How to have more energy 3 powerful secrets from research

How to have mora energy 3 powerful secrets from researchHow to have more energy 3 powerful secrets from researchThe world might be all go-go-go but that doesnt mean we areWhen Gallup researcher Tom Rath surveyed 10,000 people only 11% said they felt like they had a lot of energy.FromAre You Fully Charged?When we surveyed more than 10,000 people to binnensee how they were doing across these three areas, we found that most people struggle on a daily basis. For example, when we asked them to think about their entire day yesterday, a mere 11 percent reported having a great deal of energy.Luckily, Tom and his team didnt go take a nap. Instead, they pored over studies and talked to experts to get some answers on why renewable energy is a big thing everywhere but inside our bodies.FromAre You Fully Charged?To discover what creates a full charge, my team and I reviewed countless articles and academic studies, and interviewed some of the worlds leading social scientists. We identified and cat alogued more than 2,600 ideas for improving daily experience.They found there were three factors that separated your supercharged days from your low battery ones.Tom summed up their results in his book,Are You Fully Charged? The 3 Keys to Energizing Your Work and Life.Were going to look at some of what he found and learn how to have more energy.Alrighty, lets get to itMeaningEverybody wants happiness - but that little bugger can be quite elusive and fleeting. As Viktor Frankl once said, Happiness cannotlage be pursued it must ensue. One must have a reason to be happy.But if we seek meaning in life, we often get happiness as a bonus. So whats meaning?It comes down to doing stuff that benefits other people.Research shows what makes us happy in the moment is often kindaselfish.And heres where things get a little weirdBecause neuroscience studies demonstrate that while focusing on meaning ends up making us happier, pursuing our own happiness can make us - believe it or not - unhappy. FromAre You Fully Charged?A 2014 study followed a group of teenagers for a full year to see how their brains reacted to self-fulfilling (hedonic) acts versus acts that created meaning (eudaimonic) using fMRI scans and questionnaires. While the participants were in the fMRI scanner, researchers posed scenarios to them about keeping money for themselves versus donating it to their families. The researchers also followed up at the end of the year to review any changes from the teens baseline levels of depressive symptoms. The results revealed that teenagers who had the greatest brain response to meaningful actions had the greatest declines in depressive symptoms over time. In contrast, teens who made more self-fulfilling decisions were more likely to have an increase in risk of depression. Meaningful activity essentially protects the brain from dark thoughts.But happiness feels good, right? Isnt that why they call ithappiness? Well, oddly enough, it doesnt feel good to your body if the res no meaning. The bodies ofpeople who are cheery but lack anything deeper actually show higher levels of inflammation.Happiness without meaning is the physical equivalent of being stressed out.FromAre You Fully Charged?When participants in a study led by the University of North Carolinas Barbara Fredrickson were happy but lacked meaning in their lives (defined as pursuing a purpose bigger than self), they exhibited a stress-related gene pattern that is known to activate an inflammatory response. They had the same gene expression pattern as people dealing with constant adversity have. Over time, this pattern leads to chronic inflammation, which is related to a host of illnesses, like heart disease and cancer. Fredrickson noted, Empty positive emotions are about as good for you as adversity. Unfortunately, 75 percent of participants in Fredricksons study fell into this category their happiness levels outpaced their levels of meaningfulness. In contrast, participants who had meaning in their lives, whether or not they characterized themselves as happy, showed a deactivation in this stress-related gene pattern.And when we feel were making progress in meaningful work were 250% more likely to be engaged at the office.FromAre You Fully Charged?My research suggests that the odds of being completely engaged in your job increase by more than 250 percent if you spend a lot of time doing meaningful work throughout the day. To discover what leads to better work and lives, Harvard Business Schools Teresa Amabile and psychologist Steven Kramer sorted through 12,000 diary entries and 64,000 specific workday events collected from 238 workers across seven different companies. Their conclusion from this research welches Of all the events that engage people at work, the single most important - by far - is simply making progress in meaningful work.Okay, so how do we find this meaning stuff? Well, you dont find it. You create it.Research in the area of job-crafting shows that i f we tweak how we work, we can enjoy a lot more meaning in those hours at the office.What activities give you a feeling of engagement, warmth and pride in what you do? Find a way to spend more of your time doing that stuff and less of the other stuff. Talk to your boss and co-workers to try and shift duties around if you need to.And speaking of co-workers, who makes you feel good versus stressed? How can you spend more time with the former and less time with the latter?Small changes in how you work can make a big difference in how you feel.FromAre You Fully Charged?This research, led by a team at the University of Michigan, found that you can craft existing jobs to significantly improve the meaningfulness of your work. Effective job crafting starts by looking at how much time you dedicate to specific tasks that give you energy