The Stimulant Delusion

When it comes to managing energy and beating fatigue, there is subtle confusion that underlies our understanding of where we stand energetically.  We call this, the Stimulant Delusion and truly most people are delusional, including most professionals when it comes to helping you genuinely increasing your energy.

Whole billion dollar industries operate on this delusion and most of us fall for it, even when we know what’s going on. So don’t feel bad.

The delusion is this:

You feel energetic when you are spending vital energy, You will feel tired when you are recuperating vital energy

The Stimulant Delusion is naturally confusing. It will continue to confuse you and your actions until you fully understand how pervasively this principle is at play in your life and learn how to avoid its negative effects. It will take some time because it is not intuitive.

Get excited, or scream at the top of your lungs, or get yourself really worked up, or have a powerful conversation, do anything where you’re spending energy in a significant way. How long can you sustain doing this?  How do you feel afterward? No matter how incredible the stimulating event, you’ll eventually feel run down which proves the point that you only experience energy when you’re spending it and you feel tired when the process of recuperation has kicked in.

If you eat or drink something and you feel energetic, one would think what you ate or drank gave you the energy.  You will experience an immediate sense of energy from food only when nutrient reserves have sunk very low, but that is usually the exception not the rule for most people. When you eat to stimulate your way through the day, especially if you are eating super stimulating food, you are essentially exhausting yourself more.

Super stimulating food is food that is foreign to the human system, that is toxic or artificial or concentrated in calories that requires the body to go to work in a significant way to break it down. The body puts forth vital action to process the substance. Unfortunately many guru’s think this increased metabolic activity is healthy, it’s not.  If your vitals are low, despite short-term stimulation from food of any quality, you will soon resume your fatigued state.

The same is true of exercise. Actually, any form of excitement, spiritual, intellectual, social, or emotional, stimulates your vital energy and will make you feel good. Exercise does the same, but if you exercise without recuperation and eating nutrient-rich food, any form of stimulation, after you feel good, you will have the opposite downward trending effect of what you’re seeking and promotes further lethargy. This is why recuperating your energy, as your highest priority is so important. Foods that are rich in nutrients won’t give you energy immediately. For instance, when is the last time you ate a vegetable and then said “wow, I feel so energized!”

The bottom line of this big story, which you have been merely introduced to here, is that you can’t live an energy depleting lifestyle while stimulating your way through the day eating (even if you do eat Nutrient Rich food) and exercising, and expect better results that are sustainable.  You can do whatever you want, but it’s not sustainable.

Master this principle and you will be well on your way to beating fatigue.

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