Relaxing or Exhausting? How Your ‘Me Time’ Might Be Draining You

Are your go-to relaxation activities truly recharging you—or stealthily wearing you out? In this solo deep dive, Justin explores the hidden stressors lurking in our diets, media habits, and even our exercise routines. With humor, honesty, and practical insight, Justin challenges us to reevaluate what relaxation really means and offers tools to help truly restore your energy.

Key Takeaways:

• 🍕 How foods can secretly deplete your energy.
• 📺 Why watching TV or scrolling news might be adding to your stress.
• 🧘‍♂️ The unexpected tension hiding in many yoga classes.
• 🧠 Techniques like digital detox, breathwork, and “truth of now” presence for real relaxation.
• 🔄 Why breaking the habit of stress is the key to creating new energy-positive routines.

Overcome the daily grind with transformative techniques from Justin's book, 'Engineered to Love.'

These practices aren't just about finding peace—they're about reconnecting with yourself and the world around you in meaningful ways.

Access your free materials today at engineeredtolove.com/sample and start living a life filled with joy, ease, and love. 

Watch the full video episode at Justin Wenck, Ph.D. YouTube Channel!

Check out my best-selling book "Engineered to Love: Going Beyond Success to Fulfillment" also available on Audiobook on all streaming platforms! Go to https://www.engineeredtolove.com/ to learn more!

