You may already realize there are relationships, tasks, and situations in your life that are draining your energy, but you may not be as aware of the subtle and insidious factors that are keeping you feeling low, exhausted, and frazzled out.
Here are 3 sneaky habits you may be doing that are prime energy drains, and some tips on how to shift out of them and take back your life!
Overthinking
We are living in an onslaught of information in this day and age. There is so much to think about, worry about, consider, it can drive you downright crazy and knock you off your balance.
Overthinking is one of the most insidious ways that you can block yourself from creating the life that you desire and deserve. It keeps you stuck in analysis paralysis, unable to go forward or make decisions in your life.
It also interferes with your connection to your intuition, hindering your ability to act in integrity with your highest wisdom. If you’re stuck in your head, you can’t feel what your gut is telling you and can’t hear what your heart is whispering. You’ll feel lost in the clouds of an endless mind.
How to stop overthinking:
- Try getting grounded. Go outside. Get your bare feet on the earth. Hug a tree. Soak up the calming support of nature and practice paying attention to what’s right in front of you.
- Put your hands on your lower abdomen and breathe deeply into your belly, feeling it rise and fall against your hands.
- Go for a walk, run, jog, do some jumping jacks, dance- do something that pulls you into the present, that connects you with your body, and gets your heart pumping.
- Do a brain dump of everything you’re thinking about to release it from your mind- you can write it all out or talk it out into a recording device.
Inconsistent sleeping patterns
Our body has an unconscious clock, a rhythm that moves with the sun, moon, and stars. But when this internal clock becomes disrupted, which is so prevalent in our modern world, it disrupts the homeostasis of our whole life.
When you stay up too late too often or go to bed at all different times of the night, your body doesn’t have the support it needs to maintain proper levels of hormonal functioning, vitamin and mineral balance, or a general sense of wellbeing.
If you’re up late snacking when your vital organs are trying to process all the energy from the day, you’re not able to detox toxins or stagnant emotional energies, leaving you feeling more bogged down with unwanted ailments and heavy feelings.
On the other hand, when you get enough sleep and have a consistent bedtime and rising time each day, your body starts to come back into balance with the rhythms of nature, your organs feel more balanced and restored, your hormones come back into balance, and you’re much more supported in achieving overall homeostasis in your life.
How to develop more consistent sleep patterns:
- Try picking a time that will work for you to go to bed most nights and stay consistent with it for at least a week to start.
- Try going to be before 11 pm in order to give your vital organs the essential time they need to process, recover and restore their vital energy.
- If you’re not tired enough by 11 pm, try waking up earlier the next day so you can feel more tired earlier. You can also try turning off screens and dimming the lights an hour or two before bed to help your circadian rhythm start to kick in.
- Try natural sleep aids before bed, such as a magnesium supplement, melatonin, or some drops of lavender oil on your pillow.
- You can listen to a guided meditation, sleep hypnosis, or yoga nidra recording when you first lay down, to help ease you into sleep and give you something to look forward to each night.
Living in the past
So many of us are not living in the present moment and are walking unconsciously through life. Have you ever driven home and were so busy thinking about something that just happened, that you pull up in your driveway and don’t even remember how you got there?
Many people are just going through the motions in their daily life with an invisible chain of emotional baggage and trauma from the past weighing them down, keeping them small and held back.
It can be easy to let guilt, regret, resentment, blame, and shame detract us from creating the beautiful lives we were meant to live, but every one of these energies is a signal that you are living in the past.
How to live in the present moment:
- It’s important to do emotional clearing exercises that can help release pain and trauma from the past- check out our Emotional Clearing for Empaths post for some great ideas.
- Practice grounding, exercising, using your hands, getting creative- any activity that pulls your attention to what’s right in front of you, where you can feel a sense of “flow”, helps you live in the present moment.
- Write a letter to the people and situations from the past that you need to release and forgive. Write out everything you really want to say, express your truth, and then burn, bury or rip up the letter and let it serve as a ritual of letting go of the past for good.
- Practice mindfulness, ever bringing your attention back to what’s here and now. You can do this through the breath, through mantras, or through expressing gratitude for whatever it is you’re doing right at that moment. Practice for a few minutes at a time and build the skill.