Oscillation

As we all (in the US) recover from Thanksgiving, I am thinking about oscillation. The idea of moving between two points, back and forth, in some sort of rhythm. They talk about this in The Power of Full Engagement, increasing energy reserves and strength through cycles of stress and recovery. Today we are recovering from yesterday's stress of gluttony and hopefully not repeating it too much.

The central point in the book is that our optimum energy building comes from properly balancing stress and recovery, neither overtraining (too much stress) nor undertraining (too much recovery). It is a challenging notion, since our lives run linearly so often. At work, we work hard all day long, with barely time to eat lunch. Or perhaps we hardly work at all, doing the minimum to get by. I have done both, and they both leave me exhausted at the end of the day.

Physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, we need stress, effort, and exertion to test our muscles and force more from ourselves than we thought possible. Then we need recovery to rebuild and regroup for the next effort. Too much of either one and we burn out or atrophy. The right balance and the sky is the limit.

I tend to undertrain in most areas. How about you? How are you oscillating?