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Every Wednesday is Tip Day.
This Wednesday: Eight tips for boosting your energy.
Feeling energetic is a key to feeling happy. Studies show that when you feel energetic, you feel much better about yourself. On the other hand, when you feel exhausted, tasks that would ordinarily make you happy—like putting up holiday decorations—make you feel overwhelmed and blue.
When my energy feels at an ebb, I try one of these techniques. (Well, first I drink something with caffeine in it, but if I feel like I need to take further steps, I try these strategies.)
1. Exercise—even a quick 10-minute walk will increase your energy and boost your mood. This really works! Try it!
2. Listen to lively music.
3. Get enough sleep. If the alarm blasts you out of a sound sleep every morning, you’re not getting enough—and it matters. (Here are some tips for getting good sleep.)
4. For some people, taking a 10-to-30-minute nap is a big help. I can’t nap, myself, but my father has been known to take three naps in one day.
5. Act energetic. Research shows that when people move faster, their metabolism speeds up. Also, because the way we act influences the way we feel (to an almost uncanny degree), by acting energetic you'll make yourself feel more energetic.
6. Talk to friends. I’ve noticed that if I’m feeling low and then run into a friend on the street, I walk away feeling much more energetic. Reach out if you need a boost. This is true for introverts and extroverts alike.
7. Get something done. Crossing a nagging chore off your to-do list provides a big rush of energy. For a huge surge, clean out a closet. You’ll be amazed at how great you feel afterward.
8. Do NOT use food. It’s tempting to reach for a carton of ice cream when you’re feeling listless, but in the end, all those extra calories will just drag you down. In general, be wary of the urge to treat yourself when you're feeling low.
Energy (or lack of energy) is contagious. If you feel energetic, you’ll help the people around you feel energetic, too. And that makes them feel happier. In fact, in his excellent book, The No A***ole Rule, Bob Sutton reports that being an energizer was one of the strongest predictors of a positive performance evaluation at work.
* How great! Groups for people who are doing happiness projects together have launched all over the world, and the group in Singapore, led by Marion, got written up in the magazine Her World. Click here if you want a starter kit.
* It’s Word-of-Mouth Wednesday! This is when I gently encourage (or, you might think, pester) you to spread the word about the Happiness Project. You might:
● Forward the link to someone you think would be interested
● Link to a post on Twitter
● Pre-order the book for a friend
● Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update
Thanks! I really appreciate any help. Word of mouth is the best.
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I’m working on my Happiness Project, and you could have one, too! Everyone’s project will look different, but it’s the rare person who can’t benefit. Join in—no need to catch up, just jump in right now. Each Friday’s post will help you think about your own happiness project.
I’ve written before about my resolution to Get more sleep, and I’m bringing it up again, because I’m truly convinced that this is one of the first aspects of life to tackle when you start a happiness project.
It’s easy to become accustomed to being sleep-deprived, but it’s not good for you. Many researchers argue that not getting enough sleep has broad health consequences, such as raising your risk for cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and even obesity, but in addition to those, it has a profound effect on your happiness.
One study showed that a bad night’s sleep was one of the top two reasons for being in a bad mood at work. (The other? Tight work deadlines.) Another study suggested that getting one extra hour of sleep each night would do more for your daily happiness than getting a $60,000 raise.
But here’s another reason why I think sleep matters so much for happiness: exhaustion makes the mornings tougher.
The morning is a hard time for many people.
First, a lot of people try to exercise early in the morning. This is a great idea—you check it off your list and get the mood boost all day long. My weight-training instructor told me, “I’ve noticed that people who exercise first thing are much more likely to stick to an exercise program. If you roll out of bed and exercise, you get it out of the way. If you try to do it later, you come up with excuses for yourself, or other things interfere.”
Second, a lot of people face a gruesome commute. A bad commute is a real happiness challenge and one to which people don’t adapt. If you’re sleepy, you’re going to be crabby and inattentive, and that’s a bad combination in a driver.
Third, a lot of people have to get their kids off to school. This is why I need a lot of sleep. Every single morning tries my patience to the utmost. If my big one isn’t complaining, my little one is whining. Remembering to put everything in the backpacks, picking out clothes, finding the right mittens, leaving on time … it’s hard, every day. A lot of my resolutions, such as Sing in the morning and Observe the evening tidy-up, are aimed at improving the morning experience. (Here are some tips for keeping school-day mornings cheery.)
I’ve also resolved to “Get up at 6 a.m.,” so I have an hour to get myself organized before the rest of my family wakes up. And what does this mean? It means I have to go to sleep earlier.
