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4 Ways Entrepreneurs Can Overcome Exhaustion It's hard to make progress when we're exhausted.

By R.L. Adams

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Whether you're a budding future entrepreneur, or you're deeply embedded in the fray, you likely know just how easy it is to get overworked. With so much demanding our time and attention, it's easy to get exhausted. It's easy to allow the million-item to-do list to overwhelm you. Couple that with the existing demand from consumers that's constantly diverting our attention, and the question that beckons us is, how do we actually overcome exhaustion when it hits?

If you're anything like me, then you've probably experienced a bit of overzealous enthusiasm in the past. As an entrepreneur, I dive deep into certain projects, not really ascertaining at the outset just how much of me it will demand. But once you're knee-deep in that project, it's hard to extricate yourself from the often-frantic situation. As entrepreneurs, we're naturally inclined to get excited about projects until we realize how much of an energy drain they can become.

However, there are ways to both avoid and overcome exhaustion. There are certain methods for mitigating some of the pressures and pain points as you stride to achieve success in your efforts. However, before trying to tackle exhaustion after it occurs, it's important to understand the sources of exhaustion itself. What are the things that add most to our inherent tendencies to get so tired?

While there are plenty of sources of exhaustion, overall, there some that resonate the most. If you find yourself too engulfed in any of the following, it might be high-time for a change in your personal habits. Without tackling these first, you'll find it hard to overcome exhaustion by any means. And if you tend to be exhausted all the time, you can't expect to expertly tackle the demands of a business or deal with the needs of your customers. Your business will ultimately suffer and fail in that case.

Related: Stressed and Exhausted? More Than Half of Founders Say They Never 'Switch Off.'

The biggest sources of exhaustion

If you've found yourself tired lately, then it's likely due to a combination of causes. Here are some of the biggest sources of exhaustion that entrepreneurs experience.

Overwork: As much as we might want to work around-the-clock, overworking is the leading cause of exhaustion. And most managers can't differentiate employees who work 80 hours per week between those that pretended to do so. Don't let your overall mental, physical and emotional health suffer because you're working long, unending hours.

Too much caffeine: As a coffee lover, I likely consume far too much caffeine. But drinking too much can fry the nerves and overstimulate the mind. How much is too much? According to the Mayo Clinic, four cups of brewed coffee or two "energy" shots is a safe level. However, you should try to stay well below that amount if possible.

Too much sugar: While sugar might give you a temporary high, the crash you suffer is fierce. These highs and lows in sugar levels can have lasting impacts on your ability to stay focused. It can also create physical ailments such as adult-on-set diabetes and other forms of illness. How much is too much? The WHO recommends no more than 10 percent of the daily caloric intake.

Stress at home or in relationships: Stress is one of the leading causes of exhaustion. It can also lead to heart attacks. When there's an increased level of stress at home or in your personal relationships, it's easy to feel exhausted. Tackling those problems, however you approach them, should become a priority.

Not optimizing your environment: Exhaustion can be derived by having a very unhealthy environment. If there's high levels of disorder and chaos in your environment, or you're living in squalor or are simply disorganized and indulging in too many bad habits, you're going to feel more tired than usual. Take the time to purge your environment to help support you rather than hinder you.

Related: Boost Productivity by Optimizing Your Work Environment

Not getting enough sleep: Sleep is crucial. As business owners, employees, or even as students, we often don't get enough sleep. The optimal amount? 8 hours. Sure, you could exist on less. But only three to 5 percent of the population can properly function on five or six hours of sleep.

Excessive alcohol, nicotine or prescription drugs: If you're drinking too much, smoking too much, or you're taking too many prescription (or recreational) drugs, you'll experience exhaustion. It's also harder to bounce back when you're enthralled in substance abuse. Find ways to get clean so you can have laser focus and avoid feeling the anxiety that's created as a result of being too engaged in physically unhealthy substance abuse.

How to overcome exhaustion

It's hard to make progress when we're exhausted. Overcoming that takes some work. While you can set out to eliminate some of the underlying causes of exhaustion, actually tackling it in the moment takes some sincere effort. As much as we might try to overcome our environments and the things we do on a daily basis, we're still creatures of habit. So we have to be conscious and aware of our actions.

But if you want to make progress in your business, taking these strides is a must. Not a should. It doesn't take much. Just some awareness of your actions and constant repetition of good behaviors that will promote your ability to stay laser-focused and not feel so burnt out. Because of that, your business will improve or your employer will simply thank you for the increased efficiency and attention to detail.

In addition, according to Harry Massey, inventor, Bioenergetics pioneer and founder of NES Health, there are ways you can overcome exhaustion and even deal with things like chronic fatigue syndrome by doing five simple things. Massey, the creator of a breakthrough bioenergetics scan and energy restoration system, has developed a technology that's relied upon by over 4,500 practitioners around the world helping entrepreneurs improve their overall health and wellness.

Clearly, when you're exhausted, it's hard to take care of the finer details. It's easy to let things slip through the cracks. Customer complaints can fall to the wayside. Orders might not get properly fulfilled. And even far more important issues could help to potentially derail the business, all because you felt too overworked or stressed out, causing you to pay less attention to detail. Don't allow that to happen. Here are four ways you can avoid that from occurring.

