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Do you feel exhausted all the time? Then this issue of newsletter is for you. It presents some relatively easy, evidence-based ways to recharge your batteries. 

Do you take enough down time? From our cardiovascular and autonomic nervous system to our metabolism and circadian rhythm, each of them has the same pattern of functioning- build up resources, energy, and strength; use them to get something done, and then take some downtime to replenish them and be able to do things again. Our body has various downstate systems and processes for revitalising itself. By tapping into them, we can reap the benefits: more energy, less stress, and better physical and mental health. 

Autonomic nervous system is the part of our nervous system that regulates bodily functions which aren’t under your conscious control, like our heartbeat and digestion. It splits into a few different branches. One of them is your sympathetic nervous system, which regulates many of your body’s upstate processes. The autonomic nervous system floods our body with stress hormones, increasing our heart rate, body temperature, and sweat production. Whether you are getting ready for that big presentation, running from a lion in the wild, or dribbling past those defenders in a game of soccer, the body behaves same.

All of these activities are crucial to your ability to do the things you need to do, to survive and thrive. But it takes a lot of energy for your body to do them, so it can’t keep doing them for too long without exhausting itself. And that’s where the next branch of your autonomic nervous system comes in – the parasympathetic nervous system, which regulates many of your body’s downstate activities. Its job is to tell your body that it can take some time to cool down and recuperate. This system enables your body to restore itself – relaxing our muscles, lowering our heart rate, replenishing our bodily fluids, and performing many other crucial downstate processes. Ideally both the systems should balance each other.

But instead of charging ourselves back, up to full capacity, many of us go through life feeling like smartphones with batteries drained to 10 percent. And that’s because we spend a whole lot of our time in upstate mode, without giving ourselves enough time in downstate mode. This imbalance can have serious impacts on your physical and mental health, including impaired memory and cognition, weakened immune system, premature ageing, emotional volatility, and increased risk of depression, anxiety, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and cancer.

There’s a simple way to get a hold on them, and it’s to do with something called your heart rate variability, or HRV. Your HRV measures the rhythmic pattern of your heart rate. You can either have a high heart rate variability or a low heart rate variability. If your heart beats steadily like a metronome then you have a low HRV; your heart rate isn’t variable. If, on the other hand, your heartbeat is more uneven, with longer and shorter intervals between the beats, then you have a high heart rate variability. When your sympathetic system is putting you under stress, your heartbeat not only gets faster but also becomes more uniform – with less variation in the intervals between the beats. Your HRV, therefore, goes down. In contrast, when your parasympathetic system lets you relax, your heart not only slows down but also becomes more variable – with variations of up to a few hundred milliseconds between the beats, which means your HRV goes up. Unsurprisingly, people with a healthy autonomic balance and a lack of stress tend to have a high HRV, whereas those with autonomic imbalance and chronic stress tend to have a low HRV. 

The first – and you’ve probably heard this a hundred times by now – is to take deep breaths. When you breathe at a rate of about ten seconds per breath, your heart rate and breath rate synchronise in a way that maximises the amount of oxygen that goes to your blood, which boosts your HRV. At least take 5 minutes in the morning and 5 in the evening to breathe this way. Spend these few minutes each day inhaling in for five seconds; then exhaling out for five seconds. Be sure to breathe through your nose – both when you’re practicing deep breathing and in general. Nose breathing is naturally slower than mouth breathing, and it maximizes the amount of oxygen that enters the bloodstream.

Another thing you can do to raise your HRV is to practice inversion yoga poses, like Downward Dog, Legs Up the Wall Pose, and Supported Bridge Pose. These are poses where your head ends up lower than your chest, which makes it easier for your heart to beat and draws additional blood and oxygen to your brain. Try practicing inversion poses for seven minutes, three times per week, in the morning or at night, and gradually increase your sessions to 20 minutes. If you have high blood pressure, just make sure to check with a doctor before performing these poses.

Finally, try spending some time in nature, at least once or twice a week. Simply wander around a natural environment and let your mind and senses soak in the sights, sounds, and smells. Research has shown that all of these activities produce a variety of benefits, including higher HRV, lower blood pressure, less stress, and better sleep.

Get enough Sleep. Get seven or eight hours of sleep. You’ve probably heard that a million times – and it’s true. Slow-wave sleep is your body’s deepest, most restorative downstate. Your body is able to do things like clean out toxins from your brain, synthesise proteins for cell repair, restock glycogen (your skeletal muscles’ main source of energy), consolidate long-term memories, and reset your brain’s neural networks to make them ready to learn new things the next day. The 8th issue of Good Vibes was completely dedicated to Sleep.

In the modern world, we are surrounded by stressful challenges every moment. By doing these simple routines, you will be able to balance your nervous system.