Oct 19 2003
Mira Kirshenbaum is author of a wonderful book, The Emotional Energy Factor: The Secrets High-Energy People Use to Beat Emotional Fatigue. I think this book should be required reading for anyone with a thyroid condition, or any chronic health condition that causes fatigue. It's truly a wise, common-sense, and very insightful look at the connection between our minds and our energy, and how it all relates to health. I had an opportunity to interview Mira Kirshenbaum, and am pleased to bring you some of her thoughts here.Mary: Can you define what you mean by "emotional energy?"
Mira: A person's total energy is how ready, willing, and able she is to LIVE -- to take on challenges, to fight for what's important to her, to work to make her dreams come true, to care for loved ones, to build a better future, to enjoy life to the fullest in the present. Only 30% of the energy required for this is physical. That is, only 30% of the energy necessary for this comes from physical sources like rest, diet, exercise, and health. New research shows that 70% of total energy comes from nonphysical sources, what I call emotional energy. You have emotional energy when you feel UP for your life -- hopeful, positive, engaged, charitable, caring, patient, focused, loving.
Mary: When did you personally realize that there was "emotional energy" and that it differed from physical energy?
Mira: There were two times in my life when I was personally struck by the importance of emotional energy. The first was when I was a kid. I grew up among mostly poor people, mostly immigrants. We all had it tough. Some of us struggled emotionally. Some of us were able to do what had to be done, but it was with the grim, tense manner of someone clearly running on empty. But there were a few people like my Uncle Morris who lived the same lives everyone else did and yet managed to go through their lives filled with emotional energy. So they always had plenty to give, and they were always up for themselves, their lives, and the people around them. I now know, based on my research, that their high emotional energy doesn't come from luck or good genes. It comes from specific things they do to prevent emotional energy from leaking out and to give themselves more emotional energy. The second time I was personally struck by the importance of emotional energy was when I was going through the worst of my struggle with hypothyroidism. At that point I didn't know that I even had the disease. What I do know is that in that period I was collecting data on all the different things people do to increase their emotional energy. Just learning about this must have given me enormous emotional energy, because it was in this period that I got a phone call from my doctor at around midnight one day telling me that the lab had just called her with a red alert because my TSH levels were 57, which was as high as she'd ever seen. She was surprised that I wasn't in a coma. And yet I was chugging along finding out the secrets of high-energy people. And this demonstrated a fact that I've now seen demonstrated over and over again: that because total energy is 70% emotional energy, when physical energy is very low, you can still have plenty of energy to do what you want to do if you have enough emotional energy.
Mary: Do you think women are particularly susceptible to losing their emotional energy?
Mira: Women are definitely susceptible to losing their emotional energy. It's interesting though -- women's emotional energy is at risk not because we're weak but because we're strong. We take on so many responsibilities and we shoulder so many burdens and we care for so many people that women today are virtually emotional triathletes. The only way women can thrive is if we work as hard at giving ourselves new emotional energy as we work at spending our precious emotional energy.
Mary: There are many excellent ideas featured in the book that are very workable for most people. But do you have any specific advice for those people -- like thyroid, chronic fatigue, cancer, or other patients -- who have chronic health conditions that already deplete their physical energy so thoroughly?
Mira: There are 25 emotional energy boosters in The Emotional Energy Factor. Here are four specific ways to up your energy when you have a chronic health condition: 1. Concentrate on the things you can do--don't think about how your life is limited, think about how your life has changed and focus on new opportunities. Ask yourself: What if your chronic condition were a secret gift enabling you to take advantage of these opportunities? Force yourself to come up with answers to this question.