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Transcript

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We're just in the habit of being in this perpetual state of anxiety, nervousness, and oh my gosh, what's going to happen next? That we don't know what it is to relax. And it can actually be stressful to relax because it's so foreign, and habit is so powerful that anytime you're trying to create a new habit that does require work. And so if you're in the habit of being stressed, to relax is actually also stressful. For a while, it's up. Are you ready to live a life with enough time, money and energy have relationships and connections that delight you? Are you ready for the extraordinary life you know you've been missing if so, then this is the place for you. I'm a best selling author, coach, consultant and speaker who's worked in technology for over two decades. I'm a leader at transforming people and organizations from operating in fear, obligation and guilt to running off joy, ease and love. It's time for engineering emotions and energy with me. Justin Wenck, PhD, today I am asking the question, Are you relaxing or are you exhausting? Now you might be wondering, like Justin, I that that should be pretty easy, I would know if I'm exhausting myself or if I'm relaxing myself, but I've had a few experiences lately that have made me question, are we really relaxing when we're doing things that we do to relax, or are they insidiously still actually exhausting us, but we're often just too unaware to notice the distinction. And so I'm going to share to you, with you today what these things might be, and I'm going to cover a range of topics. So it's not going to give you like, the answer to everything, but it's going to give you the questions and the perspective to start looking at maybe things that you've been doing for years, maybe your whole life, and going, like, Ooh, is this? Is this doing what I think it's doing? And if not, do I need to be doing something different. So I'm going to talk about three main, three main things that I've experienced, and how they weren't doing what I thought they were doing. And then we're gonna talk about, well, what are some things that could be done differently? And yeah, so hopefully, so if you're like most people, you're probably busy and you probably stressed out, you probably get tired and you probably feel like you don't have enough energy. Yeah, what makes you different than most people is you're aware of this and you want to do something about it, which is why you listen to the show, right? So thank you for listening, and thank you for being different than the majority of people, because this is going to what's make us all enjoy our lives and the world that much more. So what is one of the things? The first is food. Often I felt like, oh, you know, eating is relaxing, it's nourishing. It's going to feed and give me the energy and to do what I want. We'll probably do a whole episode on this. I'm not gonna get too into it. I found that many of the foods that I had been eating were actually not nourishing me. Were not helping to rejuvenate my body and my system. They were actually harming me. They were causing inflammation and causing stress on my body. And when I finally started to shift the foods, you know, not necessarily how much I was eating, but what I was eating, I started to get all the sensitivity. And I could tell when I would eat something that wasn't nourishing, I'd go, Ooh, this is not fun to eat, whereas when I was just steeped in it, because I'll give you an example growing up, one of the favorite foods that I would eat, that I would enjoy that was just like a staple of growing up, was pizza. Yummy, delicious, fantastic pizza. It's almost not fair, because it just has so many good, amazing things in it. And still to, you know, growing up, I would eat pizza very, very often. And then I started working with this holistic health practitioner that really looked in depth at, like, you know, what, what I was eating, and how this was, in fact, impacting, like, my blood work, things like that. And one of the things through testing discovered was, was it I am intolerant to dairy and to combinations of grain and potato? Um, so I'm not going to go too much into this, but basically, pizza is the worst food that I could possibly be eating, because it basically is causing inflammation and all sorts of things. And it made sense why I'd always have so many struggles with my weight, with my energy. Because basically I was repeatedly like doing things to my body that were not nourishing it, but actually harming it and draining it and causing it to work harder. And so when I stopped eating the pizza and other a whole bunch of other things, I started to, like, get and does this mean that I can never eat pizza? No, in fact, I've eaten pizza, but now I have a sensitivity where if I do eat it, I It's like, yummy in the mouth, but I can feel it in my in my stomach and in my body the next day, and often, you know, pretty soon after that, I'm like, Ooh, this is not this is not energizing. This is like putting this is work to digest. This food is an area where you might not be getting what you think you're getting. And again, it's not to say that don't do these things. So it's like, I will still occasionally eat pizza, just I know that it's not there to nourish me, to relax me, to help me be more energized, to help me be a better person. It's purely entertainment and at a cost. And so it's, do I want to pay that cost that's going to be for me to decide. And want you to be able to know what you're paying with your activities and your time and your attention. So that's, that's diet, that's, that's eating and this, so the second thing is, entertainment, right? Is what we're what we're watching, or what we're listening to. Often, you know, work hard, and it's like, oh, just want to go and maybe go watch a movie at the theater, or, you know, just watch some news, or some some videos, or maybe check out the news, just, you know, something that's just a little passive. Just entertain me. Gonna relax me. And now you're like, Oh no, Justin, don't tell me that all these things that I watch listen to. It's like, yeah. But again, I'm not saying that any of these things are bad. It's just it might not be doing what you thought it was doing. So I've since been, you know, really big at monitoring what I consume as far as my media. So doing digital detoxes, where it's like, I'm not going to, you know, bring anything in from any external media for a set period of time, or just eliminating, you know, news from my diet the majority of the time, and and then, just like not doing as much TV, not going to the movies as often, and doesn't mean that I've never do these things yet, I've noticed when I do watch these things, like when I watch the news, I'm much more sensitive to, oh, this is just here to make me upset or frustrated or afraid, and I'm questioning, like, why is this the story being chosen to give me like, it's like, Is this actually a new thing, or is this just something that's currently available To get me hooked, to be scared, to be anxious, to be frustrated, right? Because it's like there's so many things going on in the world at any given time. Most of them are actually