One surprising finding in my recent deep dive into the science of energy management [1] has been how often we’re simply wrong about what drains us.
For instance, we all understand that sleep restores our energy. It would be bizarre to say, “I’m too tired to sleep.” However, we frequently say, “I’m too tired to exercise,” even though the evidence is overwhelmingly clear [2] that moderate-intensity exercise gives both a short-term energy boost, and a long-term improvement to your overall energy levels.
So today, I want to discuss some of that research, pointing out seven behaviors where the typical perception doesn’t match reality, and offer a potential explanation for how we can so often be confused, despite our ample first-hand experience.
Misconception #1: Exercise is exhausting.
After a long, draining day, most of us would rather slump onto the couch than go running. For most of our evolutionary history, that would have been smart [3]. Food was scarce, life was laborious, and, thus, it didn’t make sense to burn calories on anything not essential for survival.
But our instinct for laziness tricks us when it comes to our energy levels. Comprehensive reviews show that acute bouts of exercise generally have an energizing effect [4]. Exercise boosts cognition [5], lifts mood and has strong effects on depression [6], anxiety [6], ADHD [7] and more.
The long-term effects of consistent exercise are even more positive [2]. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which contributes to the well-documented brain-boosting effects of exercise, actually gets released in higher amounts as you exercise more regularly [8].
That said, high-intensity exercise can be temporarily draining, and overtraining, which is more common among competitive athletes, flips the normal benefits around. So, while most of us benefit from exercising more, it is definitely possible to overdo it.1 [9]
Misconception #2: Introverts are drained by socializing.
Imagine you’ve been invited to mingle with strangers for the next twenty minutes. Would you find that activity energizing or draining?
Your response might depend on whether you’re an introvert or not. Supposedly, extroverts are energized by social activities, while introverts are drained by them. This popular perception owes its origin to the early twentieth-century psychologist Carl Jung [10].
Researchers tested [11] this idea by measuring the extroversion of 146 participants and then asking them to anticipate how participating in twenty minutes of socializing with several strangers would impact their energy. Participants’ expectations were very much in line with Jung’s formulation: most predicted the interaction to be draining, except the most extreme extroverts:
But then the study participants actually socialized, interacting one-on-one with a group of strangers without instructions on what to talk about. Afterward, participants were asked to report on their mood. The results did not match most of the participants’ initial expectations. Nearly everyone felt better after socializing, except for the extreme introverts (who felt neither better, nor worse):
This study isn’t the only example of this phenomenon. In another study [12], participants were asked to predict what their mood would be after spending their morning transit commute alone, or talking with a stranger. Most predicted they would feel worse after socializing, but the reality was the opposite.
Misconception #3: Scrolling on your phone is a great way to relax.
We spend a lot of time looking at screens. Recent data [13] suggest the addition of social media and smartphones didn’t shift our media consumption away from television; we simply added new screen time on top of our already voluminous TV habits.
A common belief is that we need this mindless downtime to relax and unwind. However, recent research suggests that extra screen time [14] may be more draining than energizing. This isn’t because screens themselves are always bad—although algorithms built to exploit our built-in negativity bias [15] can make a lot of algorithmically-pushed content more stress-inducing than relaxing. Instead, the largest problem seems to be that screens are so compelling that they shorten our sleep.
Another downside of screens is that, while they can be relaxing, they often fail to provide [16] the experiences of mastery and meaning that we can get from other leisure activities. When we spend our downtime on activities we don’t feel great about afterward, our leisure can actually be draining. Certainly, not all online content is bad. But it does suggest that being deliberate about our consumption is better for our energy levels.
Misconception #4: Long hours at work inevitably lead to burnout.
Equating our energy—the physical and mental powers we rely on to do things—with energy in the physics-sense of the word is itself a metaphor. And this metaphor is a seductive one: work hard and you use up your energy. Use it up too much, with too little recovery, and you burn out.
But the reality of fatigue is more complicated [17]. It is true that longer hours on the job and higher work demands are (weakly) associated [18]with fatigue and burnout. However, this effect is substantially moderated by the degree of control workers experience over their work.
When workers have autonomy and meaningful work, high demands no longer result in fatigue. Indeed, some researchers even argue that the energy metaphor is fundamentally mistaken [17]. Fatigue may be better seen as an emotion that arises when you spend too much of your limited attention on activities that don’t feel intrinsically worthwhile to you.
Indeed, history is rich with examples of tireless men and women who worked nearly nonstop without burning out, but did so with a high degree of autonomy and meaningfulness of their actions. Simply working less—but doing so under conditions of low-autonomy and low intrinsic motivation, may not fix the underlying problems that lead to burnout [19].
Misconception #5: Alcohol helps you sleep better.
Sleep is essential for energy. But getting a good night’s sleep can be difficult: the more you try to sleep well, the harder it can be to drift off.
Faced with these difficulties, many of us resort to a variety of chemical means to promote sleep. Alcohol, sleeping pills, and marijuana are all common chemical agents that many feel are necessary to help them sleep well.
Unfortunately, the benefits of a nightcap are mostly illusory [20]. While alcohol (and other chemical sedatives) do make it easier to become unconscious, they disrupt the delicate neural choreography that gives sleep its value in restoring our energy. Worse, long-term use can lead to habituation, which can make falling asleep without them incredibly difficult.
