Do you feel tired when you feel happy, fit, or healthy?
Do you feel energized when you feel sad, injured, or sick?
Have you ever noticed your energy level when you were happy or sad? Healthy or sick? Fit or injured?
It is simple, our sense of wellness reflects our energy level. When we have an abundance of energy, we feel great. When we have too little, we feel bad. When life demands more energy than we have to spend or wish to spend, we feel stressed. Most people do not associate the presence of stress with a feeling of wellness. Usually, wellness involves the absence of stress, but as we know, all the vacation in the world cannot free us from stress. Have you ever felt stressed AND well? If you have the energy you might.
When something needs doing, do you ask yourself, “Do I have enough energy to meet the demands of this task?” And then if it is too low, build the energy you need BEFORE you attend to the task? It is not the same as how rested or tired you are. These things are important, but the energy that defines our wellness is a different energy entirely. It’s the energy that we use to move and adapt and grow. It is called A.E.Q. energy©. It is an energy concept that unites Western thought and Eastern thought.
In his book, Stress in Health and Illness, Hans Selye, the father of Stress science, observed that stress begins to inflict harm on the person when they used up what he named “adaptive energy”. Adaptive energy, he determined, was the energy we use to adapt to the demands of stress. Selye focused his attention on observing what happened when adaptive energy was depleted. He came to believe that adaptive energy was finite.
The Ancient Chinese focused their attention on observing the patterns of energy moving through nature and came to believe that life was an expression of the movement of energy. They called this movement change and the energy it created, “Qi”. Qi is Mandarin for the vital life energy of nature. It is responsible for life, movement, and change. They came to understand that Qi is life and when Qi stops, life stops. Chinese philosophy, medicine, and martial arts developed around the practice of nourishing and directing Qi. Qi is also Mandarin for Adaptive Energy.
The concepts of Adaptive Energy and Qi are similar, however, because the cultural origins are so vastly different, rather than simply assert that they are the same, it is more useful in theory and practice to synthesize the concepts into a new and unique concept. A.E.Q. is a concept that unites Selye’s “adaptive energy” with the Chinese concept of “Qi” to create a way of intentionally managing the energy to meet the demands of life, including the demands of good health and wellness.
Good health and wellness have a high energy cost. They require you train with movement, but as you age the training depletes, your energy making it harder and more unpleasant to attend. Unless you learn to manage the energy before the effort.
Even if you do not go onto master your A.E.Q. energy, it is helpful to consider your energy level before you attend to the demands of your life, your health, and your well-being. For long-term wellness, prioritize energy before effort, not effort before energy.
