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"More than one-third of us nod off unintentionally during the day, says the CDC. The most obvious \u2014 and common \u2014 reason: We&amp;#039;re not getting enough sleep. But our energy levels depend on factors beyond seven to eight hours of sweet dreams every night. We can be laid low by emotional fatigue, too \u2014 by being bored, by having too much or too little to do (or too many stupor-inducing chores to get through). Or we (you?) may be surrounded by vampires \u2014 and not of the sexy Twilight variety. &amp;quot;Fatigue often has more to do with the emotional than the physical,&amp;quot; says Sherrie Bourg Carter, Psy.D., codirector of the Institute for Behavioral Sciences and the Law in Fort Lauderdale, FL, and author of High Octane Women. Think about it. Even a bad night&amp;#039;s sleep wouldn&amp;#039;t keep you from meeting up with your BFFs for drinks after work or going to the banquet to accept your Volunteer of the Year award. Somehow, we always find the time \u2014 and the energy \u2014 to do the things that bring us pleasure. The trick is to build activities you love into your life, to chart a new course that keeps you energized. You&amp;#039;ll be more productive and have more time. Here, from leading experts and research studies, how you can make it happen.  Shake it up, wake it up There&amp;#039;s comfort in routine, but living a life in which you do the same thing day in and day out has a dulling and time-sapping effect. Your brain hates the same old, same old so much that it just turns off. This makes sense from an evolutionary point of view: The brain is wired to ignore the familiar and seek out the novel, giving you a kind of internal alarm that allows you to sense potential danger by tuning out the presumably safe ho-hum. At the same time, novelty activates your pleasure system by churning out dopamine, one of the brain&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;feel-good&amp;quot; chemicals. Dopamine is largely responsible for your brain lighting up on scans when you satisfy a major food craving (like when you &amp;quot;gotta have&amp;quot; that chocolate and you get it). But recent research suggests that dopamine is also the raw material of motivation \u2014 it gets you and your brain up and raring to go. And if you&amp;#039;re deficient in it, you&amp;#039;ll feel a kind of mental fatigue. Forget shopping or cooking \u2014 even making a grocery list will feel like too much work.  You don&amp;#039;t have to push the novelty theme too far and take up skydiving (as my friend Sarah did) to get a dopamine hit. A hike in the woods or an afternoon combing art galleries will do it. Even small tweaks to your routine can be energizing, says Mira Kirshenbaum, Ph.D., cofounder and clinical director of The Chestnut Hill Institute in Boston. Take a different route to work, or download some Radiohead (though you may have no idea who they are) to your iPod. &amp;quot;It can help just to change the pictures in your cubicle,&amp;quot; she says. Find your passion Or rediscover an old one. If you don&amp;#039;t love what you&amp;#039;re doing \u2014 work, your hobbies, causes you&amp;#039;ve taken on \u2014 you&amp;#039;re likely dragging through your life as if you&amp;#039;re always headed to intermediate algebra class. In this age of high unemployment, you may not be in a position to ditch your humdrum job, but maybe you could think about a new project that excites you and convince your supervisor to let you try it. Studies by Amy Wrzesniewski, Ph.D., associate professor of organizational behavior at Yale, suggest that crafting your job into a calling \u2014 something that feels meaningful and gives you a sense of fulfillment \u2014 can also help. Perhaps you could mentor younger staff members or develop a charitable project for your company.  