really incredible, heart lifting, amazing, warm and nourishing. Yet does that show up on the news? So I'm a lot more wary of like, if, when something's, you know, big important, it's like important to who and for what purpose, and why not say that bad things aren't happening the world yet. Does that deserve the majority of my attention, and does that result in me wanting to have emotions that are harmful to myself? Is that going to benefit or if I'm able to be discerning and calm and peaceful and I get some some news, and then I'm able to go, Hmm, how would I like this to work out? What's a way that I would want my world to resolve this? Is that going to be much more helpful to me and to my world? And then let's talk about like entertainment. So I recently went to a movie. I hadn't gone to one in months. I don't even know if it might have been my first movie of the year. Probably not true, but it's definitely been a few months since I'd gone to a movie in the theater. And I went to see this Tim Robinson, I think that's his name, kind of a comedic, comedic actor, like he was kind of, like, too, too weird and off the wall for SNL as the story that I heard, and he's in this movie called friendship, about this guy, that it kind of gets into a friendship, and he just kind of is himself, and it doesn't, it doesn't go well, and it's not like there's anything too horrible going but since it had been a while, I was able to sort of notice that, how when something bad would happen to the main character or to other people, just how much, like, ooh, it's like it's happening to me. Because we all have these, like mirror neurons, that when somebody else feels something, we feel it too, which is what helps us to connect, to build rapport, and, you know, have relationships that you know matter and mean so much to us, yet this can also be used, you know, maybe not, to help us, where, if someone else is feeling bad, now we feel bad. And again, this doesn't have to be a bad thing. It's just, I know. It's like, oh, I go to the movies to relax, to chill out. Yet, for the most part, my system and I'm suspecting you. System is interpreting that any stressor that happens in the movie is also going to stress your system. And so again, not to say that, don't go to the movies, don't watch TV shows, don't listen to the news. It's just have this awareness that it's not relaxing. It's actually still keeping you in that sympathetic nervous system, that fight or flight mentality of like, oh my gosh, I gotta be on edge and I gotta be tense and ready to act. And this brings me to the third thing. So we've talked about diet, we've talked about media consumption. Now we're going to talk about, like, your exercise, your movements, kind of like what you what you do. Just the other day, just a couple days ago, I went to a yoga class for the first time, possibly in a year, and it was a slow flow vinyasa class. So if you're not familiar with with a lot of types of yoga, vinyasa is often a flowy one, where you go from one movement to another, and the teacher, instructor, the person just throwing out things for you to do is often what they really probably should be telling themselves or advertise themselves, as is. It's just, here's a here's a move, here's a move, here's a move. Like regular or fast flow is usually like, boom, boom, boom, boom, where it's a lot of movements. You're kind of flinging your arms, your legs, your whatever, all over the place, getting a sweat, and often they'll heat up the room, slow floats, usually cooler, you know, it's, it's a lot more calm and easeful. And I hadn't gone for like, over a year to a class like this, because I've, I've done yoga teacher training, I've taught yoga, so I've had 500 hours of learning, and I've done my own teaching, and I have a lot of awareness of my body and what works for it and what doesn't. And I kind of discovered that going to, like a random yoga teacher, is just a lot of fucking work, because often they're doing things that they haven't thought through of how it might work in a different body. So it's like, oh, it works great. It works great for them, but it doesn't work for me. I mean, probably not for most people. And so then now, like, Okay, I gotta be on guard. And I ended up, about a year and a half ago, discovering Bikram style yoga, which is often known for being like in a really hot 100 degree, 100 plus degree room. And the other main important point of it is it is the same poses every single class. I think it's the same 26 and for the longest time, I didn't want to do a class like this, because I'm like, that's boring, same pose over and over. Like, I want variety. I want excitement. And when I finally did this type of class, you know, first it was like, Oh, this is, like, really challenging, but there was something to it. And I went back and again, it was like, oh, it's the same poses, so I know what's coming. It's not a surprise. What's the surprise or the challenges? Is my body's different, and how am I going to be working with the instruction or the aspiration that the pose is wanting to bring me into and I found it very, very relaxing at a deeper level. And now, having only done this type of yoga for the past year and a half, and avoiding other types of yoga where it's, you know, the instructor is just going to do different things, when I went back and did it, I was like, Oh my gosh. It's like, I know, I know all these poses, but I don't know the order that they're kind of come at and so I don't know how to get into it. And so just like that, okay, I'm in a pose. I feel like, okay, I'm chill, I'm good, I'm in my downward dog. Yeah, this is great. And then it's like, oh, but now I'm being asked to, like, lift my leg and bend my knee. I wasn't expecting that. And there's a little bit of anxiety that I could feel in my system, some some nervousness. I'm like, Oh, am I doing it right? Or what's going to happen next? This, like, unknown, this tension. And so I'm realizing, like, oh, most of this Yoga is not actually relaxing me. And again, that's not to say that that's a bad thing. Life isn't supposed to be all meant to be relaxing. Yet, if we think that what is relaxing is actually exhausting us, then we're going to end up exhausted. And I was really glad that the active movements of this class was only like 40 minutes, and then it got to do like 20 minutes of like a resting pose. So often, if you do go to a yoga class, they'll say, make sure you stay for the shavasana, which is the corpse pose, the resting pose at the end. It's the most important pose at the end. And I now really fully understand why that is. It's because almost anything that you're doing up into that is putting you likely into a state of fight or flight, that sympathetic nervous system, and going into that shavasana, that just laying there, just laying there, that's the only time that you are actually having the opportunity to truly rest, relax, rejuvenate, and getting into that parasympathetic, parasympathetic nervous system state of being. Being. And so if you're someone who's usually skips that you basically didn't get any relaxation at all. You just got purely exhausted. And so this is not to say don't do things that are stimulating, that get the nervous system in, that, you know, getting, because it's