Why You're Always Tired (And a 6-Minute Practice That Could Shift Everything)

We’ve been told for years that pushing harder is the answer.

Work harder. Hustle more. Do everything, be everything.

And when that didn’t work, we were told to swing the other way; to rest more, take more time out, slow everything down.

But what if both of those are missing the point?

It's not about doing more or doing nothing. It's about doing things with intelligence.

There’s a principle in physics called The Principle of Least Action, and it might just be the thing that changes how you live.

It states that nature always chooses the most efficient path. Not the easiest. Not the laziest. The most intelligent.

In nature, this principle is everywhere.

A river doesn’t carve its path by rushing in every direction. It finds the most efficient route through rock and soil, the one that requires the least resistance and leads to the greatest impact.

A plant doesn’t grow by forcing itself upward. It moves steadily toward light, using only the energy it needs.

Birds in flight don’t flap their wings constantly. They alternate flapping with gliding, riding air currents to conserve strength for when it’s truly needed.

This is not laziness. This is precision. This is nature using energy wisely, not wasting it on what doesn’t serve the bigger picture.

And when we apply this principle to our own lives, our movement, our breath, our choices, we start to see that less effort doesn’t mean less power.

It means refined effort. It means choosing alignment over exhaustion. It means recognising when we’re doing too much, and learning to do just enough, well.

This is what the Yoga Sutra means when it says Sthira Sukham Asanam: that the seat (or the posture, and by extension, the way we live) should be both steady and easeful. Strength with softness. Effort with grace.

You feel this in your body when something clicks into place and the breath flows freely.

Let’s look at a simple example: lifting your arms overhead.

If you’re like most women, especially those juggling a million things, your shoulders hike up toward your ears before you even notice. The upper traps kick in, the neck tightens, and by the end of it, you're wondering why you have a headache.

But if you pause… feel into your body… and intentionally soften the shoulders down your back, you create space. You lengthen the neck. You let the arms lift without dragging the tension of the world with them.

You’re still reaching your arms up, just with more intelligence and less strain. 

This is what it means to conserve energy. Not by doing less, but by doing what’s necessary, and nothing more.

Another example is core strengthening exercises. I get told all the time by students that their back hurts and they can't do core exercises well. That's because of overusing the muscles that don't need to be so tense. Your core is more than just your lower back and when your foundations are shaky, your back suffers.

Or in breathwork practice, where the chest heaves but the ribs and belly stay frozen. The diaphragm, which should expand and contract with each breath, doesn’t get to move freely. Instead, we try to force a deep breath by tensing the neck, shoulders, even the face and create more strain in the very moment we’re trying to relax. That’s why deep breathing sometimes feels hard because it’s not deep, it’s just forced.

And of course, in our daily lives, where we just do too much and have nothing left to show for ourselves.

So let me ask you, how’s the over-efforting, rushing, and piling more onto your plate been working for you? Because if it actually worked, you’d be thriving, right?

Instead, we’re depleted. Tired. Strung out. And somehow still not “there yet.”

So maybe it’s time to try a different way.

To pause. To feel where you’re adding more tension than needed. To move from your centre. To breathe like it matters. To choose how you show up, not just that you do.

Because effort isn’t the problem. It’s the quality of it.

And to support you with this, I’ve created a short guided breath awareness practice, designed to help you restore your energy naturally, reconnect with your body, and soften where you’re unconsciously gripping.

Grab your headphones, press play, and take six minutes to return to yourself. Let this be a little pocket of stillness in your day. 

You can also download it here and save it to your device to listen to anytime.

Because your energy is precious. Let's use it like it matters.