2024.1.16 | #45

Happy Reality Day! Here is your weekly dose of reality to help you live 1% happier↓

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Reality: Tired? This Might Be The Reason

I have something to confess.

I have been feeling down for the past month and my productivity has been very low. Every day I feel:

• I have no energy and no interest in anything. Whether it is work or entertainment like watching TV series, I just don’t want to do any. I just want to lie in bed and sleep.
• I started to feel this undefined anxiety.
• Easily irritable
• Start thinking too much and worrying about stuff
• I started to be hesitant, even took more time to decide what for lunch than before.
• More negative thoughts: Unhappy memories poped out more, worrying about bad things that may happen next
• Appetite went down

In one word: low energy.

Then I had an idea: Is it possible that low energy is not a result but the cause of these problems?

Because when my energy level is high, like just waking up, I feel:

• There are several things I want to do, and I am very excited and want to complete them all in one day.
• Everything is interesting
• Less random thoughts, more in the present

All these problems may be symptoms caused by the “energy level”.

So why are my energy levels getting lower? I have not felt like this for more than 4 years. Why did it suddenly start to appear in the past month? So I analyzed the possible causes:

• Depression: Impossible. This happened a long time ago, and I haven’t encountered any setbacks in my life recently.
• Pressure: Impossible. My current life is not that stressful, not for the past year. It is impossible that pressure suddenly increases in the past month.
• Eating: Impossible. My meals are nutritious and I eat a lot.
• Sleep: Impossible, I have been sleeping well for the past 2 years.

That leaves only one thing: exercise.

In the past few years, especially the past year, I have spent most of my time sitting, working on the computer, and I haven’t walked much, let alone done any exercise. So it may be that I haven’t exercised for a long time over a few years, and it has accumulated and bursted.

So I did some in-depth research on the “effects of inactivity on the body” to verify my thoughts. Damn, the results are shocking, long-term inactivity will kill people in all aspects:

• Easier to get depression and anxiety. Because less happy hormones are produced in the brain
• Stress levels go up. Not only your happy hormones go down, but the stress hormone cortisol go up
• The brain begins to focus more on negative thoughts and emotions
• Lowered self-esteem
• The probability of heart disease increases. Fat accumulation in blood vessels greatly increases the risk of heart disease and stroke
• The probability of cancer increases. Especially colon and breast cancer
• The bones become brittle and easy to fracture (You won’t believe it but I was carried on someone’s back this year, and one of my ribs was fractured)
• Knees and shoulders may hurt (No wonder my knees have been hurting for no reason recently)
• Easier to burnout
• Might drop dead early ⊙＿⊙

OK, that’s enough, just go exercise, live goes first, everything else comes later.

So I walked for an hour and jogged for 20 minutes the day before yesterday. Yesterday I walked for half an hour and did 15 minutes of exercise using an app.

Today I already feel completely different. I didn’t feel tired all morning, and I felt full of energy as I had many things I wanted to accomplish. If I continue to exercise like this every day, my condition will get better and better.

If you have a similar problem of low energy and not wanting to do anything, this may help you.

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Until next week,

Ted Wild

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