can get my adrenaline going, but it's like, stressful at the same time? and most of the time I play games it's more to zone out because I'm tired.
-meditating and taking some time in the day to identify thoughts that drain me (above) and then self-talking myself into not spazing about things
-learning fun facts/studying something, marked by some sort of accomplishment like finishing a book
-actually organizing things and tidying makes me feel productive, but most of the time I don't like doing it U_U
-planning to do something and then doing it! Nothing like good plans. This includes making a planned dinner, going on planned errands, or writing a blog post. Maybe I'm getting "feeling good about myself" confused with "energized"? Oh well, I'm just brainstorming here.
-feeling happy for someone on Facebook, or feeling validated when I read about how I have Mormon feminist friends

So yeah, I should plan more and worry less and Twitter less, and hang out with people who think exactly the same as I do! >_> well, some of that might happen.

1 comment:

Geoffrey Hall said...

I can't tell you how many people I've heard saying that about the facebook thing. I think there's actually a coined phrase now for that phenomenon (facebook envy?). I actually feel myself fairly immune (or else I save all my envy for personal rather than virtual encounters, haha). It can be important to know which drains to work on (like needless envy) and which to work with (like, when dinner's not going to cook itself).