each day. It also entails looking at the way your relationships at work and your perception of what you do create meaning for others.I know what some people a re thinking they cant change a thing about what they do or who they work with. No, youre not screwed.The most important factor here is perception - how youfeel. And everyones work benefits someone else. By thinking more about who your work helps and making a little effort to see those results, you can dramatically increase the level of meaning in your life.When university call center employees who were asking alums for donations got to meet the scholarship students who benefited from their work, productivity, enthusiasm and the amount of money coming inwent up dramatically.Were often focused on our well-being above all else. Put a little more effort into your well-doingand your well-being often takes care of itself.(To learn more about the science of a successful life, check out my bestselling bookhere.)Okay, so meaning can help fill your tank. What else do we need?InteractionWhen Tom looked at the research something became quite clear across the board, people greatly underestimate d how much little daily interactions affected how they felt.You may dream about winning Oscars or slaying dragons but those wont be the moments in life that youll look back on most fondly. People consistently said that the most positive times in their lives all had to do with belonging and connecting - not achieving.FromAre You Fully Charged?When researchers ask people to reconstruct the most positive and negative experiences of their lives, they consistently describe social events as their most influential memories over a lifetime. Across a series of four studies, participants recalled the moments when close relationships began or ended, when they fell in love, or when the loss of another partie broke their heart. One of the studys co-authors summarized, In short, it was the moments of connecting to others that touched peoples lives the most. Participants consistently rated events with other people as more influential than solitary experiences. Independent events or individual ach ievements, such as winning awards or completing tasks, did not affect participants the most. Instead, the researchers concluded, social experiences gain their emotional punch from our need to belong.And this is true day-to-day as well. When you have positive interactions with people throughout the day your aussicht of feeling good quadruples.FromAre You Fully Charged?My teams research found that people who reported having great interactions throughout the day were nearly four times as likely to have very high well-being.How can you guarantee that? Make close pals at work.But how do you know if yourereallyfriends with someone at the office?Ask yourself how much you share your partieal problems with each other.FromAre You Fully Charged?Gallups research has shown that people who have best friend-caliber relationships at work are seven times as likely to be engaged in their job. When researchers asked employees how they formed a close workplace friendship, they found that it takes about a year for an acquaintance at work to become a friend. The telltale sign of a friendship between co-workers was the amount of time they spent talking about topics unrelated to work. Then the next phase, a very close friendship at work, was marked by something less intuitive sharing problems from one anothers personal and work lives. This self-disclosure was the central element of the strongest relationships.And how do you improveallof your interactions? Be 80% positive. Make sure 4 out of 5 things you say or do are about the good stuff, not the bad stuff.FromAre You Fully Charged?We need at least three to five positive interactions to outweigh every one negative exchange. Bad moments simply outweigh good ones. Whether youre having a one-on-one conversation with a colleague or a group discussion, keep this simple shortcut in mind At least 80 percent of your conversations should be focused on whats going right. Workplaces, for example, often have this backward. During performance rev iews, managers routinely spend 80 percent of their time on weaknesses, gaps, and areas for improvement.Yeah, I know evaluating and counting interactions isnt very realistic. Fine. Fine. Then just take a second and do your best to make someone smile. Yes, its that simple.FromAre You Fully Charged?according to a recent study from Stanford and Harvard Business School. As part of a series of experiments, one group of participants was assigned a goal of making another person happy, while a second group was told to simply do something that made another person smile. The results showed that small, straightforward actions to make someone smile were far more effective than broad, nebulous attempts to improve overall happiness. The studys authors wrote, Acts with small, concrete goals designed to improve the well-being of others are more likely to lead to happiness for the giver than are acts with large, abstract goals - despite peoples intuitions to the contrary.