If you can&amp;#039;t rejigger your job, try changing other things in your life to find the spark you&amp;#039;re looking for. Could you pursue painting or a course in local history? If you know that you have to leave the office exactly at 5 P.M. to get to class on time, you&amp;#039;ll push through your day more efficiently. Ditto on weekends: Speed-clean the house before your aerobics class, and you&amp;#039;ll get a double burn. If you&amp;#039;re stumped about what will excite you, look at the bottom of your to-do list, the things you wistfully hope to get to after the laundry and calling the fridge repair service and dropping a prescription at the drugstore and... Hang with the fun crowd People who live each day with a sense of excitement and energy can pass that attitude on to you the way a kindergarten class shares a cold. In this case, though, it&amp;#039;s social contagion at work \u2014 and it&amp;#039;s a good thing. A friend who&amp;#039;s enthusiastic about her job and her life can help you find your own joie de vivre again. Which also may make you more productive and better able to save your personal days for something other than recovering from the flu; one study found that people lacking a &amp;quot;zest for work&amp;quot; were more likely to take long spells of sick leave.  Vanquish the vampires Look around your circle of family, friends, and acquaintances. How many of the seven vampire dwarves \u2014 Angry, Whiny, Needy, Grumpy, Nasty, Killjoy, and Toxic \u2014 are in your life? On Facebook, you can just unfriend them. In real life, you have to cope with them. A friend of mine \u2014 let&amp;#039;s call her Heidi \u2014 once hid under her desk for five minutes until the office whine merchant, unable to find her, went on to see if there was someone else he could complain to.  Better to set boundaries, says Judith Orloff, M.D., assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles, and author of Emotional Freedom. Body language can work with all but the terminally self-absorbed. &amp;quot;When the resident drama queen approaches, signal that you&amp;#039;re not interested by turning slightly away. Don&amp;#039;t ask how she&amp;#039;s feeling or what&amp;#039;s new,&amp;quot; Dr. Orloff warns. Eventually, she&amp;#039;ll move on to her next victim \u2014 and you can get back to finishing your report so you can make it to that painting or history class on time. If the vampire is your mother, your sister, or an old friend, and the weapon is the phone, obviously body language won&amp;#039;t do it. But out-loud language can. &amp;quot;Oh, I wish I had time to talk!&amp;quot; you can say warmly, without ever explaining why you don&amp;#039;t. &amp;quot;But can you tell me the rest of the story another day?&amp;quot; Add &amp;quot;Love you&amp;quot; as you hang up, and there shouldn&amp;#039;t be any hurt feelings.  Take a break I recently interviewed a tough, well-respected judge in a city court of common pleas. At the end of our hour together, I asked her one of my favorite Barbara Walters-style questions: &amp;quot;What are three things you think that people don&amp;#039;t know about you?&amp;quot; The judge&amp;#039;s response: &amp;quot;First, I&amp;#039;d rather be gardening; failing that, I&amp;#039;d rather be cooking; and I love murder mysteries.&amp;quot; There&amp;#039;s a woman who puts the &amp;quot;vacate&amp;quot; in &amp;quot;vacation.&amp;quot; We all need &amp;quot;intermittent recovery,&amp;quot; as Jim Loehr, Ed.D., cofounder of the Human Performance Institute in Orlando, FL, and The Energy Project CEO Tony Schwartz call it in their book, The Power of Full Engagement. To maintain a high level of energy \u2014 to get that 25th hour in the day we&amp;#039;re all looking for \u2014 we need to refresh, retool, and reboot in ways both big and small. That means taking vacations and long weekends. It also means banishing work from Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays (at least some of the time). Loehr and Schwartz also advocate taking mini breaks throughout the workday. &amp;quot;We think that overachieving is more productive, but that&amp;#039;s not always the case,&amp;quot; says Dr. Orloff. &amp;quot;Your mind can&amp;#039;t keep solving problems endlessly.&amp;quot; And your body needs a break, too. In one landmark study that analyzed data from the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial (MRFIT), people who didn&amp;#039;t take vacations over a five-year period had a 17% higher mortality risk overall and a 32% greater risk of dying of coronary heart disease over the nine-year follow-up than those who took time away.  