Jasmin Lee Cori, M.S. - Author, Mind, Body & Spirit

We all know the sense of being low-energy, and sometimes this leads to a dangerous place where we are low energy all or most of the time. Rather than having a full bucket of naturally produced energy, we seem to have a hole in our bucket, and the body turns on adrenaline to try to make up for it. This kind of energy leaves you “wired and tired.” When running on adrenaline you feel sped up, hyper-alert, and anxious. It’s hard to sleep and you never have that relaxed, well-rested feeling.

Some of our ancient healing modalities caution us to not let our energy reserves dip that low. It is like always having some gas in your tank. It doesn’t mean you don’t spend energy, but only the top half of your tank. Sometimes there are extreme demands that must be met, but whenever possible it is a good rule to not lose sight of whether you have the energy needed to live as you are living or changes need to be made.

Cultivating Well-being

There can be complex reasons we get a hole in our bucket that require highly skilled medical attention, but my focus here is living in such a way we keep our energy from falling to dangerous levels.

A key resource that supports healthy energy levels is well-being. Our body and mind are giving us feedback all the time, but we need to be paying attention. The state of well-being is characterized by both moments of calm, satisfaction, peace, and a quiet kind of happiness and by times the energy becomes excited, enthusiastic, enlivened. Well-being involves a range of experiences, all of which leaving you feeling good and feeling alive. It is both the result of living a life that is nourishing and serves as a high-quality fuel (as opposed to adrenaline) that makes it easy to continue.

You can think of well-being as your north star. If you let it fall off your radar, you may suddenly wake up in one of those hard-to-resolve states of low-energy. So pay attention and when you start to lose well-being, stop and ask what you need more of and what you need less of. Do you need more downtime, more enjoyment or connection in your life, to take better care of your body and move more? Do you need to do something about your stress level or to improve your sleep?



This is an ongoing process. An activity that feels just right one day will not be just right the next. Don’t try to substitute past learning for the more immediate attunement needed. Well-being is not that easily won and doesn’t remain without continued attention. You need to stay aware of feedback from body, mind, and heart and use it to keep you in the sweet spot of your life.