Risk & Business Magazine McFarlan Rowlands Magazine Fall 2017 | Page 31

DR. HEIDI HANNA J ust as your mind finally exhausts its relentless efforts to mentally prepare you for the day ahead, you are jolted awake by an alarm clock with a groggy awareness: there is not enough time in the day to get it all done. This seemingly simple thought shifts your brain-body chemistry into a state of survival, energizing only the most critical elements of your operating system. Yet, when moments become available for us to rest and recharge, we find ourselves restlessly stirring, reaching out for something to “kill time” even though we complain there is never enough of it to begin with. Our deep-seated longing for information, connection and validation makes technology an open source for our drug of choice: constant stimulation that provides a temporary fix to override the exhaustion we fear will take us down for good. “If I do stop, what if I can’t start back up again?” WELCOME TO THE HUMAN ENERGY CRISIS—THE EPIDEMIC OF OUR TIME We’re running on empty, and the problem is not that we don’t know