How do you maintain and increase your energy levels when you have a business to run or a living to earn? What is the secret? Ironically, the answer is the opposite to what you would expect: To have more energy – in any form – put out more energy! Your entire being is designed to run as efficiently as possible, and to use only those resources that it needs to do the job at hand. Physical Energy If you lead a sedentary, quiet life, you will find your energy drops to a level that is only sufficient to manage this lifestyle.

Conversely, if you engage in regular physical exercise, you will find your energy levels rising to meet the demand, and persisting in anticipation of future demands.

So the secret here is: To have more energy available, put out more energy!

But don’t think that you just “put your head down and work”. That is often a destructive process as you “wear yourself out” by working but not investing time in ensuring that you are well fed, well rested and to a degree, well exercised.

“Hard work” is not “Exercise”. This is a common misconception among businesspeople, and is one worth addressing here.

Constructive and positive exercise for a human has exactly the same basis and principles as constructive and positive exercise for a race-horse: Short, spaced periods of controlled intensive activity, followed by rest periods, palliative care (massage, hot-tub, stretching) and first-class nutrition.

Contrast this with a spell of “hard work”, skipped meals, and restless nights and understand the difference.

One way of implementing these periods of exercise is to enlist the help of a personal trainer. There are lots around these days and many of them offer group sessions, so why not recruit other people in your business (speak to your accountant about tax concessions for implementing a program for your employees).

Several members of ProfiTune have recently joined a lunch time boot camp run by Blue Spartan Personal Training, and if the elevation in productivity and mood is anything to go by it is certainly worth the effort! “Office workers spend 77% of the day seated, this can have negative consequences like varicose veins, degenerative arthritis to the spine and numbness. Moving is nutrition to our nervous system. Fuel the brain & body by taking breaks, moving around more, office based exercising, controlled breathing & eating healthy snacks.” Says Dennis Eilmann from Blue Spartan.

ProfiTune Marketing Manager, Sarah Dyson, had this to say, “The downside of arriving back to work all red-faced and sweaty is majorly over-shadowed by how good I feel for the rest of the day, suddenly the afternoon isn’t dragging by like the last day of school, I find I have an increased ability to focus on tasks and don’t need to top myself up with caffeine and sugar mid-afternoon. Plus it’s so satisfying to go and punch out any frustration I may have from the morning, and I’m meeting new people through the group!”

Mental Energy

One of the principles of physical exercise is that of “rotation” or “muscle confusion” in which the personal trainer or sports coach will include as a component in their training regime, exercises that are different to the run of the mill, and which change all of the time.

Their purpose here is to ensure that the athlete’s muscles cannot become “too comfortable in a familiar groove” but are being challenged to do new things all of the time.

This same principle applies to mental training.

All of us tend to think and operate in our “familiar grooves” and the more specialized our work, the deeper the groove, often as not.

One of the tricks in increasing our mental energy is in ensuring that we are continually challenging our mind with sources of new thinking. This is not to say that we dissipate our mental energies across an unorganized mass of topics; it is to say that occasionally – but regularly – we should spend a little mental effort on a field of knowledge with which we are not familiar. Try picking up a random trade/hobby magazine next time you are at the News Agents or let StumbleUpon take you on a journey through the internet to sites you would not usually look for.

Have fun trying something new this week!

*Blue Spartan runs lunch time boot camps for corporate types at the Gold Coast Arts Centre Park, cnr Crombie Ave and Bundall Rd. Contact Dennis Eilmann on info@bluespartan.com.au for more information.