5 Signs Someone Is Draining Your Energy (And What to Do About It)

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Your shoulder's tired, your stomach drops, you pause for a few seconds, trying to decide whether you have enough energy to answer. Nothing has even happened yet, but your body is already preparing for the conversation. Maybe you know the call will last longer than you want it to. Maybe you know you're about to hear the same problem you've discussed five times before. Maybe you're worried that if you say the wrong thing, they'll become angry, disappointed, or distant. We all know people like this in our lives. The more time you spend with them, the more exhausted you feel. We often dismiss those reactions because we don't think we have enough evidence to justify them. We tell ourselves they're going through a difficult time, or I should be more sympathetic, We worry that we're being impatient, selfish, dramatic, or unkind. We look for one terrible thing the person has done, and when we can't find it, we decide the exhaustion must be our fault. But what if the exhaustion is information? What if your body is recognizing a pattern your mind has become used to explaining away? And what if I told you that the stress created by those relationships is actually following you into your sleep, your thoughts, your nervous system, and potentially into the way your body reacts? How do you deal with that? age from 18 to 103, and nearly 30% of people reported having at least one hassler in their social network. Researchers collected saliva samples and studied patterns in DNA methylation, which can be used to estimate biological aging. The researchers found that each additional hassler in a person's network was associated with a 1.5% faster pace of biological aging and approximately nine months of additional biological age. Simply having any hassler was associated with a 2.6% faster pace of aging and roughly 15 months of accelerated biological age. The effects appeared particularly pronounced among people who reported having family hasslers. Now, I want to be realistic about what this study does and does not tell us. It found an association, but it did not prove that one difficult person, directly caused someone's body to age faster. Of course, the researchers acknowledged that other explanations may contribute as well. But the study does add to something we already know about chronic stress. Stress is not confined to our thoughts. Your body participates in every relationship you have. It responds when you feel safe, supported, and understood. And it responds when you feel criticized, trapped, or constantly on alert. Recently, energy vampires has become a popular term for friends who leave us feeling emotionally depleted. I wonder if even me just saying energy vampires brought a certain person to the front of your mind. Look, the person affecting your energy may not be cruel. They may not be intentionally manipulative. They may love you, and you may love them. I know personally that some of the hardest relationships to understand are the ones that contain real affection alongside recurring stress. So today, I want to help you when a dynamic is rooted in just ordinary relational friction, or when it has turned into something genuinely chronically stressful. We're going to explore five signs that someone may be costing you more energy than you realize. And for each sign, I want to give you a practical way to shift the way you respond to them moving forward. As you listen, try not to just ask, who in my life does this? Also ask yourself, have I ever created this experience for someone else? Most of us have drained another person at some point. We've dominated a conversation, expected someone to solve a problem we were unwilling to address, or become so consumed by our own pain that we forgot to ask about theirs. Self-awareness should move in both directions because healthy relationships are built by recognizing what we receive and what we repeatedly ask others to carry. Instagram teen accounts come with automatic protections that limit who can contact teens, the content they can see, and the time they spend on the app. Learn more about teen accounts and Instagram's ongoing work to protect teens online at instagram.com forward slash teen accounts. Let's get into the first sign that someone may be creating more stress than you realize, and it's that your mind begins to race in preparation for spending time with them. You know you're seeing them later, and part of your mind spends the entire day preparing. You anticipate which questions they might ask, which decisions they might criticize, and which unresolved issue they might bring up again. Maybe before a family gathering, you make a list of subjects to avoid. Before speaking to a manager, you rehearse every sentence because you know one expected word could change their mood. Before telling a friend about a decision, you prepare a defense instead of simply sharing the news. You're not preparing to connect with the person, you're preparing to manage the conversation. You're preparing to be honest with them. When your brain predicts a difficult experience, your body can begin preparing for it in advance. Your heart may beat faster, your breathing may become shallower, your muscles may tense, and your attention may narrow toward possible threats. The event is in the future, but your body begins experiencing part of it in the present. Think