good to practice Fight, fight, all these things. But it's the going from one state to the other, that builds the resilience, builds our capacity to handle more, whereas if we just do more and more, more, more more, it's wearing us down, breaking us down, and that ends up getting us to a point of breaking, and often, many of us are broken in ways that we don't even want to see yet because we're so desensitized to it that we can't even recognize that we are not relaxing. We're Justin the habit of being in this perpetual state of anxiety, nervousness and oh my gosh, what's going to happen next that we don't know what it is to relax, and it can actually be stressful to relax because it's so foreign, and habit is so powerful that anytime you're trying to create a new habit that does require work, and so if you're in the habit of being stressed, to relax is actually also stressful. For a while, it's fucked up. It's fucked up yet. That's why you're here to listen to my show. That's why there's so many resources out there to help you to relax in a true, genuine way. So I'm going to list off a few things that can actually bring true relaxation. So one is eating foods that are nourishing for you, and you might not know, like what's truly nourishing for you. And so one thing is to just fast, to just not eat, give your body a break. So again, this is something like, if you do it too much, it becomes stressful, but a little bit so like, just going, like, one more hour than you would without eating in a day is going to be highly, highly relaxing for your digestive system. And you know, possibly looking to intermittent fasting, and possibly look at doing like, you know, a one day fast. So something that I'm going to say, look into, consider it can be really, really relaxing for your system to, just like, not consume something, and then you're going to have a little bit more sensitivity to when you do eat something. So that's one thing. So we're talking about what's your the media with that you're going to consume? So again, I'm not saying don't want go to a movie, don't watch TV, don't watch the news, but I'm going to say, like, maybe do less, and maybe try to, like, swap it out, all right? And definitely try a digital detox, minimum, four hour. I do have a podcast on this. You can look up digital detox four hours. 24 hours, even better. And you will just notice there will be some time where you're just like, Oh my gosh. I'm so bored, I want to crawl out of my skin. Yet at some point I'm just like, wow, this is nice. And you'll start to notice how incredible Your world is, just as it is, so digital detox. And then finally, when it comes to like your movements, so your exercises, things like that. A lot of times, I tell people, you know, like, I teach meditation, I do meditation, I will say that there's a free meditation and other resources on my website, Justin wenck.com, W, E, N, C, K, just click the free resources, free whatever thing at the top, and there's like, now four options that most of them, all of them, all them good. And I think three of them are going to be super, super relaxing. One's a meditation, one's a breath work, and another has some other tools, and then one's a chapter from my book that you can listen to for free. So a lot of people go like, Oh, I mean, I'm a runner. My running is my meditation. Oh, well, I walk my dog. That's my meditation. You know, all these, there's a lot of things where someone goes like, I do this thing. That's my meditation. No, that thing you do is the thing you do because you enjoy it, which is great, but meditation is meditation. Because the thing is, if you're out for a run, there's always a chance that, you know, a car could try to run over you, a bear might try to attack you. You might almost trip and fall. There's lots of things that you have to be aware of, beyond just what's going on in your mind. And again, it's those things are keeping you in the moment. So it's great, but the point of meditation is it allows you to work with your own thoughts and to let go of those and come back to something that is calming and relaxing, and there's nothing else you have to worry about that's the important thing. Then the other thing that I would say is great, is anything that is a repetitive motion, movement. That's why things like Tai Chi, Qigong and a yoga practice that is repetitive, where it's the same thing, every you know what's coming up, can be very, very relaxing. The other thing breath work. Uh, breath work, very relaxing. So the box breathing method, I teach it in my book engineer to love going beyond success to fulfillment. Something else that is also deeply relaxing that we've done episodes on this show before is getting into a moment of truth, which has also has to do with getting into the sense experience that's happening now. So listen to the sound of my voice, and just focusing on the timbre, the melody, the just the aspect that there is something you are hearing right now and then your visuals, just like noticing, what are you seeing? What are the colors? What are the textures? And then feeling like touching something like, Oh, what is the feeling of the fabric that you might be touching? What's the friction between your fingertips when you slowly move them together and then noticing your breath just that? What are you experiencing right now? Very, very relaxing. And there's, there's many other things that, the thing is, what I want you to take away from this episode is that what you've been doing, it's not that there's anything wrong with it. It's just, is it doing for you what you want it to be doing? Because I want you to get what you want out of life. That's why I'm here. That's why I do this show. Is because I want you to have the life that you want. And I bet that life includes some deep, nourishing relaxation, and I'm guessing many of the things you've been doing to relax have not been relaxing you. They've purely been exhausting you. And so if you've been wondering like, why the fuck am I so tired, there's a good chance some of the things that I listed today might be part of the reason you've been more tired than you would like to be. And so again, we went through a lot in this episode, right? We talked about diet, we talked about the media consumption. We talked about how moving your moving your body, it's a lot of stuff, so that the answer is not here, but I hope you've got some questions. Can allow you to learn. If you want to explore with me, definitely reach out and get those free resources on Justin wenck.com you know, Justin Wenck PhD on all the socials, you know, make sure you're following connecting, and if you have a question, you know, drop me a comment, message me, send me an email podcast@justinwnck.com and so glad that you are here. This is a first, first episode solo since the 200 episode celebration. So it's really great to be back. And I know that sometimes the world might seem like, oh, there's so much changing, so much shifting. You can do this, and you can do it with joy, ease and love, and there's so many people. I'm one of them here to help support you. You got this so thank you so much and good day. Thanks for tuning in to engineering emotions and energy with Justin Wenck PhD. 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