Be A More Energetic, Focused And Valued Employee

You begin each workday as a graceful, sharp, creative, energetic, intuitive employee. Kiss all that goodbye by about 2:00 in the afternoon when you begin to feel like a rumpled laundry bag with the energy of a sloth. As the hours drag by and challenges roll over you like a tsunami, it is predictable that your stress will skyrocket and your productivity will tank.

Rising tension seriously messes with your posture, your breathing, your circulation and your concentration. Most of us make a feeble effort to glue our day back together with some combination of sugar, bad carbs, caffeine and cigarettes. All this stuff, of course, makes the situation substantially worse.

Consider that Man has spent most of his existence as farmer, shepherd or hunter so his physical design has evolved to meet those specific needs. Unfortunately you cannot wait for evolution to catch up with the high tech demands piled on you TODAY.

Although our species has an amazing ability to adapt to change, evolution wisely moves forward in slow deliberate increments and it will take many thousands of years before Man’s mind and body are able to deal efficiently with the glare of computer screens, artificial light, chairs (even good ones), air conditioning and endless hours of bumper-to-bumper traffic.

The tension headaches, the ulcers, the erratic breathing, the high blood pressure, the low back pain are all signals from your body that you need to stop what you are doing or at least find smart ways to compensate. If you ignore these initial messages then Mother Nature will hit you with bigger and nastier ones – stroke or heart attack.

So there you are, stuck between a big rock and a very hard place. A mortgage, car payments and a vanishing portfolio make it unlikely that you will pull a Thoreau and vanish into the peaceful woods beyond cell-phone reach. The following four tools will help you work SMART and slow the unnecessary aging of your mind and body.

Tool #1 is AWARENESS.

Know that the odds are against you but not impossible. Appreciate that your mind and body are trying valiantly to keep up with modern pressures that they were not designed to handle. Remember that, although your farming predecessors worked incredibly hard, their work was glacially slow relative to yours.

Tool #2 is MOVEMENT.

We were not designed to sit on a chair. Any chair! We were designed to either move or squat or lie down. Wiggle, squirm, pace, walk around the block (or at least to the window) and stretch arms and legs every few minutes. Set your computer or watch alarm if necessary. Scientists have discovered that even the smartest mind loses its edge after 20-40 minutes so take a break every half hour to re-set your IQ.

Tool #3 is SOLITUDE.

Early man spent most of his/her time ploughing, hunting, fishing, harvesting and walking long distances. While these were serious endeavors they also provided lots of quiet time for the subconscious to work and be heard.

Spend a few minutes every day without radio, TV, cell phone, iPod or computer. Your brilliant ideas and solutions come from your subconscious, NOT your conscious mind. The subconscious will not shout above the technical din. You are probably smarter than you think. You are simply drowning out your own wisdom.

Tool #4 is your incredibly powerful BREATHING.

As the hours pass in front of your monitor or at the conference table, your breathing becomes shallow, sluggish and erratic. This, in turn, leaves you with too little oxygen and too much carbon dioxide in your bloodstream. Because your big leg and hip pumping muscles aren’t doing their work, your heart works unnecessarily hard to move the blood from your feet back to your brain.

Relax your jaws, tongue and shoulders. Balance your weight evenly along your thighbones from hip to knee (tailbone off the chair). Pretend to touch the center top of your head gently on the ceiling above you. Exhale all the stale air. Inhale by relaxing your bellybutton. Exhale by gently pulling your bellybutton in toward your spine. Focus completely on your breathing for five or six breaths.

You will be a more productive and inspiring employee and even have some energy left over for your terrific life after work!