about how much time that can consume. A conversation may last 30 minutes, but if you worry about it, you'll end up wasting it. If you worry about it for three hours beforehand and replay it for two hours afterward, your body has carried a 30-minute interaction for most of the day. The true cost of a relationship is not always measured by the time you spend together. It can also be measured by the amount of mental and physical space the relationship occupies when the other person is not there. I see this happen most often in relationships where someone is unpredictable. One day they're warm, supportive, and generous. The next day they're critical, dismissive, or easily offended. You never know which version of the person you will encounter, so you monitor them closely and walk on eggshells constantly. That unpredictability can make a relationship difficult to evaluate because the person is not always hurtful. You remember the good days and use them to explain away the difficult ones. You tell yourself they can be supportive or they can be so fun. And that may be true, but the possibility of good traits does not automatically erase the strength. You can't always be the same. You can't stress created by never knowing what you're going to get. Psychologists sometimes use the term ambivalent relationship to describe a connection that contains both meaningful support and significant stress. These relationships keep us emotionally uncertain and we stay attached to what the relationship can be while continually preparing for what it sometimes becomes. It is important to say that feeling nervous before one difficult conversation does not mean a relationship is unhealthy. Sometimes discomfort is appropriate. The question is not, do I ever feel uncomfortable around this person? Ask yourself, why am I uncomfortable? Am I nervous because we have to have a hard conversation or because this person is consistently unpredictable? Am I preparing to communicate honestly or am I preparing to prevent that? Do I believe we can disagree and eventually repair or do I believe one wrong move will lead to punishment, withdrawal or chaos? Your body can alert you to a pattern, but it cannot always explain the pattern for you. A knot in your stomach is information, not a final verdict. It's an invitation to become curious about what you're predicting and why. The practical response here is to create a plan before contact. Decide how long you're willing to stay, which topics you're comfortable discussing and what behavior will cause you to end the interaction. Those three things. If the person repeatedly asks intrusive questions, maybe prepare one clear answer. a response, setting a boundary on your personal life. If the conversation becomes disrespectful, maybe decide how you'll pause it instead of improvising while you're overwhelmed. A plan cannot control another person's behavior, but it can remind you that you have choices. Anticipation is especially exhausting when you feel trapped. The moment you identify what you will do, what you will not discuss, and when you will leave, you begin returning a sense of agency to yourself. The second sign someone may be draining your energy is that you don't simply spend time with this person. You manage the entire emotional experience for them. You soften your opinions, change the subject when they become uncomfortable, and rush to reassure them when they're disappointed. Their emotional state becomes the central fact of the room, and everyone else learns to organize themselves around it. If they become angry, you immediately search for what you did wrong. If they feel excluded, you abandon your plans to include them. If they're disappointed by your decision, you change your mind. If they're unhappy, you feel you can't relax until you've made them feel better. Eventually, you can begin confusing emotional management with friendship. One of the most interesting findings in the PNA study involved the difference between feeling important to others and feeling that others depended heavily upon you. People who reported that others depended on them tended to report more hasslers in their networks, while people who felt important to others showed the opposite pattern. There's a meaningful difference between being valued and being made responsible. Feeling valued means your presence matters, your care is appreciated, and most importantly, your needs exist within the relationship. Feeling responsible means the relationship appears stable only as long as you continue to be there for them. If you feel that others depended on you, you tend to report more to them. Maybe you're the person who calms everyone down. You're the one who answers every late-night call, organizes every family gathering, or translates one relative's feelings to another. You're so capable that people begin treating your capacity as if it has no limit. What started as generosity gradually has become an expectation. Some people learn this role very early in life. If you grew up around an unpredictable or emotionally unavailable adult, you may have become highly skilled at reading small changes in mood. That sensitivity may have helped you feel safer as a child, but as an adult, it can cause you to assume responsibility for emotional situations that are not yours to control. You notice someone's discomfort before they name it, and you immediately change yourself to resolve it. Caring about someone's feelings is a