Bad energy
It’s December 2021 and the closely fought formula 1 championships comes to a controversial end between Hamilton and Verstappen. Controversial especially if you’re British and tending to be a fan of Hamilton. I’ll spare the re-run of events but towards the end of a long arduous race, the drivers are all asked to slow down and await the safety car clearance during which time Verstappen visits the pits, picks up some fresh tyres which are then controversially cited as winning him the race and denying Hamilton victory. It’s one of those moments that will continue to spur endless debate around fairness yet there’s no denying that running on fresh tyres, however fairly they were obtained, gives you an edge.
When we’re leading we can work faster and harder, we can drive in more hours, work long in to the night but we risk at some point, a competitor coming in from left field with a fresher mind, fresh pair of legs so to speak who produces the answer our brains have been searching all this time for.
To put this simply, seeking to organise so we work at maximum peak as a permanent state leaves no gas in the tank for when we need that extra mile as we surely will.
In today’s knowledge based economy scientists have found the study of creativity more important than ever. Ideas travel fast around the world and are a source of competitive advantage. Increasingly evidence points to ideas coming not when everyone’s noses are to the grindstone burning the midnight oil and racing to the finish line, but rather when minds are wandering. In studies teams who were set success creative tasks to a deadline became decreasingly capable relative to those who worked with intervals – time on and time off.
Most athletes recognise intervals training as critical to developing cardio strength and so it is with work. Yet at work we often appear apprehensive about rest, we’re hard wired through our industrial revolution heritage to believe that down-time is somehow “slacking off” and not a period of regeneration of energy that will come in useful later. This stems from an age when humans were needed to ensure machines produced widgets and has helped us see productive behaviours and productivity itself as about units of production relative to labour. For many jobs, times have changed and it’s not so easy to measure output in terms of widgets and value is often more important than quantity. Yet our approach to work driven by industrial revolution age thinking remains.
In this week’s article I want to look at habits that create good energy and habits that create bad energy at a personal level – we have a choice and therefore more control than we usually think about the way we behave. Then in a follow up article we’ll look at the challenge for those of you who are leaders and the culture and behaviours you are driving or supporting in your organisations.
So what’s good energy and bad energy and why do we have an innate tendency to reach out for bad energy even though it causes challenges down the line? I’m going to borrow here heavily from the excellent Tony Schwartz so you can read more directly from him if you feel inspired to know more.
Good energy is both restorative and sustainable. The two are important. Good energy sources bring us up and they can be naturally replenished and sustained almost indefinitely. Everyone has the ability to create good energy.
Bad energy is restorative in the short-term but lacks sustainability. Over the medium and long term, bad energy sources borrow heavily from external stimulants, they cannot naturally be replenished and create artificial boosts than eventually need to be repaid at another point in time. Everyone has plentiful access to sources of bad energy.
Culture plays a big part in which source of energy we naturally reach out to. As we’ll see, sources of bad energy are all around us. Because they are provided by external sources, they tend to be thrown at us, marketed to us and are very easy for us to get hold of. Because they provide a short-term artificial boost to our energy, many workplaces are designed with easy and ready access to sources of bad energy.
So what are these energy types?
Good energy comes in two types – active and passive. Active energy comes from choices we make to do certain things differently during the day. Throughout the day, micro-decisions are little cross-roads we come across where we have a choice between a good energy source and a bad energy source. Rituals and habits for many people tend to lead them to bad energy sources.
The active good energy quadrant is called the ENERGISE quadrant. Here we’ll find good diet, movement and exercise, things like yoga and stretching to help us through the day but also playing and laughter to renew our souls. When was the last time you laughed, really deep-down belly laugh? Bet it was a while ago.
Passive energy is restorative without us actually appearing to do anything. Indeed that’s kind of the point of passive energy – to allow the body to naturally recharge. We call this the CHILL quadrant. Here we’ll find meditation or mindfulness, taking a break, ensuring we get a MINIMUM of seven hours sleep every night, good sleep hygiene which means no blue light after 9pm and ensuring we take all our vacation or holiday time that’s due.
So far so good.
Now let’s look at the not so good; the bad energy quadrants.
First up is the SPIKE quadrant. In Spike we find all the things we reach out for when we want a quick jolt of energy. They are nearly always stimulants such as caffeine, sugar, simple carbohydrates such as chocolate or candies but maybe other stimulating drugs and cortisol which is naturally generated by the body along with adrenaline when we’re under pressure.
Second up is the NUMB quadrant. In Numb we find all the things that we tend to get into once we’re out of the office and no longer seen and the things in numb are generally socially unacceptable within the office but kind of known as things people do outside the office. So here will be increasing alcohol consumption, reliance on sleeping pills, overeating, watching too much television and using painkillers and other drugs to try to numb and calm nerves.
