Working to Build Up my Chi Energy

My wife and I have been feeling lower energy than usual. And we both do our best to keep healthy. However, the past little while it's been an up and down thing. I also find sometimes I just have the "I don't want to" come up, which also drains my batteries, e.g. making a posting here on Steemit. This is something that I want to commit to, and I have not made it a daily routine yet (though I keep telling myself I'm working on it!).

If others are in the same boat as me, I have some suggestions to mitigate the lows. These are not new, and I'm sure have been written on other lists from self-help websites and books. But here goes:

1. Get enough sleep, be it at night or a daytime nap if possible. Know what getting enough sleep is for you. For my wife, she likes to sleep a little longer on the weekends, and she prefers to sleep longer in general. For me, if I can get in a good 5 - 6 hours a night, and the odd daytime nap, I'm good.

2. Eat healthier, and eat regular meals. I love fried foods and fast foods. However, as I get older I find my body doesn't metabolize them nearly as efficiently, and I've grown a little (or a lot) rounder in the waist area. Thanks to my amazing wife, I've started to eat healthier, which in my case meant more greens and vegetables. And more fruit too. We also cut down on eating out at restaurants. This both saves us money and regulates our dietary choices, as I do the shopping and I seek to use fresh ingredients when cooking.

3. Take breaks when working, and fit in at least 30 minutes of physical activity during your day if possible. For the longest time I didn't take enough breaks (or at all). It's important to take breaks and gain a fresh perspective on the tasks at hand. As well, I also started walking 3 or more times a week for at least 20 minutes at a time. My ideal is to walk every day for an hour, but my schedule fills sometimes on short notice, so I do what I can.

4. When confronted with "I don't want to" when faced with a task, I break the task down into smaller more manageable bites, and do the important smaller tasks first. The other strategy I do is give myself a time limit to do the task, and then stop when the time expires. With this second strategy what often happens for me is once I get going, I just continue because I've gained some momentum and I spend way more time than I limited myself to.

5. Take some "me" time at least once a week. If you can do more (like once a day) it would behoove you to do so. This is one thing that in my opinion 90% of our current society is outright horrible at. The "me" time is just that: time for me to do whatever I want without feeling guilt or shame for doing it. And I have to set a time limit on this one, because the activity of choice usually varies. Sometimes I will watch a movie or TV show, or I will play on line games or do on line puzzles. Or I will go through my social media feeds and putz around.

The five items above are by no means a complete list. They are things that just came off the top of my head as I was crafting this posting. This was one of the things that I had set out to do, but having left it to pretty much the end of my day you can see how I need to have a strategy in place to get myself motivated.

Thank you for reading this. I hope it has been helpful!

WARM HUGS