beautiful part of friendship. Healthy relationships are not just about noticing how our actions affect other people, but the problem begins when their emotions consistently determine your behavior, while your emotions remain unacknowledged. The most useful practice here is handing back emotional responsibility without withdrawing compassion. You can say, I understand that you're disappointed, and my decision is still the same. You can say, I care about what you're going through, but I don't have the capacity to talk about it tonight. You can ask, I don't know what you're going through, but I don't have the capacity to talk about it tonight. You can ask, what kind of support are you looking for right now? Asking what someone needs allows you to consider whether you're actually able and willing to provide it. If you cannot provide it, that does not make you uncaring. A boundary is not a denial of someone else's feelings. It is an honest statement about your participation. When you give the person back some agency on what they need, it ultimately creates a healthier relationship for propel fitness water. With Gatorade Electrolytes, propel hydrates better than water to help you get the most out of your workout and get back to your best self. What propels you? Both of you. Now I want to move to the third sign that a relationship may be draining you. The more you try to help, the more helpless you feel. Maybe this person repeatedly brings you the same problem. You listen, validate them, suggest solutions, send resources, offer introductions, and help them make a plan. But every possible next step is immediately rejected. You recommend professional support and they explain why they cannot pursue it. You offer a practical change and they introduce three new reasons the situation is impossible. Each solution becomes another problem and eventually you begin working harder on their life than they are. The conversation may leave them feeling better because they have released their frustration, but you leave feeling worse because you have absorbed it. You carry the urgency without possessing any authority to change the situation. Then you feel guilty for becoming frustrated because you know the person is struggling. The cycle often begins with a crisis. They present the problem and you feel an immediate responsibility to help. You offer an idea, they reject it, and their rejection causes you to try harder. The more they resist, the more creative, persuasive, and invested you become. At some point, the conversation is no longer about their problem. It is about your need to prove that you can save them from it. This is the uncomfortable part we each have to examine in ourselves. Are they demanding that you fix the situation? Or are you volunteering because being the fixer gives you a sense of importance or control? I really want you to sit with that for a second. Sometimes we keep offering solutions because sitting beside someone's pain makes us uneasy. Advice allows us to feel active. It protects us from feeling helpless. But in reality, real support looks like respecting that your friend has agency. If you have offered the same advice five times, and they've rejected it five times, a sixth explanation will probably not create change. It may only deepen the pattern and keep both of you stuck in a negative place. So instead, try asking, do you want me to just listen? Or do you want some help thinking about what you're doing? Make them an active participant in the conversation rather than the recipient of your rescue plan. If you feel like you two are falling down a familiar cycle, you might ask instead, look, we've talked about this several times. What feels different today? Or simply, you can acknowledge, that sounds painful, without following it with 20 minutes of unpaid life coaching. I believe giving unsolicited advice is completely unnecessary. One of the simplest ways to do this is to ask, do you want me to just listen? Or do you want me to just stop absorbing? Another person's problem is to end your response with a question rather than a solution. What do you think your next step is? Who could give you the right support? What part of this can you control? Questions communicate belief in the other person's capacity. You can offer a hand without offering your entire body. You can sit beside someone without making their life your responsibility. And if you recognize yourself on the other side of this pattern, there is no need to become ashamed. But now, think about your recent conversations. Do you ask people whether they have the capacity to listen before you begin dumping on them? Do you show curiosity about their lives? Or does every conversation eventually return to your issues? The first step to resolving this is just realizing it. Now, before calling someone, you can ask yourself, have I done anything with the advice they gave me last time? You could also journal, speak with a therapist, or sit with the feeling before immediately handing it to someone else. Friendship can hold pain, but no friend should have to become your only place to put it. Now, I want to move to the fourth sign that you've got a hustler in your life, and it's that you consistently make yourself smaller around them. Maybe you receive an opportunity, meet someone you're excited about, reach a goal, or experience new success. But before sharing it, you pause. You realize this friend is not the person with the good news. You