(To learn the two-word morni ng ritual that will make you happy all day, clickhere.)So your life is meaningful and your life is filled with positive interactions What else? Well, doing things to make sure your life doesnt end prematurely is quite powerful tooHealthEat better. Move more. Sleep longer and deeper. Thats what it takes.We talk a lot about eating too much, but turns out the quality of food is important too. Just because you dont eat too many Pop-Tarts doesnt mean you should be eating Pop-Tarts.FromAre You Fully Charged?A landmark Harvard University study that tracked more than 100,000 people over two decades makes it clear that the quality of what you eat is more important than quantity alone. This study revealed that the types of food you consume influence your health more than your total caloric intake. Consuming 300 calories worth of spinach is not the same as eating a sugar cookie with 300 calories. Yet most people I speak with continue to believe the age-old myth of everything in moderation. As the studys lead author Dariush Mozaffarian put it, the moderation myth is really just an excuse to eat whatever we want.And the type of food you eat also affects your mood. Studies show processed foods with lots of sugar increase laziness. Trans-fats increased aggression.And comfort foods dont comfort you - they can make you depressed.FromAre You Fully Charged?A 2014 study suggests that highly processed foods with added sugar may also contribute to laziness. One experiment on this topic found that people who consumed more trans-fatty acids were more aggressive and irritable as a result. These findings were so pronounced, one of the researchers suggested that places like schools and prisons should reconsider serving unhealthy foods because they might be dangerous for others in these environments. Even comfort foods like baked goods actually have the opposite effect of comfort and are likely to make people more depressed.Most people now spend more hours sitting (9.3 on average) than they do sleeping. The NIH says that even if you did 7 hours a week of exercise that much time on your butt still doubles your aussicht of a heart attack.Get up and move. Right now. Ill still be here when you get back, I promise.FromAre You Fully Charged?A 2014 study estimates that every two hours of sitting cancels out the benefits of 20 minutes of exercise. When researchers from the National Institutes of Health followed more than 200,000 people for a decade, they found that even seven hours of moderate to vigorous physical activity a week was not enough to protect against the hazards of excessive sitting. Even the most active group they studied - people who exercised more than seven hours every week - had a 50 percent greater risk of death and doubled their odds of dying from heart disease if they were also in the group that sat the most throughout the day.When people exercised moderately for 20 minutes they felt better for up to12 hours. So get to the gym early and you can boos t your mood for almost the entire day.FromAre You Fully Charged?When researchers assigned one group of participants in a study to do 20 minutes of a moderate-intensity workout, they found that the participants had a much better mood immediately following the exercise than a control group who did not exercise. What surprised researchers was how long this increase in mood lasted. Those who exercised continued to feel better throughout the day. Even two, four, eight, and twelve hours later, they were in a better mood than the control group.Everybody knows aboutin anderen angelegenheiten Ericssonsresearch that showed it takes (roughly) 10,000 hours to become an expert at something. But thats not all the study showed. The experts also slept. A lot.Yes, I literally just said that spending more time in bed is one of the keys to expertise. Youre welcome.FromAre You Fully Charged?While many concentrated on his findings relevant to 10,000 hours of deliberate practice, the other factor that di fferentiated top performance was sleep. The best performers in these studies slept for 8 hours and 36 minutes per night on average. The average American, in contrast, gets just 6 hours and 51 minutes of sleep on weeknights.But its not merely an issue of sleeping more. You also want to sleepwell. When people cut back on hours of sleep they tripled their likelihood of getting sick. But people who had poor quality sleep more thanquintupledtheir chance of catching a cold.FromAre You Fully Charged?Study participants who had lower sleep efficiency over the 14-day period before exposure to the rhinovirus were 5.5 times as likely to develop a cold. This compares with the threefold increase based solely on duration of sleep. As with other areas of health, quality of sleep beats quantity by a wide margin.(To learn the secret to never being frustrated again, clickhere.)Okay, weve covered a lot. Time to round it all up and learn one more thing you can do to help all of the above boost your ener gy even moreSum UpThis is how to have more energyMeaning Do things that benefit others. (It doesnthaveto be me but I appreciate the thought.)Interaction Be 80% positive. (I am 99% certain of this.)Health Eat better, move more, sleep long and well. (And if I did all those things Id have enough energy to write a funnier joke here.Blogger, heal thyself.)Want to turn the above into habits that stick? Then help someone else start doing them. Supporting others in their goals isnt just awfully neighborly of you it also makes you more likely to achieve them yourself.FromAre You Fully Charged?Research from one of the largest clinical trials in alcohol research found that 40 percent of alcoholics who helped other alcoholics during their recovery were successful and avoided drinking in the year following treatment. In contrast, only 22 percent of those who did not help others were able to stay sober. Helping someone else with a similar problem nearly doubled success rates. A subsequent study f ound that 94 percent of alcoholics who helped other alcoholics experienced lower levels of depression.So being healthy produces energy. And part of that means good sleep. But other than those two, did you notice what everything else has in common?To have more energy, dont do less. Domore. Of the right things.And for you to feel more alive, you shouldnt focus on you. Focus onothers.Rest is only a small part of why you feel energized.Its more about what you do and how those around you make you feel.Join over 320,000 readers.Get a free weekly update via emailhere.Thisarticleoriginally appeared atBarking Up the Wrong Tree.