Instead, if you do suffer from insomnia, a better solution is CBT-I, cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia [21]. This is the gold-standard treatment for insomnia that works to overcome some of the maladaptive beliefs and behaviors that keep us from getting consistent shut-eye. For those interested in learning more, I highly recommend the book Hello Sleep [22] by Jade Wu.
Misconception #6: Venting helps you relieve stress.
Stress is draining [23]. But our methods of relieving stress often make matters worse.
The centuries-old hydraulic model [24], which attempts to explain physiological and psychological observations based on some rather primitive science, posits that negative emotions build up inside and need to be released or they will rot us away from the inside. Catharsis, or the release of anger as a way to prevent the emotion from burning you up, was long seen as a necessary release from this internal tension.
Except it doesn’t work [25]. Research finds that hitting a punching bag, angry journaling or other methods of catharsis tend to make anger worse—not better. The hydraulic model has largely been supplanted by a cognitive perspective that argues that emotions and thoughts form a self-reinforcing loop. Thus, angry behaviors reinforce angry thoughts. The key is to break this loop, not reinforce it.
If you’re angry or frustrated, take deep breaths, don’t vent your emotions. Then, in a calmer mood, you can either shrug off the issue or, if it requires communication, do so in a way that’s less likely to further inflame tensions.
(Partial) Misconception #7: Coffee boosts your energy (in the long-run).
Okay, so this one isn’t a complete misconception, but it is overstated.
The acute benefits [26] of caffeine are positive and widely studied. Caffeine boosts alertness, reduces sleepiness, increases endurance and muscular performance, and has many other cognitive benefits. What’s more, assuming we get our caffeine from coffee rather than soda or energy drinks, the habit is good for our health [27].2 [28]
However, while the acute benefits of caffeine intake are undeniable, the long-term cognitive benefits are more controversial.
To understand why, a brief primer on caffeine is helpful. The main mechanism of caffeine in the brain is blocking adenosine receptors. Adenosine is a metabolic byproduct that tends to accumulate in our brain as we’re awake, making us feel sleepy. By blocking these receptors, we get a temporary boost of alertness.
However, the brain doesn’t just sit idly by in the presence of a foreign chemical. As a result of these adenosine-blocking caffeine molecules, we start creating more adenosine receptors to counteract the effect. Now, if we stop drinking our morning coffee, the result is we feel more tired than we would have if we didn’t drink coffee at all.
The controversy in the research [29] is that almost all tests of caffeine’s effects on cognition don’t distinguish whether caffeine is boosting participants’ cognition beyond their natural baseline, or if it is simply undoing the physiological effects of withdrawal common in habitual caffeine users.
Methodologically speaking, given how prevalent caffeine use is in modern society, the baseline condition of the participants must be accounted for to determine caffeine’s true effect. Scientists must compare performance between people who have had caffeine and people who have abstained, after 1) a period of regular caffeine consumption and 2) a period of abstaining from caffeine from several days to overcome the effects of withdrawal.
Their results suggest that much of caffeine’s boosting effects can be seen not as a stable long-term improvement, but simply as temporarily undoing the withdrawal state. Right now, the research is still equivocal, and the withdrawal-reversal explanation of caffeine’s cognitive boost may not apply to athletic performance enhancement [30], which is thought to be at least partially mediated by different mechanisms.3 [31] However, it does suggest that caffeine may not be the long-term energizer it is often suggested to be.
Why are We Confused About Our Energy?
All of these confusions speak to a broader problem in our energy management: we’re often simply wrong about what leads to feeling drained and energized. While folk theories of energy management do get some things right (e.g., sleep is good, persistent stress is bad, and toxic work conditions lead to burnout), we get enough wrong that it’s worth questioning whether we might be able to do better.
I suspect some of our confusion stems from the fact that many of the items on our list have a higher immediate effort cost but create energy over the whole activity. Exercising is energizing, but it takes more effort to lace up our shoes than to flop onto the couch. Similarly, socializing with strangers is mildly anxiety-provoking, so we underrate how much friendliness improves our mood rather than drains it.
Other items may have more to do with subtle effects that only careful science can tease out. Caffeine, for instance, definitely raises alertness. But whether it does so by boosting our baseline energy or counteracting withdrawal is hard to know without doing a careful experiment.
Similarly, our ideas about energy may be misled by a faulty metaphor. While some aspects of our energy are indeed like a fuel that requires replenishment, many are not. The understanding we gain from these metaphors shapes our decisions and our behavior and, at least in some cases, may be pushing us into adopting the wrong solutions.
This matters because energy doesn’t just matter for productivity—it’s crucial for our well-being. Properly managing our energy isn’t just about getting more work done, but cultivating the positive emotions that make life worth living.
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If you enjoyed this essay, I’m working on an upcoming course diving deep into the science of energy management and guiding you through creating new habits and practices to create more energy in your life. If you’re interested, click here [32] and I’ll send you a free essay series on energy management.
Footnotes
- Another exception occurs in people with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome [33], for whom even moderate amounts of exercise cause extreme and persistent fatigue. However, this only underscores the original point—post-exertional malaise is considered a defining feature of CFS because it is unusual.
- While many of these benefits seem to be because of the coffee itself, the risks of Parkinson’s disease seem to only be reduced among those who drink caffeinated coffee, not decaf. Thus, even if the short-term brain-boosting benefits of caffeine may be overrated, they may have important benefits for slowing long-term cognitive decline. [34]
- Caffeine is thought to enhance muscular performance by enabling greater calcium uptake from the sarcoplasmic reticulum, improving the contractile properties in muscle fibers.