When You’re Running on Empty—and Missing Out Because of It

When Getting Through the Day Takes Everything You Have

There is a kind of low energy that starts changing the way you live, often so gradually that you don’t realize how much you’ve adjusted your life around it.

You still get through what you have to do. You work, take care of people, keep the appointments, handle the house, run the errands and somehow manage to stay on top of most of the things that need your attention. From the outside, you may look like you’re functioning just fine.

The problem is what happens after all of that is done.

There isn’t much left.

The things you used to enjoy start requiring more energy than you have available. You think about going out to dinner and decide staying home sounds easier. You want to work in the garden, exercise, take a weekend trip, tackle a project, see your friends or spend time doing something you genuinely enjoy, but when the opportunity comes, you simply don’t have enough left in the tank.

Sometimes even the enthusiasm for those things begins to disappear.

That doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve stopped caring about them. When you’ve been running on empty for long enough, it can be difficult to feel excited about doing something when you already know you don’t have the energy to do it.

It starts determining how much of your own life you get to participate in.

And I don’t think the answer is becoming better at functioning on empty.

I think it’s time to start asking why there isn’t more energy available in the first place.

Energy Has to Come From Somewhere

The body has to produce energy, and there are a surprising number of things that can influence how much of it you have available.

Nutrition is part of that picture, but so are digestion and absorption, blood sugar patterns, sleep and recovery, stress, movement, and the sheer amount of demand being placed on you every day. Sometimes there is something the body needs more of. Sometimes something is getting in the way. And sometimes you have simply been asking far more from the tank than you’ve been putting back into it.

This is why I don’t think the most useful question is, “What can I take for more energy?”

I want to know why there isn’t enough energy available in the first place, and what can be done about it.

That’s exactly what I created The Human Soundcheck Guide to Fatigue & Low Energy to help you explore.

I take you through the different factors that can contribute to low energy, explain what may be happening in plain language, and give you practical ways to begin supporting the areas that may need attention. I’ve also included a companion resource with additional recommendations, because understanding what may be contributing to the problem is only useful if you know what to do with that information.

The goal isn’t to become better at running on empty.

It’s to have something left after the obligations are met. To make plans without calculating how much energy they’ll cost you. To feel interested in the things you used to enjoy and actually have enough in the tank to do them.

To stop organizing your life around how exhausted you are.

If you’re ready to understand what may be behind your low energy—and what you can begin doing about it, The Human Soundcheck Guide to Fatigue & Low Energy is a great place to start.