The Energy Quadrants

Energy is not only the fuel that stokes the fire, but also the subjective feeling of “can do” and confidence that encourages you to strive forward and take on the world. Energy is the outcome of a highly complex sequence of processes, responses and underlying factors originated in both mind and body. The goal of this book is to present these factors in a simple, easy to follow, but highly effective, way. With strong scientific bases, this book goes beyond research literature. We, the authors, personally tested all the hacks on our book and the outcomes surprised us. We all appreciate a quick fix when possible. Yet, science, logic and experience demonstrate that, in what relates to our body, to achieve optimal results, a little effort is required. The fruits of our academic research and applied research illustrated that feeling energized is both highly personal and most efficiently achievable when 4 factors are targeted.

Bioenergetics

The first part in any energy journey is the dietary aspect. Food is the very building blocks of energy. After all, it is from the consumption of aliments that we power our muscles, brain and mind. The journey of food through the body’s organs and cells all the way to the brain, is a  highly sequential evolved masterpiece which requires great care to perform at optimal levels for the duration of our lives. We identified a series of hacks, based on solid research and put them to work immediately. The results are gradual but within a few days your energy levels will improve largely.  You will feel healthier, although it will not be enough to get you leaping out of bed ready to attack the day each morning either.

Not only that aliments do not reach all the depths of vitality, but also the effects of food consumption are proportioned to the general underlying health of the individual. If you’re a perfectly healthy adult in your mid-teens, the effects of most dietary interventions may be negligible. The metaphorical Ferrari, straight from the showroom probably can’t be tuned much further with any additional tweaks likely to result in minimal performance improvements. The poorly maintained family sedan on the other hand, with 20 years of hard labor under the bonnet and not a service in its dusty logbook likely has significant room for improvement with the best motor oils, a performance tune-up and some high-performance modifications.

In our experience, the same is true of many of the dietary factors. Humor aside, there is little doubt that the foundations of our subjective energy and vitality sits on the bedrock of good general health and we discuss the most important aspects for energy and vitality in the section as well as offer concrete hacks to achieve this.

Neurological

A great part of how energized we feel is based on what goes on in our brain. Although our body might be under a perfect nutritional plan, a proper balance in our neurotransmitter secretion is essential. Hacking neurotransmitters is possible but comes with a disclaimer. Neurotransmitter secretion is both very personal as well as multifactorial dependent. Many of the neurological hacks have a psychological and behavioral consequence, that, even though it is not 100% causal effect, it is tightly correlated. To get the complete picture, the next 2 Quadrants to explore are psychological/motivation and environmental factors.

Motivational

Vitality is perceived in with our mind and not merely based solely on our underlying physical health. Our behavior is deeply personal and our feelings of vitality are equally individual. With vitality, one size fits one, one size does not fit all. Some people are highly energized in a positive way by adversity, others are paralyzed by it. Some find mindfulness helps with vitality, others find that it leads to distressing emotions and endless rumination.  Motivation has been an evolving discovery both in the field of psychology, with many theories improving our understanding of the spark that ignites and the neurological responses which you will discover in the neurology quadrant. Most of all, motivation techniques rooted in empirical evidence and time-tested practice are very easy to apply and highly effective for vitality. When we looked for a magic solution in the Bioenergetics quadrant, we found answers which worked within a few days, however, when we look at motivation techniques, we found hacks that have an instant effect. Although those effects can quickly fade, for many reasons, new habits in this area are worthwhile pursuing.

Environmental/Efficiency

Everything we do is a response to external factors but generated from an internal frame of reference. For example, 3 people can see a black cat, one sees it as cute and cuddly and strokes it, one sees it as superstitious and turns away, and the last dislikes cats intensely and recoils in disgust. Same cat, 3 different behaviors. It’s a challenge to manage external factors, who knows when a black cat may just appear. It is equally difficult, arguably more so, to change our behaviors. To do so requires great energy on habit forming and the associated neuroplasticity. Whilst self-help books will tell you that its possible or even easy, let us tell you, it isn’t easy to grow new neural connections strong enough to counter the pre-existing ones supporting an old habit. In many ways, it is easier to accept ourselves “as is” and to manage our environment accordingly.

When it comes to quitting smoking, excessive drinking or a lousy diet it is very much worth the effort but even in those scenarios, it is often easier to change our environment, avoiding friends and situations which might lead to a slip-up. Should we sail towards the iceberg hoping it will melt before impact? Or should we take evasive action to avoid it in the first place? Focused with laser-like precision on the biological and neurological aspects of the puzzle for so long, we took a step back. We thought long and hard about how we might use our vitality and energy. Where would vitality fit into our day? Where might it be useful? We thought from our own perspective, about the origins of our quest and about how you, the reader, may want to apply your energy and vitality too. We envisioned taking up interesting new hobbies with our surplus energy, being energized and engrossed in play with our families and writing inspiring texts or musical works with our new-found energy and vitality. It was very clear to us that we needed to factor in the environmental factors and how they affect our ability to focus our energy and to use it with great efficiency in those very moments. We studied chess players, sportsmen and women and people who worked in roles requiring high energy in challenging environments. We also knew from experience that workplaces can be energy sapping environments. This Quadrant offers hacks to improve both the quality and productivity of our work without fatigue.

The Four Quadrants

We therefore present to you, the four quadrants of our Energy Matrix. We recommend working through the hacks of all four Quadrants. See what works best for you. Finding your own formula is key and you may wish to take just one hack from each section to incorporate into your life. We, the authors, have used each hack since our research began and also over the years to great effect. We have arrived at our own personal formulas which are quite different from one another. We hope you enjoy hacking your energy in each of the quadrants and encourage you to find the right formula for a new energized you.

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Excerpt from the book New Energized You.

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