Related: How to Avoid Entrepreneur Overload

1. Optimize circadian rhythms through proper sleep cycles.

One easy way to overcome exhaustion is to get more sleep. But to do that, you need to enhance your overall health. Sure, you can simply will yourself into sleeping more, but if you're not enjoying a restful night's sleep, there's often an underlying cause. Stress is one such cause. But there are definitely others like drinking coffee too close to bedtime or smoking cigarettes and taking prescription drugs.

If you can keep your body clean, your mind will be clean. Thus, you'll sleep more. If you feel tired and exhausted all the time, then you need to get more sleep. Plain and simple. Go for eight hours if you can muster it up. Get to bed earlier and work on your sleeping patterns. Don't allow stress or your problems to get in the way of your ability to enjoy a true restful night's sleep.

Your circadian rhythm, also known as your wake-sleep cycle, is highly affected by stimulants. But it's also affected by your environment. What does your environment look like? Does it empower you? Or does it hold you back? Only you have the answer to that question. If you really need to, consider natural sleep aids like melatonin to get yourself back on track. You'll feel much better overall when you have ample sleep.

Related: Sleep In and Make Millions: Why You Don't Need to Wake Up at 5 A.M.

2. Movement

Most people don't walk enough, let alone engage in vigorous physical exercise. But exercise, and even walking 10,000 steps a day, is integral to your well being. However, most Americans can't muster 10,000 steps in a single day. Considering that it takes roughly 2,000 steps to walk a mile, 10,000 steps would be the equivalent of five miles. Americans average approximately just over half that amount at 5,900 steps per day.

In fact, some get far less than that. But in other countries, like Australia, people get nearly 10,000 steps per day. The lack of physical movement is part of our culture. We take our cars everywhere. We park as close as possible to the office or the mall or the grocery store. We don't walk if we can avoid it. But that results in a decrease in health. If you're struggling with low energy, one of the answers is to simply get moving more.

When you walk or get a rigorous workout in, you release the happy hormones like serotonin and dopamine. And, according to the CDC, exercise does far more than that. There are a wide array of benefits from increased physical movement such as:

  • Weight control
  • Reduction of risk in cardiovascular disease
  • Reduction of risk of Type II Diabetes
  • Reduction of risk of some cancers
  • Bone and muscle strengthening
  • Improvement of mental and emotional health
  • Increase in longevity of life

Related: 7 Reasons Every Entrepreneur Should Start the Day With Exercise

3. Grounding your feet

Earth grounding is a popular practice in alternative medicine circles. It's been thought to help us return to a grounded and neutral state by making direct contact with the earth. We're talking no shoes or socks here. As odd as it might sound at first, the practice works. There are negative ions in the earth that rush into the body to battle all the positive ions and negative charges that we pick up during the course of our lives.

The truth is that modern technology has a way of throwing us off in life. The very technology that we rely on every single day, the same ones that we believe improve our lives, actually help to create a very negatively charged ion field. Considering that we're all just balls of energy at the end of the day, the vibrational energy field is crucial to your overall wellness.

By grounding, not only can you overcome exhaustion, but you can also decrease your stress, anxiety and even tendencies for depression. This could also result in fewer headaches or migraines, better sleep, reduction of inflammations, slowing down the aging process, improving your mental clarity, decreasing the tension in your muscles, boosting your immune system, and so much more.

Related: 4 Key Lessons From My Time With Deepak Chopra

4. Bioenergetics Scan

Massey's pioneered breakthrough of a bioenergetics scan can help you detect and correct your energy field. In fact, bioenergetics is the study of energy in living systems. Since we are all just bundles of energy, tackling an area like exhaustion, or even going beyond normal energy fields is necessary for high performance. Considering that matter is simply an arrangement of energy, understanding and assessing things on an energy-level is crucial.

For that reason, having a bioenergetics scan done can help build awareness to how your body is exchanging its energy within your particular environment. Energy is exchanged in everything that we do. When we eat or defecate, we exchange energy. Breathing and moving exchanged energy within our bodies and between our environments. So do light patterns through electronics and the earth's magnetism as well.

Considering that we are energy and that energy is being exchanged at every moment of every single day, assessing your present state of energy, and creating a plan to effectively tackle it, is crucial to improving your health. When we look at how metabolism functions, how carbohydrates provide energy to our bodies through the break down of simpler molecules through ATP, you'll understand that even the nutrients contained in the food we eat exchange energy with our bodies.

By conducting a scan, you can get to the root cause of energy blockages. This can also help you to rejuvenate any energy blockages that might exist. That's crucial to the underlying root causes of why we feel so overwhelmed, stress or exhausted all the time.

R.L. Adams

Entrepreneur, software engineer, author, blogger and founder of WanderlustWorker.com

Robert Adams is a writer, blogger, serial entrepreneur, software engineer and best-selling author of dozens of technology, SEO, online marketing and self-development books, audiobooks and courses.

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