🎪 Enter the World of Spaces that Restore our Energy

Mind your step as you enter the world of unlimited energy 🪫→🔋

WELCOME TO MIND YOUR STEP - ISSUE 14!

How amazing would it be if we were all born with our own biological battery pack.

So that whenever lethargy started to leech, we’d just plug ourselves into our external energy reserve and feel as good as new.

No more coffee cravings, afternoon naps, or slothful procrastinations. We’d live in a world where our energy was abundant and our couches would become sculptures, as oppose to the mesmerizing magnets they currently are.

Until my transhumanist double-A-powered daydreams come to light, our next best energy source right now is rest.

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At the intersection of psychology and environment design, Mind Your Step is the weekly newsletter to read if you want to learn how to design spaces that influence the way people think.

🫁 Enter the Rest Zone

I think that a lot of us think of rest as a response to spending energy. It's the thing we do after we tire ourselves out.

But I believe that we can benefit from thinking more about how rest can be the thing we do to prepare for spending energy. By preparing the right way, I believe we can increase the amount of energy we have to spend.

One of my favourite swimming pool games as a kid was Ring Diving — where someone would throw a bunch of weighted rings into the deep end of a pool and the kids would race to see who could retrieve the most.

I like to think of energy and rest like that game.

Anywhere above water is our rest zone. Anywhere below water is our energy spending zone.

Two primary behaviours happen in the rest zone during the game:

• recovering mode - when we come up from the water gasping for air and
• refuelling mode - when we take in a deep breath in preparation for descent.

Not to brag (🤴🏽), but I always dominated this game. And it was all because I discovered a refuelling hack — hyperventilation. Somehow I realized that I was able hold my breath longer than everyone else if I took in a lot of quick deep breaths before my final hold.

According to my bootleg inner scientist, by increasing the oxygen content in my blood, my body was less desperate for air compared to everyone else, so I was able to waste a lot less time going back and forth for air. In other words, I was able to win, because I realized that my lungs weren’t the only energy source I could rely on. While everyone else was targeting the oxygen in their lungs, I was targeting the oxygen in my blood.

I’ve come to realize lately that we might be able to apply a similar principle into our lives. By figuring out the types of energy we rely on, we can use rest to better equip ourselves for spending energy efficiently.

⚡ The 7 Types of Energy

When you have a hard day, how do you recover afterward? How about when you have a hard day coming up, how do you prepare?

I was recently inspired by an idea from a Ted Talk about how there are 7 different types of rest we can take advantage of:

• creative,
• emotional,
• mental,
• physical,
• sensory,
• social,
• spiritual.

Whether it be bubble baths, reading, or going out dancing, there are tons of different ways to relax. But, which ones should we use? And when?

What if we should be engaging in specific techniques depending on the type of energy we’ve depleted?

Another interesting concept I discovered from this talk was the idea of passive vs active rest:

The first type of rest we need is physical rest, which can be passive or active. Passive physical rest includes sleeping and napping, while active physical rest means restorative activities such as yoga, stretching and massage therapy that help improve the body’s circulation and flexibility.

Perhaps, just like in Ring Diving, we could benefit from taking some time to reflect on how to best spend time during our active and passive rest sessions for each of the 7 types of energy.

Here’s what that looks like for me 👇

What would it look like for you?

https://twitter.com/LamarElimbo/status/1664046552686506010?s=20

I like to think there are 2 types of rest:

Wind Down Rest

A response to spending energy. It's what we do after we tire ourselves out.

Wind Up Rest

What we do to prepare for spending energy. It’s how we boost the energy we have to spend.

1 helps us recover, 1 helps us refuel.

Pair those 2 types of rest with all of the different categories of energy (creative, emotional, mental, physical, sensory, social, and spiritual) and we get a matrix of intention-driven rest tactics we can take advantage of!

Here's mine 👇

Different Spaces Energize us in Unique Ways

I think it’s really interesting how different spaces have the ability to affect our energy.

Walking through a botanical garden affects our energy on a whole ’nother dimension than walking into a stadium with a choir of cheering fans.

For me, I might choose to immerse myself in a botanical garden if I wanted to help my spiritual energy source recover from a taxing experience. And I might choose to immerse myself in the sounds of a sports arena if I wanted to excite my physical energy source.

Different spaces serve as battery packs for our different energy sources. For now these are my battery packed places 👇 Where would yours be?

https://twitter.com/LamarElimbo/status/1664110092273188864?s=20

Different spaces act as battery packs for our different energy sources.

Walking through a botanical garden affects our energy on a whole ’nother dimension than walking into a stadium with a choir of cheering fans.

Each fuels a different energy source.

For me, botanical garden would help my spiritual energy source wind down after a taxing experience 😌

And the sounds of a sports arena would help wind up and excite my physical energy source ⚡️

ENJOYED THIS ISSUE?

A little birdie told me that people who click the ❤️ button are the swans in a world full of ugly ducklings 🦢 Have I mentioned that you’re looking great today?

https://twitter.com/LamarElimbo/status/1665435754883956737?s=20

In this week’s Mind Your Step issue I entered the World of Spaces that Restore our Energy

🎪 Enter the World of Battery Powered Places: Spaces that Restore our Energy

Mind your step as you enter the world of unlimited energy 🪫→🔋

lamarelimbo.substack.com