How to re-charge your battery for more energy
Low energy or fatigue can be a symptom or side effect of several mental health conditions, including depression, anxiety, trauma, and grief to name a few. I’m often having discussions with clients about the ways in which they might be able to ‘recharge’ their battery to gain more energy. During these conversations, I’ll usually use the comparison between my mobile phone battery and my car battery.
In order to recharge my phone battery, I need to plug it in. It often needs to sit somewhere connected to the socket, and not be used. If I use my phone too much or for too long before charging it, then it will eventually turn off.
However, when I think about my car battery, it’s a different story. My car needs to be driven regularly in order for it to remain charged. I’ll never forget the morning I tried to start my car after two weeks of annual leave – it made that half-hearted ‘click click click’ noise as I turned the key. It wouldn’t start and I had to borrow a neighbour’s car before calling NRMA later that evening. Although I felt refreshed from two weeks off, my car had been impacted by not being driven daily like it used to be.
Our human ‘batteries’ can be similar to both – there is more than one way we can recharge.
I think we’re all familiar with how to recharge in the ‘phone battery’ sense. Often this looks like firstly stopping and, secondly ‘plugging in’. We always need to think about and plan for breaks in our work, study, or regular routines. On a day-to-day basis this might look like stepping away from the desk for lunch outside, setting a timer for a regular study break when doing homework, or doing a few minutes of mindfulness. On a week-to-week basis it might look like having one morning set aside to sleep in, or ordering take-away one evening so you don’t have to cook, and switching off work emails on the weekend. Over the year, this looks like booking in and taking regular annual leave, getting out of the city on long-weekends and school holidays, having an ‘off season’ in sport or having a mid-semester break.
Once we’ve paused, what ‘plugging in’ looks like is different person to person. Some might recharge with time alone, enjoying solitude and quiet, others enjoy socialising and conversation and being around others. Some like switching off their brains with social media or reality TV, whilst others like puzzles and books and podcasts. And don’t forget all the usual self-care that we know and love – baths, music, candles, chocolates, cooking, dancing, art, face-masks, online-shopping, hugs. Find out what helps you feel replenished when you’ve been drained.
However, what we also know is that sometimes our energy fits under the ‘use it or lose it’ category. It’s like our car battery – we gain energy from being active and doing things.
Depression, in particular, can create a pretty vicious cycle of low energy, leading to inactivity, leading to negative thoughts and feelings, leading to hopelessness, which ultimately ‘feeds’ the Depression Voice and the exhaustion, fatigue, and tiredness it brings.
A common factor of many mental health treatments is what we call ‘behavioural activation’. To put it simply, the aim is to get moving. The Depression Voice can be very convincing to us – telling you that in order to feel better you need to sleep more, do less, conserve energy, see less people… This may provide temporary relief, but not long-term benefit.
It’s counter-intuitive, but often we find that being more active (even in the face of tiredness or depression!) can increase our energy levels.
Much like your car - adding in some light movement or activity each day or week can play a huge role in sustaining our ‘batteries’ and creating more energy. Slowly and progressively adding in events, activities, or plans to a daily or weekly routine can decrease exhaustion. In regards to sleep, sometimes less is more! Oversleeping or irregular sleeping (such as day time napping) may contribute to lethargy. Day-to-day this might look like setting an alarm and getting out of bed when it goes off, parking slightly further away from your front door, or getting off the bus one stop early. Week-to-week it might look like writing lists of things to do when you’re bored, or committing to at least 1 social event each weekend. Over the year it might look like joining a social sports team or club, setting an exercise goal, or reducing overall time spent in bed.
Any activity (whether it be something as small as making the bed or brushing your teeth, or as big as planning to run a 5k, 10k, 21k, 42km race) also has the added bonus on helping us feel productive and in control. We give the Depression Voice less to focus on when we can reflect on the big and small things we’ve done that day, week, or month. Motivation also usually comes from momentum, and adding in small activities can increase the motivational flow. As the saying goes, from small things, big things grow!
So when we notice tiredness in our bodies, we need to ask ourselves – is it my ‘phone’ battery that’s low, or is it my ‘car’ battery that’s low. Sometimes to recharge we need to stop and plug in to our energy source. At other times we need to start the ignition and get the wheels moving.
(Note – there are many physical and medical conditions which can contribute to low energy, and may need to be addressed first or ruled out prior to mental health treatment. Your GP is always the best person to discuss this with!).
