What is the Energy Pyramid? - A Roadmap for Increased Energy Levels

By Bert Brown

The quick answer to what is the Energy Pyramid: it is the 4 elements of exercise, rest, nutrition, and purpose structured to provide optimal energy levels. You can see the layout in the above diagram.

Why is this so important?

Because these particular elements are the essential building blocks in providing the mind and body the power it needs to operate.

Certainly the body needs food and sleep to function. But it also needs the right types and amounts of food as well as the right type and amount of sleep.

However, when we want to optimize our health to:

feel good about ourselves
ensure the body is functioning at optimal levels
and find greater happiness

There is a certain approach to these elements that I’ve found works extremely well.

By arranging the pyramid with the foundation of exercise (any physical activity that is getting the body moving briskly), the keystone is set for the other elements to build upon.

The apex of the pyramid is purpose. This is like the icing on the cake. Many people do not have a defined purpose. I didn’t have a defined purpose for decades. But for those who do have a defined purpose, it is an incredible energizing feeling that can keep you going even in tough times.

This single tool is what I use to guide me in structuring my day and life to maximize energy.

Backstory

The concept of the Energy Pyramid has evolved over a number of years. It has been refined multiple times to become what it looks like today.

Our family was having brunch a number of years ago talking about what gave us the most energy. What did we do that made us feel good? Or provided motivation? What if we didn’t do it would leave us tired, lethargic, and listless.

We came up with exercise, rest, nutrition, and purpose.

These are not so surprising. When you visit your doctor, she asks you about your exercise levels and how much sleep are you getting. Your blood work will reveal how well you are eating and your body mass index will reveal how much you are eating (and shed light on how much exercise you say you are doing).

However, beyond the 4 elements themselves is the order in which they are composed.

This is why the diagram is a pyramid instead of having equal building blocks like 4 columns.

This is not necessarily saying any one element is less or more important than another. However by structuring it as a pyramid it does provide a path or roadmap to power up your energy levels.

Many times it can be hard to focus on multiple things at once.

Instead of focusing on one thing and getting it 100% done, we like to work on four things at the same time. What happens usually is we end up with four things only 25% of the way done. We lose momentum. And projects or tasks are left unfinished or simply take a longer amount of time to complete.

When prioritizing how to build your energy levels, it’s important to start with the foundation.

Keystone Habit

I was introduced to the idea of keystone habits in a book called The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. He described these as “habits that people introduce into their routines that unintentionally carry over into other aspects of their lives.”

In essence, by only focusing on one habit, you find that it leads to the development of other good habits. A keystone habit creates a domino effect. There is a chain reaction from that one habit in your life that produces additional positive outcomes.

An example in the book is exercise. And I totally grasped its meaning and power. Upon reflection when I thought about how I was structuring my life – especially in the months preceding a big race (like a marathon or a triathlon) – I saw that while I was only mapping out what the workouts were going to look like for the week (my focus was the exercise), the following actions automatically occurred:

Got more and better sleep because I was tired from the training
Ate better because the workouts felt terrible if I ate too much or had too many fatty foods (ie French fries)
Limited desserts to tastes
Eliminated alcohol
Better time management because I had to fit the trainings into the schedule

To me it’s a little like a short cut for the mind. A hack, if you will. You are mainly focused on this one habit and you gain a multitude of benefits.

What might be a keystone habit for your relationships? For a business? For the family?

This is just such a powerful concept that it needs a post itself.

With exercise as a keystone habit (the foundation) a number of the benefits apply to rest and nutrition – the next two levels of the Energy Pyramid.

Self Torture

One might question why rest is the next level on the pyramid. How could sleep be more important than food?

They are certainly both necessary, but it’s important to examine how the body reacts to these necessities. And quite frankly the importance of rest is often overlooked, yet not that hard to properly incorporate into your schedule.

So, say you decide to go on a fast. You effectively starve yourself for a week.

At the end of seven days, how would you be feeling?

You’d probably be hungry, perhaps a little weak, and almost certainly somewhat thinner. But basically you’d be fine.

Now let’s say you deprive yourself of sleep for a week.

How would you be feeling then? There’s a pretty high probability that you’d be feeling not so good. After several days, you’d be almost completely unable to function.

That’s why Amnesty International lists sleep deprivation as a form of torture.

This example is mainly provided to demonstrate just how important rest is for the body. If you are sleeping less than 5 hours per night, the risk of heart disease, heart attack, and stroke is doubled. There are links between lack of sleep and weight gain, insulin resistance, and diabetes.

While the right amount of sleep varies somewhat between people, the general consensus is somewhere between 7 and 9 hours of sleep per night.

I wish I had prioritized sleep sooner in life. I thought I could get by on 6 hours a night and catch up on weekends.

It wasn’t till I started getting closer to 8 hours per night that I noticed a pretty big difference in how I was feeling throughout the day. It was that noticeable for me.

Icing on the Cake

Granted, it is possible to have lots of energy yet not have a purpose in life. Many people don’t have a purpose written down and get along just fine.

That’s why purpose is at the top of the pyramid.

You can be exercising on regular basis, getting enough sleep, eating the right amounts of food, have a full schedule and feel pretty good.

But what if you didn’t have that full schedule? What if you weren’t raising kids or working at a job? What would you be doing then?

When people hear the word purpose, often their minds may jump to big societal goals they read about in the media from leaders of nonprofits or businesses. They think, “ Ah, that’s not for me. I don’t need to be saving the world.”

They think, “If it’s not a big grand purpose then I guess I don’t need to have a purpose.”

But having your own purpose can be so many different things that mean something to you.

Think about your hobbies, skills, and passions.

By finding your purpose you find a way to leverage your passions and skills to fill a need in the community, state, country or world.

That would be finding a need not necessarily a problem. Filling a need means working towards something that is useful for others, which may or may not solve their problems in the strictest sense.

Your purpose does not have to be eradicating polio on the planet.*** There are many things that you can be doing that mean something to you and works toward being useful for others. And doing what means something to you provides motivation.

And energy.

That’s the icing on the cake. When you are doing what means something to you there will be more heart, more motivation, more grit to get through the hard times. Because there will always be hard times in anything you are doing.

Having a purpose is an energy boost for the mind.

Return to Practice

Knowing what the Energy Pyramid is and understanding the reasons behind its structure just provides another tool that can be used.

This tool has helped guide me to bring more energy in my life.

Do I always follow everything to the T? Definitely not. I go through periods where I slack off on how I eat or not exercise regularly or not get enough sleep.

But I can always return to practice. It doesn’t have to be at the beginning of the year, month, or week.

It’s as simple as returning tomorrow.

*** Please note that while I am a big fan of BHAG purposes, the point is: