podcast

Hi again, and welcome to another episode of calm your caveman.

We're going to talk briefly today about one important technique, which I call staying within your energy envelope. And I want to just introduce it by describing a little bit about this energy envelope and how I became aware of my own energy envelope. Unfortunately it was through three years of chronic fatigue, which was one of the things that I experienced when I had long COVID. Chronic fatigue is an illness where patients have to become really aware of their energy budget, their energy envelope. Because there isn't a cure for chronic fatigue per se. And so we just have to learn to manage it. And I had to become really aware of the fact that my body was not good at producing energy currently. I had apparently some kind of malfunction in my mitochondria, in the energy producing organelle of my cells and so I wasn't, I didn't have a very big energy budget. What happens when you have chronic fatigue is that you have the specific energy budget. If you spend that budget completely and take it down to zero and actually go into the red where you're in the negative, it doesn't just take, putting some deposits in there in your body to bring it back up to zero. It's a lot harder than that. If you're careless with your energy budget, when you have chronic fatigue and you take it down below your zero and you go into the red, then your body will actually kind of act like a bank that gives you an overdraft fee, and will maybe even charge you interest on the money that you have, quote, unquote, borrowed your, your energy that you have borrowed from nowhere, that your body doesn't have, and it will take you maybe even maybe several days, maybe even weeks to recover from that over expenditure, because you are overcharged for the amount that you withdrew. And so I had to get really good at being aware of my energy budget. I started to think of it kind of like a video game. And I have these points on the screen, these bars that represent how much energy I had. And I had to be aware all the time that everything that I did was going to spend that energy down a little bit and that I had to stay within that energy budget. Otherwise if I went into the red, I would be in trouble and it would take me a long time to get back to positive. Thankfully. I was able to finally recover from chronic fatigue after three years, but it taught me something important and that is that we all have an energy budget. We may not all be conscious of it all the time, but let's face it, we're all mortal. We all have limits. We only have so much energy, so many resources in our bodies. And when we overspend, when we take our resources down close to zero, Or if we overspend then our brains are acutely aware of that. We're always aware, unconsciously most of the time, but we're always aware of the resources that our body has. One thing that Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett likes to say is that our brain is constantly running a budget on our body and it is constantly aware of all of these different needs that our body has and the different resources that we have to meet those needs. So when we run that budget down, To zero or close to zero that is when our resources are low, whether we're aware of it or not. When our resources are low, that will affect the way that our brain will appraise stress. Going back to our episode where we talked about stressful situations are where our brain appraises our resources in relation to the demands of the situation. When our resources are low, it's going to be really hard for our brains to appraise our resources as up to the demands of a lot of different types of situations. If you want to make it a lot harder for your brain to generate challenge appraisals, then run yourself down to the wire, run yourself down close to zero. When you take your workload so high, when you're short on sleep, when you have health issues and you're sick, all of these things are influencing your brain's appraisal of your resources, whether you're aware of it or not. And if you're feeling a lot of anxiety, take a look first at your overall energy envelope and ask yourself, am I daily spending my budget way down, close to zero. If I'm spending it close to zero almost every day, or even down into the red, then my brain is going to have a really hard time generating challenge appraisals because my resources will feel very depleted.

So I just want to point that out how important it is to take care of your body's resources, the sleep that you need, the exercise that you need, the recreation that you need, the social interaction that everyone needs. Even those of us who have social anxiety, we do have social needs. Eating well, being outside, all of these things will affect your body's resources, whether you are conscious of it or not. Now, some of us have a hard time saying no to things. We have hard time saying no to other people. Whether it's at work, whether it's in our community, whether it's in our family. But we need to be aware of these energy bars that we have in this video game of life. We need to be aware of our specific energy budget, and we need to be aware that everything that we do makes withdrawals on that budget. And we need to be aware of where our energy budget is, how we're feeling as far as overall health and overall physical wellbeing. Because when we take ourselves down close to zero, as I said before, It becomes really difficult for our brains to generate challenge appraisals, and we will move into threat appraisals. And we know what happens, we've talked about this several times . What happens when we move into threat is that we move beyond that thinking threshold. Our brains get less oxygen, less blood flow. We can't think as well, we can't solve the problems that come up because our brains aren't getting the resources they need. We end up with stress hormones that that can exacerbate inflammation. They can make it difficult for us to, to recover even once the stressful situation is over. We're not able to approach the challenges. We feel more like av, avoiding stressors. And our cognitive performance is w debilitated. So we need to always keep in mind the cost of each action that we choose, of each thing that we choose to do in our daily life. Because if we overspend then we are basically putting our brains in a situation where we are defaulting toward threat appraisal, that's going to be hard not to end up in a threat appraisal. I think all of us know we've probably all experienced when we're short on sleep, how difficult it is to feel like you can handle the things that come up. And that's your brain generating threat appraisals over and over and over again. And if you want to give yourself that best foot forward, to modify your overall life situation so that you can handle stressors better,. so that you can generate challenge responses, be aware of that energy budget. And here's a quick quote from a book that I liked called the upside of your dark side by Todd Kashdan and Robert Biswas-Deiner. He This is the quote. "Whether we're involved in love, work or play, we need to be kind, but we also need to be selective. We simply do not have the luxury of giving ourselves fully to everyone. Time and energy are limited resources that we must spend wisely." So in a sense, this is a little obvious. We all know we have limited resources. But are we really conscious of our personal limits? That's what I want you to spend a little time thinking about. What are my limits? Notice when you start to get more anxious, and try and see if it has some correlation to your energy budget, if you are overspending your energy budget, if you are accepting too many responsibilities and too many stressors in your life, that are putting you in a situation where you're not able to take care of your body in the way that it needs. Now of course. The way that we do this, we have to, has to be oriented by our sense of purpose, by our why. Because the specific situations that we select and say yes to, and the others that we say no to will have to depend on what is most important to us overall in our lives. Selection is difficult and that has to be performed in accordance with our values in accordance with what is most important to us overall in our lives. But I would encourage you this week to think about the fact that your time and energy are limited, and this necessitates selection. Because you cannot give yourself fully to everything. And think about what is most important? What are your priorities are for selecting? But also think about the consequences of not selecting, the consequences of simply accepting everything that is, that is suggested, that is asked of you from all sides and how that will affect your performance. How that will affect how you're able to help those around you, who are asking for help. Think about the way that you spend your energy budget and how that influences your anxiety and try and watch for a correlation there. So, what we're trying to do here is we're, we're trying to avoid those situations that are specially difficult to appraise as challenges. And select instead situations where the demands are kept manageable in comparison to our resources. And that is really facilitated when you're taking care, taking care of your physical bodily resources, as obvious as that may sound. Again, this is not a direct determinant of your appraisal. it is. possible to be overspent and in an, a dire situation physically and still generate a challenge appraisal. And you can see that from examples like Victor Frankl and others who have faced extreme stressors and been able to appraise those as challenges rather than threats. But it is one way to modify your situations on a general scale in your life to reduce the amount of anxiety that you will feel by making it easier for your brain to appraise situations as challenges rather than threats . We're all for making things easier for our brains, so that we can save energy for those things where we really need to spend energy. You may find situations that you really need to spend that energy to reappraise. But it may be a lot more energy efficient to simply take care of your body and make it easier for your brain to appraise things as challenges.

So there's a simple bite size concept for you to think about this week. Just be aware. Just be aware of the way that you care for your bodily budget and your energy budget, and the way that you are selecting to spend it and its influence on the way that your brain will appraise your resources as compared to your demands.
Thanks. See you next time.