Recharge, Focus, and
Build Your Capacity to Care
By Sarah Deane
Caring for others is meaningful work—but it is also energy-intensive work.
For healthcare workers and professional caregivers, the ability to show up with empathy, clarity, and steadiness depends on one essential resource: energy.
However, the data from Canada tells a concerning story:
- 60% of caregivers delay their own care because of caregiving responsibilities (Maple, 2025).
- 54% of healthcare professionals report constant high stress, and 84% feel emotionally exhausted (NUPGE, 2025).
- 47% of professionals report feeling burned out, with 31% saying they are more burned out now than the year prior (Robert Half, 2024).
Burnout is not a personal failure. It is a signal of energy depletion in systems that demand continuous output without sufficient renewal.
This article recaps our recent webinar on energy as the foundation of sustainable caregiving and how small, intentional shifts can help you recharge, focus, and build the capacity to care.
The Energy Imperative: Why Energy Matters More Than Ever
Energy enables every thought, emotion, decision, and biological process – from empathy to how efficiently your cells function.
When your energy account is depleted, even skills you already have, such as communication, perspective, and compassion, become harder to access. When your energy is well managed, those same skills feel more natural and sustainable.
After years of research and real-world application, one key difference consistently emerged between those who thrived and those who struggled: They actively managed their mental, emotional, and physical energy through specific, learnable behaviors.
Purpose alone, while powerful, is not enough to offset chronic depletion. Healthcare workers and professional caregivers often feel a strong sense of meaning in helping others. That sense of purpose can be energizing. But when energy is consistently drained, even purpose becomes harder to access. Without replenishment, purpose alone cannot carry the load.
Think of Your Energy Like a Bank Account
Every behavior either deposits energy or withdraws energy. And high-functioning behaviors – empathy, patience, good judgment, emotional regulation – require a positive energy balance.
The goal is not perfection or constant positivity. It is staying out of energy deficit and building up daily and long-term energy reserves.
To do that, we use a simple four-part framework:
- Limit energy drain
- Optimize energy expenditure
- Increase energy
- Build positive relational energy
1. Limit Energy Drain: Reduce What Quietly Depletes You
One of the biggest hidden energy drains is overthinking. In a personal energy quick quiz administered before the webinar, 100% reported overthinking to some degree, with a significant portion experiencing it strongly. Similarly, 83% report frequent distraction, which fragments attention and drains mental energy.
Overthinking isn’t a character flaw – it’s often the mind acting out of an attempt to protect you. But it comes at a cost.
A Simple Practice: The 60-Second Mind Purge
- Set a timer for 60 seconds or simply stop when your mind feels empty
- Write down everything currently in your mind – uncensored
Even if you feel the same emotionally afterward, this practice creates mental space. It reduces cognitive clutter and lowers the background noise your brain is constantly processing.
Reflection question: Where am I spending energy that doesn’t give anything back?
2. Optimize Energy Expenditure: Spend Energy More Intentionally
Caregivers are exceptionally good at putting others first. The challenge is what happens next.
Often, energy is directed immediately toward external requests and then personal needs are addressed only if anything is left.
A small but powerful shift is introducing “AND” thinking.
- Instead of: “I need to respond to this request.”
- Try: “How can I respond to this request and tend to my needs – at least minimally?”
This opens up a choice. It creates flexibility. It allows you to meet demands without abandoning yourself.
Reflection question: How can I better spend my energy today?
3. Increase Energy: Protect What Refills You
In an ideal world, we would all have time for everything that energizes us. In reality, demands exist. What we consistently see in energy-rich individuals is not that they do more, but that they protect a small, non-negotiable set of energy-restoring activities.
These activities are personal, feasible and often simple. For some, it’s a walk. For others, music. For others, a short period of zoning out.
For example, for me personally, a practitioner of energy management, 30 minutes of mindless television in the evening – not news, not scrolling – is essential. My work involves supporting people through high stress, anxiety, and depletion all day, while also engaging with large volumes of emotionally heavy data.
My mind needs strategic mindlessness – not more stimulation. Even during periods of intense life stress, that time was protected. It made showing up the next day possible.
From the personal energy quick quiz results we saw that:
- 70% report feeling unable to use time on what energizes them
- 74% report not practicing strong self-care
Reflection question: What simple, feasible thing could refill my energy tank right now? Start small. When stressed, it’s hard to see options. Remember, agency grows through achievable steps.
4. Build Relational Energy: Align Values, Voice, and Connection
Alignment between internal values and external behavior contributes to stronger relational energy.
When you cannot express needs, boundaries, or your truth:
- Energy drains
- Support is blocked
- Stress increases
From the personal energy quick quiz results, we can see that:
- 70% do not consistently use their personal core values consciously in decisions
- 52% do not feel they have a strong support network
- 78% do not feel they can say what they truly want
Before responding to a situation, ask:
- What matters most to me here?
- What response aligns with my values?
This is not about saying everything. It’s about choosing responses that reduce internal friction and align to personal values – because values conflict is hugely energy draining.
Reflection question: What do I need to say or ask for right now to protect my energy and strengthen my relationships?
Energy Literacy: From Awareness to Mastery
You cannot keep spending energy and hope to feel good or perform well. Energy must be replenished, renewed, and built.
What Happens When Energy Management Becomes a Habit?
Energy management isn’t about quick fixes; it’s about building habits and making small, consistent, awareness-driven choices that compound over time.
In our work, we’ve found that individuals who consistently practice energy management behaviors for at least 12 weeks experience meaningful and measurable improvements:
- 63% feel happier, more fulfilled, and more engaged at work
- 75% report being better able to handle challenging situations
- 85% feel less impacted by negative emotions
- 75% experience less worry and stress
- 50% report increased productivity and task completion
- 80% experience improved focus and greater control of attention
- 80% report being better able to set and maintain boundaries
These outcomes reflect more than short-term relief. Together, they point to emotional stamina, mental fitness, and sustainable performance – the capacity to keep showing up with clarity and care, even in demanding environments.
At MEvolution, we focus on helping individuals, teams and organizations understand and manage the one factor everything depends on: human energy. Through years of research and global application, we developed the Energy Management Quotient (EMQ) – the first scalable, science-backed assessment designed to reveal:
- Where energy is being drained
- How to optimize the energy you have
- How to increase energy
- How to strengthen relational energy
Our work is about moving from awareness to mastery and helping people become energy-literate so they can build resilience, clarity, and sustainable performance in both work and life.
In a time of rising stress and accelerating change, systems and technology alone are not enough. Results come from humans with energy reserves, not energy deficits.
And caregivers deserve energy, not just to care for others, but to care for themselves.
About the Author
Sarah Deane is a researcher, author, and founder advancing the science of human energy and performance. As CEO of MEvolution, she develops evidence-based systems that combine behavioral and cognitive science with artificial intelligence to help individuals and organizations measure, master, and sustain peak human capacity.
A former HP global leader in employee workplace experience, Sarah holds a Master of Engineering in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence and teaches at Stanford University Continuing Studies. Her work has been featured in Fast Company, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Thrive Global, Reworked, and SHRM, and she regularly speaks at conferences including SXSW, HRWest, and Gartner.
Connect with Sarah on LinkedIn.