I recently recovered a skipping rope that I purchased a few years ago, it was at a time when I was struggling with too much physical energy. Not to be confused with agitation or irritation, this energy was simply the unrelenting drive and pressure to constantly move and speak. Feeling like this wasn’t so much a problem for me (in a way it was enjoyable) but for my family members trying to look out for me it was mentally and physically draining.
In the end the skipping solution didn’t work for me because I couldn’t co-ordinate the jumps and lost patience with it quickly, instead preferring a sort of do-it-yourself high-speed version Tai Chi.
This week my energy level is very much in my normal range, so I decided to give skipping a go again. Forgiving the first few attempts, I actually found it easy to get into a rhythm and after 15 minutes I was out of breath, surprised at how fatiguing it was. It seems like an ideal solitary exercise that I can do intermittently when I have a spare 15 minutes and I’m happy with my rediscovery.
Reducing or dampening an abundance of physical energy (without extra medication) is something that I feel is often overlooked by service providers. While there are lots of resources out there to help with low energy, tiredness and fatigue, tips on how to (safely) dissipate high energy are hard to come by. My feeling is that prolonged low impact exercise accompanied by lots of stretching is preferable to trying to “burn off” the energy with long fast paced runs or intense gym sessions. For an individual struggling with too much energy under the current lockdown, working out if this personally holds true could be of vital importance.