Sleep and performance improve after a vacation as well: Research commissioned by Air New Zealand found that people averaged nearly 20 more minutes of quality sleep after they returned home \u2014 and their performance levels were 25% higher (based on measurements made in the study with a handheld device that gauged alertness and reaction time). If it&amp;#039;s hard for you to get away, you may need to redefine what &amp;quot;getting away&amp;quot; means. A weekend reading a novel or even just a few hours lazing over garden catalogs while sipping herbal tea can give you the break you need. So can indulging in TV mind candy like a mini marathon of Project Runway reruns.  One extremely refreshing getaway is meditation \u2014 and best of all, you don&amp;#039;t have to pack for it. &amp;quot;Meditation is a way of calming your body down and blunting the stress response. It can get those endorphins flowing so you&amp;#039;re 20 times more productive during the day,&amp;quot; says Dr. Orloff. And it needn&amp;#039;t be a long session (see ). You may also enjoy a health bonus: Though it&amp;#039;s very preliminary, research from the University of California, Davis, suggests that regular mindfulness meditation may slow the rate of cellular aging \u2014 potentially giving you more precious time than you ever dreamed of.  ENERGY NOW! There&amp;#039;s always coffee (frequent small shots work better than gulping a grande to keep you charged), but here are some other quick fixes for a temporary slump: \u2022 A nap For best results, nod off for 20 minutes between 1:00 and 3:00 in the afternoon. Studies by UC Riverside researcher Sara Mednick, Ph.D., author of Take a Nap! Change Your Life, and others have found that a short nap that ends before you drop into deep sleep is the most refreshing and makes you most productive afterward.  \u2022 Exercise There&amp;#039;s nothing like putting on your sneakers and heading out for a brisk walk when you&amp;#039;re tired. That&amp;#039;s right \u2014 nothing like it. Many studies have confirmed that walking, jogging, or lifting a few weights can counteract fatigue on the spot. Getting rid of it in the long term requires a daily dose of movement. \u2022 Sunlight You know that going outside improves your mood; a dose of sun also may ramp up alertness and cognitive agility, a University of Alabama study has confirmed. \u2022 Gum Maybe put this one in the &amp;quot;can&amp;#039;t hurt, might help&amp;quot; category: Research has shown that the act of chewing stimulates blood flow to the brain and also increases brain activity. In one Japanese study, participants who chewed gum twice a day for two weeks reported less mental fatigue than non-chewers, and were not as anxious or depressed. HOW BUSY WOMEN FIND TIME FOR FUN We asked our Facebook fans to tell us about new activities they&amp;#039;ve added to their already crowded calendars. Prepare to be inspired:  Jennifer Smialek &amp;quot;I volunteer for a group that helps homeless people by promoting confidence through running. It&amp;#039;s hard to fit the runs in, but the feeling of giving back is wonderful.&amp;quot;  Apuroopa Tipparaju &amp;quot;I give dance classes and now take classes, too. I find time by switching priorities for that day or week.&amp;quot; Hannah Tate Franken &amp;quot;As a vegan, I live with the stigma that I am weak, boring, and pretentious. I&amp;#039;m none of these, but I decided to prove that by taking up weight lifting.&amp;quot; Heather McKenzie Carter &amp;quot;I attend a weekly women&amp;#039;s Bible study class and fellowship. I feel so good being with these women.&amp;quot; Jenafer Lockwood Haddy  &amp;quot;My husband suggested I open a crafting business. Now, after my busy day with the kids, I spend time doing what I love, and that helps me relax.&amp;quot; Three-Minute Meditation 1. Find a peaceful place where you won&amp;#039;t be interrupted. 2. Gently rest your palm over your heart. Concentrate on a person, place, song, or memory you cherish. The idea is to feel love and to concentrate it as energy in your mid-chest. 3. Visualize any thoughts as clouds drifting in the sky. Let them float by and out of your awareness. 4. Observe the sensations in your heart area: heat, coolness, bliss, compassion, release of pressure, vibration. Over time and with practice, you&amp;#039;ll feel the positive energy in your chest that will flow into your body. Adapted from Emotional Freedom by Judith Orloff, M.D. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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