Proactive Recovery – The Key to Your Performance and Productivity
In today’s day and age of hypergrowth, there is a hidden challenge that is distracting and holding us back as entrepreneurs, small business owners, service professionals, and executives; most of whom are also working parents. It’s constant tiredness, which turns into daily, end-of-day exhaustion and ultimately fatigue, which for some can becomes chronic…
For many of us, we have so much going on at times it feels like we are barely hanging on. Even for those of us who have optimal levels of support, and “eat healthily and exercise,” excessive levels of stress are taking their toll on our energy, health, and performance.
43 percent of Americans admit they’re too tired to function at work. The National Safety Council in 2017 conducted a survey that found 97 percent of respondents report at least one risk factor for fatigue. These factors include working at night or early in the morning, working long stints without regular work breaks, working more than 50 hours each week. Seventy-six percent of workers say they feel tired at work, 53 percent feel less productive, and 44 percent have trouble focusing; and this trend has no end in sight.
And here’s the insight that you discover from these findings; they are all caused, as Tal Ben Shahar states, “not by working too hard, but by not recovering enough,” resulting in depleted human energy. It’s not the lack of calories (we have plenty of those, albeit not always the best quality) but the lack of proactive recovery, and that vital energy, is electrical in nature.
The body has the properties of a battery, and this electrical energy drives every function in our body and brain, including the digestion of food. It is the basis of our health and performance. Performance is then a “lifestyle,” that at its most basic level, manages that energy for sustained productivity.
So, when we businesspeople do “performance reviews” we should really be calling them “productivity reviews” because they are not really about human performance. A Performance review would start with helping their employees cultivate and harness more energy and develop lifestyles that support the level of productivity the company’s team members need to succeed.
So, what does it mean to cultivate and harness more energy and how do you develop a lifestyle that supports your performance and gives you the power for productivity?
Traditionally, this is called “recovery.” It’s not recovery from drugs or alcohol as many people know the term, though people are pretty prone to drugs (food, alcohol or pill) to medicate themselves if they don’t get enough of the energy recovery that we’re talking about.
It’s even deeper than the recovery that most athletes get from the excessive stress of training. Kobe Bryant new a thing or two about that and it’s why he performed like a champ. Businesspeople though, like athletes, need an even deeper form of recovery from excessive stress of the bewildering amount of work they perform on a daily basis and they need to be proactive about it in the same ways as a sports athlete. It does not matter if you are into sports or even a fitness enthusiast.
It’s an even bigger term and inclusive of proactive recovery that really answers the energy cultivation and harnessing question; it’s called “regeneration.”
You see, every day, we “generate” (stimulate) energy to be productive, but spend very little time regenerating by directly exposing the body to the sources of energy– free electroncs (through grounding) light, pure oxygen and water, cold and heat, that enable us to futher recharge and repair the body during sleep, rest, proactive recovery, relaxation, and meditation; and therefore, few of us ever really feel rejuvenated.
Instead, we feel a malaise that requires constant coffee and activity to keep going, but that tires us out, burns us out and wears us out.
Businesspeople love to talk about filling their energy “tanks,” but don’t realize that analogous to “fueling” the body, not recharging. The body is a battery before it’s a fuel tank and most of us miss this vital insight, and we, therefore, struggle because we don’t have the “amps” to power our body/brain in the am and through the day.
Of course, that is THE performance and productivity killer. It doesn’t matter how well you organize your inbox or manage your time; if you don’t regenerate and manage your energy, “like a pro,” especially in the performance culture we live in where we have access to more information and opportunity than at any other time in history, you will be tired all the time.
The busier you get the less time you have to take care of yourself, your body and your life and that insight reveals the key to your team’s performance and productivity—proactive recovery.
If you help your team proactively recover from the stress and strain of work, they will be able to function, perform and be productive at levels your company has likely not seen in a long time.
Does this happen by just telling your team to “get more sleep,” or “build healthier habits?” Not really. Because sleep alone is not enough, and healthy habits often fall short when taken out of the human performance context; they fade away with increasing tiredness.
People typically live better, when it means the difference between success and sustainability or hitting the wall and coming up short of their goals, their ability to survive or thrive.
As the founder of RegenUs Center in Florham Park NJ, by Performance Lifestyle Inc, I can help you and your team, crush it, without getting crushed by excess stress and fatigue, implement a local recovery program as part of what’s called a “Performance Lifestyle” where you optimize every aspect of the way you live to any level you choose so that your energy, health, and performance surge.
