Managing Energy Levels

The drawback with a long winter break is getting back into the swing of things once the new semester begins. For me, this is about managing energy levels. While I came into work on a regular schedule several weeks before the start of classes, much of my time was spent sitting in my office in front of my computer. I was either preparing for classes, reading or writing. There were hardly any meetings to attend. Every semester, my teaching schedule is a little different. This semester I’m teaching on MWF mornings (starting at 8am). That’s also when I hold chunks of my office hours. In the (MWF) afternoons I have scheduled meetings with my research students.

I made it through my first full week of classes (last week). By mid-afternoon on MWF, I felt drained of energy. Students have been coming into office hours to get help on homework even in the first week (good for them!) so I’m basically engaged with students for a chunk of the day from 7:45am when I start chatting with the first few folks walking into class, until about 2:30pm. What seems to work is to have a good breakfast, teach my first class, then have a snack, before students start showing up for office hours. (This morning, they showed up before I had finished my oat bar.) Then I teach my next class, have lunch, and meet my research students. My students would characterize me as enthusiastic in class; but this means I expend a lot of energy in class discussions. Asking and answering questions during office hours, further drains my energy.

The good news is that my Tue/Thu schedule is much lighter. I have a couple of administrative meetings on Tue followed by another office hour block. I’ve purposefully kept my Thu free of office hours, although if a student finds me and needs help, I’m generally willing to oblige. (That’s the culture in my department, and I enjoy helping students learn chemistry, so I welcome them.) My goal is to spend chunks of Tue/Thu thinking about research, scholarship and creative activity. At least that’s the plan this semester, and so far it seems to have worked well in Week #1. Today, I was still feeling tired by mid-afternoon, but I feel a little less drained compared to last week. So I think I’m doing a better job managing my energy levels, i.e., I’m getting used to my new schedule.

As I was pondering how to manage my energy levels this past week, I was reminded of one of my research projects – exploring how a proto-metabolic system might arise from a bunch of chemical substances. This is the ‘metabolism-first’ approach to the origin of life, i.e., managing energy flow into the system to create dynamic dissipative structures (and by structures I mean networks of molecules) that ‘take advantage’ of non-equilibrium thermodynamics. It’s a fine line, though. Too much energy flux leads to a variety of unproductive side reactions that consume metabolic molecules without regenerating them quickly enough. But too little energy makes it challenging to maintain the system away from equilibrium. The molecules that make up a proto-metabolic cycle (or hypercycle, or even systems of hypercycles) are likely sensitive to changes in flux. Optimizing such a system requires exquisite managing of the energy levels of the individual molecules that are consumed and regenerated in these cycles. By that I mean, the molecules and chemical reactions involved have been honed over time by chemical evolution, to be dissipative structures in their given chemical environments.

In my second semester General Chemistry classes this semester, the first third of class is on chemical thermodynamics. This is followed by a short section on chemical kinetics, taking us to Spring Break! After we go through the basics of kinetics, my plan is to spend one class session talking about how thermodynamics and kinetics relate to the chemical origins of life. There’s a video I have my students watch before class so that they understand the difference between thermodynamic and kinetic control. (The key figure is shown below.) But this example is a very simple case – and one that will not generate a metabolic cycle. But if you imagined a cascade of interconverting structures with just the right energies and barriers, and the appropriate energy flow, you could create stable cycles – but they would be dynamically stable.

When the semester is in session, my energy and activity follows somewhat of a weekly cycle. There are energy highs and lows, and I need certain rest periods and energy boosters to get me through the turnovers. There are inputs and outputs, and the energy flux in my classrooms may vary depending on students’ participation in class discussions. Exams and events (Spring Break!) will shift these fluxes temporarily until the hum of the regular cycle picks up again. Efficiencies change when adapting to these variables. That’s what I’m trying to do in Week #2 – to adapt my energy levels so I am operating efficiently and dissipating my energy at a more sustainable rate, as I cycle through the semester.