The quadrants interact with each other, particularly when we are under pressure.
First to be sacrificed is CHILL – it just seems so self-indulgent and who cares anyway because you’re only answerable to yourself and maybe you can catch up on these things next week when things calm down. However;
a) Things really never calm down, they just get replaced by other things
b) No-one catches up on sleep, this is scientifically proven to be bunkum
c) Most importantly when we do things like skip sleep we tend to have a greater reliance on SPIKE energy sources to get us through the day, the short term stimulants that just push us through.
And the consequence of this is the body’s stress hormones accentuate producing adrenaline and cortisol as a short-term energy fix. Cortisol becomes toxic when it stays in our bodies for too long which then stimulates more serious disease.
Next up to be sacrificed when we’re stressed is the ENERGISE quadrant. So in order to save time we either eat the wrong things – just grab and go food that’s high on carbs and low on nutrients. This in turn makes us sleepy so we counter-balance with caffeine whether that’s coffee or soft-drinks and this starts the whole cycle of adrenaline and cortisol all over again. It’s completely counter-intuitive but look around you and you’ll see many workplaces that are filled with short-term stimulants – the vending machines filled with chips, crisps, chocolate and candy. The on-site coffee bar that’s open in the afternoon for that post carb-filled lunch pick-me-up. Bad energy sources are relatively cheap and very plentiful.
Next to be sacrificed in the ENERGISE quadrant is exercise – we skip it, promising ourselves we’ll catch up and coupled with stress eating, lack of exercise means our bodies lack endurance and strength and we start gaining weight producing for some people another source of anxiety.
If this sounds familiar, I don’t want you to feel bad. This is the life lived by lots of people who are working very long hours, with lengthy commutes who deep down inside know what they are doing is harmful but they are hoping either some day it will change or that the short-term sacrifice will lead to what’s called an “extrinsic reward” such as promotion. Yet rarely will that promotion provide relief from the problem, in fact without change in attitude it will just make things worse.
Change comes if you want it to happen, otherwise the systems set up around you will make the vortex of the energy cycle always sacrifice ENERGISE and CHILL in favour of SPIKE and NUMB.
What we’re looking for here is a reversal of the cycle. We want ENERGISE and CHILL to be default settings when you’re faced with micro-decisions (remember these are the crossroads during the day that your brain makes an automatic choice for you). This is all about rituals and habits.
There are four rituals to consider building in to your life. Exercise, nutrition, sleep and spiritual renewal. Here are some of the techniques people have found helpful to start to re-programme their brain so that when it’s faced with a decision point, it makes the default setting towards good energy and in doing so the need for bad energy is reduced.
EXERCISE – ritual energy leaders start small when it comes to exercise. They will make a commitment to themselves and their diary to programme in a simple exercise to start a new ritual. They don’t commit to running a marathon and then give up training in week 2. It can be as simple as every day at 12 midday I take a fifteen-minute walk around the block – no music, no calls, just walking. You can build it up into running later if you want but this is about the simplest basic achievable now step that breaks the cycle and begins a new ritual.
DIET – ritual energy leaders know the times when they reach for energy rich food during the day – these are the signs in your natural body clock of when your body is saying it needs an energy boost. Depending on your cycle of the day it may come as early as 10am or again at 3pm. Ritual energy leaders know that when hunger strikes, it’s almost too late and too easy to get hold of the bad stuff so they start their day with a little line of foods they do want to consume on their desks or in the drawer. This includes water for crucial hydration. Rituals and habits are critical here – find your time cycle for healthy mid-morning snack, hydration, lunch and then stick to it, making your diary work around it. We’ve look previously at the 50 minute meeting – those ten minutes are just enough to stock up on good energy and hydrate. Remember the critical element to creating a ritual and habit is the WHEN THEN statement. WHEN the clock strikes 10:50 THEN I will drain what’s left in my water bottle get up, walk to the cooler and fill it up again. Your brain needs the WHEN THEN in order to learn the new micro-decision.
Ritual energy leaders are equally rigorous with sleep and sleep hygiene which allows them rest and spiritual renewal such as spending more time with the ones they love.
If you’re a leader of an organisation then here is a bigger challenge for you. Are you designing overwork out of your organisation or are you tacitly supporting it by putting measures in place to dampen its negative effects.
Do you know how many hours your staff are actually working
What’s the example you set for reasonable work-time?
How many people in your organisation actually take their annual leave
Take a walk around your building or campus, how easy, on hand and affordable have you made food sources that create good energy for your team. You may find the results surprising.
Lots of companies spend millions on employee assistance programmes, patching up problems that could have been more efficiently and effectively prevented in the first place. So why not take the energy challenge in your organisation – to create the optimal conditions for your teams to deliver for you with good energy.
