%% ID: 13204983 Updated: 2022-01-28 %% ![](https://readwise-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/static/images/article4.6bc1851654a0.png) # About Title: [[Other/Obsidian Starter Vault(Second Brain)/Readwise/Articles/Energy, and How to Get It]] Author: [[newyorker.com]] Category: #articles Number of Highlights: ==30== Last Highlighted: *2021-11-10* Readwise URL: https://readwise.io/bookreview/13204983 Source URL: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/11/08/energy-and-how-to-get-it # Highlights I’d get inexplicably tired in the afternoon, as though vital organs and muscles had turned to Styrofoam ^278320588 --- Nuke a cup of cold coffee, take a walk around the block: the standard tactics usually did the trick ^278320589 --- one advantage, or disadvantage, of working from home is the proximity of a bed ^278320590 --- All of us, except for the superheroes and the ultra-sloths, know people who have more energy than we do, and plenty who have less ^278320591 --- Energy is both biochemical and psychophysical, vaguely delineated, widely misunderstood, elusive as grac ^278320592 --- You know it when you got it, and even more when you don’t ^278320593 --- This has led to a quest for greater ‘energy.’ ‘How can I do more? Doctor, what can you give me?’ ” ^278320594 --- What we commonly call energy is actually our perception of the body metabolizing carbohydrates or fat as energy. ^278320595 --- Energy isn’t energy. It’s our experience of burning energy, converting it to work. It’s a metabolic mood. ^278320596 --- It is not the perception of stimulation. It is just the capacity to generate work ^278320597 --- Our cardiovascular system, that fantastic and vulnerable machine, is essentially a delivery system for the oxygen they require ^278320598 --- The main distinguishing characteristic between a cadaver and a living, thinking, feeling individual is the flow of energy through the body,” he said. “The cells are the same, but without the energy flow it’s just an inert blob. ^278320599 --- The organs and cells can’t communicate without energy. Cells talk to each other. The mitochondria, which used to be bacteria, talk to the gut microbiome ^278320600 --- Energy for cells is like emotions for a human. It causes them to make decisions that may not seem rational.” ^278320601 --- Cells age faster if you expose them to stress. They burn energy faster. It’s as though cellular anxiety causes cells to breathe faster. They consume more oxygen. They’re wasting energy, and we don’t know why.” ^278320602 --- to mitochondrial tests for seven days. The study suggested that mood has a direct effect on mitochondrial health. Chin up! ^278320603 --- In some circumstances, good energy may just be a matter of radiance, of good skin, teeth, hair, posture, which are in many respects themselves functions of robust health ^278320604 --- Or it may comprise kindness, attentiveness, optimism, humor—the ability to make other people feel good about themselves. There may be intangibles at play. Pheromones, assurance, electromagnetics, pixies. ^278320605 --- Self-improvement can grate; data tracking can infringe. But maybe I needed a shove, and I was curious to see some numbers behind the brownout afternoons. ^278320606 --- The Oura motivated me to get out and move—steps, miles, calories. I took long, aimless walks that I imagined would add weeks to my life, like injury time in a soccer match. ^278320607 --- The lure of better numbers, more carrot than stick, was energizing in itself, even if the ring’s criteria seemed kind of arbitrary, maybe overgenerous. The instrument is blunt, but it will cut. ^278320608 --- sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic one. The former fires the fight-or-flight impulse; it activates when you experience stress, or excitement, or overindulgence. The latter is the restorative impulse: “rest and digest,” “ ^278320609 --- You can only manage what you measure,” Will ^278320610 --- The idea that you can train, will, or even medicate yourself into a permanent state of pep, charisma, and accomplishment lends an atmosphere of piety to the energy-assessment dance. ^278320611 --- Energy is a real thing, and your perception of your energy can affect your levels,” ^278320612 --- night. “I have never met someone who gets that much who isn’t leading a great life,” h ^278320613 --- Glucose variability can correlate with a variability in your subjective experience of mood, ^278320614 --- “We like to think we have conscious control over our behavior, but the more we learn, the more we know that that’s not entirely true,” Kevin Hall, who runs a clinical-nutrition lab at the National Institutes of Health, in Bethesda, told me. “We’re less in control than we’d like.” ^278320615 --- body seems to adjust to higher burn rate by becoming more efficient, especially with exercise. ^278320616 --- This energy is in large part physiological, too. There’s a genetic component, and a biological underpinning for cellular health that reflects in tissue health.” ^278320617