DO YOU lack the energy to do anything productive after work? When you work a 9 to 5 job like most people, chances are that you don’t have enough energy (and time) to complete basic life tasks, such as doing your laundry or cooking supper.
Work can leave you feeling helpless and frustrated; When you’re falling behind in your personal life, you might ask yourself, “Why can’t I have energy like everybody else?” or tell yourself that “There’s something wrong with me.”
If you would like to have more energy when the work day is over, then you’re in the right place. This article outlines the most common causes of evening fatigue and shows how you can boost your energy levels in the later hours of the day.
Want to Have More Energy After Work? Try Pinpointing the Root Cause
Does your typical day look something like this?
You wake up, use the washroom, get dressed, and leave the house with barely enough time to drink your coffee, eat breakfast, and say goodbye to your kids.
On your way to work, you can’t help but think of all the tasks you need to get done both at home and at work: sending emails, calling co-workers, buying groceries—you name it. You’re ready to be productive.
Once you’re at your workplace, things get hectic. You’re drawing from your energy resources all day with barely enough time for a lunch break to recharge. Before you know it, the work day is over and your energy levels are depleted.
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A lifestyle like this leaves you with few resources for anything else, and if sustained for a long time, can cause chronic fatigue. Prolonged feelings of tiredness and fatigue can take their toll on your health. For example, you might ..
- Develop unhealthy stress levels
- Feel negative physical symptoms and get sick
- Have an elevated heart rate throughout the day
- Experience mental exhaustion
While these symptoms can be overcome in the short term, they become problematic if they happen too often and for too long. So, how can you turn this situation around? Thankfully, there are some simple lifestyle changes that could make a difference in your life.
1. Get Regular Exercise
How many times per week do you exercise? Do you consider yourself to be inactive, moderately active, or highly active?
Exercise is an important piece of the energy equation. An energetic person exercises a lot. You can’t perform at your best if you’re inactive or are exercising too much; You must strike the right balance to reap its benefits.
2. Get a Restful Sleep, Every Single Night
A sleep debt will leave you feeling exhausted. This doesn’t come as a surprise to many, but what a lot of people don’t understand is that your sleep quality and sleep schedule have a significant impact on your overall well-being.
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For example, too much caffeine and blue light (i.e., light emitted from your mobile device or computer screen) before bed will mess with your sleep schedule and might lead to a lack of sleep.
3. Drink Lots of Water
Drinking enough water is key to feeling good. Always carry a water bottle with you and aim to drink at least 3 litres of water every day. If you work a desk job, keep a glass of water on your desk and drink from it every 20 minutes.
4. Eat a Clean Diet
A clean diet will give you much energy. This means staying away from sugary snacks and eating a large variety of foods to prevent any nutritional deficiencies. An overly large meal will also leave you feeling tired, especially if consumed at lunch in the early afternoon.
How Else Can You Have More Energy After Work?
If you already get regular exercise, sufficient sleep, drink lots of water, and eat a clean diet, and are not seeing a difference in your energy levels, then you might need to consider some other options:
5. Speak to Your Work About It
If you have a good relationship with your supervisor, it is a good idea to speak to them about your situation. Don’t be afraid to be honest with them.
You can tell them that you enjoy doing your job, but that it has been leaving you so exhausted that you can’t bring little household tasks to completion. Let them know that you’re always falling behind in your personal life and need to change your work schedule.
Be aware of the outcome you want to achieve before you go into the conversation. You might want to …
- Work one day less per week
- End the work day a couple hours earlier
- Start later in the day
Given that you’ve been a hard-working employee and that your colleagues can take some work off your plate, your request should be accepted. If your manager isn’t understanding of your situation though, you might want to …
6. Save Some of Your Energy While at Work
Your energy levels are analogous to a bathtub with the water being your energy. Water enters one way and exits the others, usually through the faucet and drain.
Energy works the same way; Levels get depleted by physical and mental exertion and are restored through sleep, a healthy diet, and regular exercise.
One way to keep the bathtub from draining is by changing the rate at which the water exits. Put differently, if you want to have more energy at the end of the day, you must save some of your energy while at work. You can do this by …
- Delegating some of your tasks to colleagues
- Taking a longer lunch break
- Working slower
You might still have low energy levels at the end of the day, but when you keep some water in your bathtub, you’ll be able to tackle some personal tasks when the work day is over. If this is not an option, you might have to …
7. Say Bye to Your Current Job and Get a New One
If your current job is leaving you with little time for yourself, so much that it’s taking its toll on your mental health, you should consider leaving your job. This is an option if your work is not willing to accommodate your schedule or you see no other way out.
A recent survey of over 1,800 employees identified that the lack of work-life balance is one of the leading reasons that people quit. Amongst other reasons were…
- Insufficient pay or unfair pay practices
- Lack of honestly, integrity, or ethics
- Lack of trust in senior leaders
- Unhealthy or undesirable culture
It’s not selfish to stand up for yourself. Only you know what’s best for you. Take it from Chuck Palahniuk, “This is your life and it’s ending one moment at a time.” Do you want to spend it in misery or do you want to live fully and pursue your dreams?