I was lucky enough to get an advance copy of my friend Erin Doland’s excellent new book, Unclutter Your Life in One Week. It has lots of great information and tips, and I was quite struck by her observation:
“Experience has taught me that to get out of bed just fifteen minutes earlier each morning, most people need to go to bed thirty minutes earlier. To wake up and feel refreshed thirty minutes earlier in the morning requires going to bed a full hour earlier.”
I’d assumed this had just been my idiosyncratic experience, so I was surprised to see that someone else had found the same thing. Alas, I think this is absolutely true.
The fact is, I resent having to go to bed so early, just at the beginning of one of the most enjoyable parts of my day. I finally have an opportunity to read for fun, call my sister in Los Angeles, cruise the internet, or watch TV. Instead, I have to turn out the light.
It’s strange that turning off the light is so hard. You’d think, “What could take less effort than going to sleep?” and yet I find that it sometimes takes a lot of effort to put myself to bed, even when I’m actually feeling sleepy. It’s just so much fun to stay up—or sometimes I feel too tired to take out my contacts.
Getting enough sleep really pays off, though. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, or listless, or irritable, try getting more sleep for a week. That might help more than you expect.
What do you think? How much is your happiness affected by the amount of sleep you get?
* On Gimundo, I read about a fascinating study that suggests that being in a clean-smelling environment makes people behave in a more fair and generous way.
* If you’re in a book group and think you might choose The Happiness Project as a reading selection, please let me know. I’ll send you a discussion guide, plus I plan to give away some free advance copies of the book, and I’ll choose addresses from these emails.
● E-mail me at gretchenrubin1[at]gmail.com (don’t forget the “1”) with the message “book group"
● include your name and address if you’d like to be eligible for a free book
● if you’re willing, I’d love to know a little about your group: how many members, what you read, etc. No particular reason, I’m just curious about book groups!
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Yesterday’s New York Times had an article from Bob Morris, "Martha, Oprah … Gwyneth?," about Gwyneth Paltrow’s emergence as a lifestyle guru.
I’m not interested in cooking, so I've paid no attention to Gwyneth Paltrow’s new PBS show with superchef Mario Batali, “Spain … on the Road Again,” but I had checked out her Web site Goop to see whether it had any useful happiness-project information. (I was mystified by the name; the article explained that G.O.O.P. are her initials.)
Goop has attracted a fair bit of mockery, and when asked about that criticism in an interview, Paltrow observed, “People get a hit of energy when they are negative about something.”
I was quite struck by the truth of this statement. I’d never thought about it that way before. Yes, she’s right, people do get a hit of energy when they’re negative about something.
Many of my happiness-project resolutions focus on trying to nudge me to being more positive and less critical: Give positive reviews, don’t talk about my aggravations, leave things unsaid, no gossip, cut people slack, be easy to please, have a heart to be contented, etc.
It turns out that it’s surprisingly difficult to be positive and enthusiastic—it’s tiring. And being critical does supply a jolt of energy. I don’t know why, and it’s unfortunate, but it’s true.
In the end, though, being overly critical doesn’t boost happiness much. Self-image is shaped in large degree by our actions, and somewhere each one of us has a little Jiminy Cricket doing an evaluation: “Spiteful, destructive, unenthuasiastic, querulous …” (On the other hand, I think some people pride themselves on being very critical, and it actually enhances their self-image. Hmmmm ... I need to think about this more.) At the same time, the more negative we are toward others, the more negative they are toward us. Have you noticed that people who are very gossipy and critical are often quite paranoid and defensive? There's a reason for that.
Paltrow’s observation—that being negative gives an energy hit—underscores a key point. When I’m tired, I’m far more likely to do things that drag on my happiness. I eat junk food, I speak too sharply to my family, I skip exercising, I don’t make the effort to help other people—neither strangers nor friends. And I’m more likely to be automatically negative.
I’ve become increasingly convinced about the importance of energy to happiness. When I started my happiness project, my first set of resolutions was aimed at boosting energy (get more sleep, exercise better, etc.—eventually I also largely quit drinking), because I figured I’m better able to keep my resolutions when I have more energy. I don’t need to write a snarky response to someone’s snarky comment on my blog or criticize someone’s parenting decisions or point out my husband’s shortcomings to him or pointlessly trash a book or movie to get that nasty hit of energy.
*Interested in starting your own happiness project? If you’d like to take a look at my personal Resolutions Chart, for inspiration, just e-mail me at grubin, then the “at” sign, then gretchenrubin dot com. (Sorry about writing it in that roundabout way; I’m trying to thwart spammers.) Just write “Resolutions Chart” in the subject line.