know they may minimize your update. They may warn you why it won't work. They may compete with it, or they'll redirect the conversation back toward themselves. You can predict the blank look, the skeptical question, or the immediate story about the time something similar happened to them. So instead of risking the response, you protect your happiness by keeping it private. Sometimes the pattern is obvious. You mention an accomplishment, and they bring up a bigger accomplishment of their own. But other times, nothing directly negative is said. You simply notice that your joy has nowhere to land. They don't ask questions, celebrate with you, or remain present long enough in the conversation. You leave feeling embarrassed for having been excited. Over time, you learn to edit yourself. You downplay your confidence, avoid certain opinions, and pretend that important things matter less than they do. You become easier for the person to tolerate by becoming less visible. outside the relationship may appear calm. You know which topics will trigger competition, which choices will invite criticism, and which parts of yourself make the other person uncomfortable. So rather than discussing that stuff, you just remove those parts from the relationship. The peace is real on the surface, but you are paying for it through self-suppression. You have to continually monitor your joy. You're present, but you're also watching yourself be present. This doesn't mean someone has to respond perfectly to every piece of good news every single time. We all fail to show up for people occasionally, and one disappointing reaction should not become evidence that the entire relationship is unsafe. Instead, look for the pattern rather than prosecuting one moment. Does this person generally seem excited when you tell stories? Do they listen to what's happening in your life and ask follow-up questions? Do they ever seem genuinely happy for you? Does this relationship make you feel happy? Does this relationship make you feel more or less like yourself? Every relationship brings out different parts of us, but a healthy relationship should not require us to consistently hide what is alive, hopeful, or meaningful within us. The way forward here is to stop seeking nourishment where it has repeatedly been unavailable. That does not always mean ending the relationship, but it definitely means developing more honest expectations about what this person can currently offer. You may love a family member. And recognize that they're not the first call for your professional news. You may value a long-time friend and understand they aren't the one to call about romantic relationships. This is not about punishing someone by withholding your life. It is about sharing vulnerable parts of yourself with people who have shown that they can hold them correctly. There are plenty of people who'll be happy for you when good things happen. And there are plenty of rooms in which you will be celebrated. So don't allow one or two hasslers, to make you preemptively shrink in every room. Their discomfort with your confidence does not make confidence arrogant. Their inability to hold your happiness does not make your happiness excessive. And if you recognize that you struggle when other people succeed, become curious rather than defensive. Jealousy does not make you a bad person. It may reveal grief, fear, or an unmet desire in your own life. But you can always feel envy and still choose generosity. Try asking one more question instead of shifting the conversation back to yourself. Say, "Tell me more," and allow their experience to remain the focus. Celebrating another person does not take an opportunity away from you. It strengthens your capacity to remain connected even when someone else is standing in the light. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. We spent so much energy becoming the best version of ourselves. Building better habits, showing up more fully, embracing mindfulness. But sometimes, the most purposeful thing you can do is just handle the thing you've been putting off. If getting your insurance sorted has been living on that list, State Farm is there to help you choose the coverage that's right for you. Go online at statefarm.com or use the easily accessible app to get help from one of their over 19,000 local agents. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Now, I want to talk about the fifth and final sign that someone may be draining you. And it's that, when your interaction with them ends, you continue carrying it. Pause for a second and think about the last time this happened to you. You return home from spending time with someone and part of you is still in the conversation. You replay what was said, analyze their tone, and overthink your responses. You wonder whether you talked too much or said too little. You feel guilty that you did not do more or resentful that you were expected to do anything. This is where the hidden cost of relational stress begins to fill in. Stress does not only come from what happens, it can also come from how long the experience continues within us afterward. Researchers often use the term allostatic load to describe the accumulated wear placed on the body as it repeatedly adapts to pressure. Our stress response is useful when it helps us respond to a challenge and then settle again. The problem develops when the response is activated too often, remains activated for too long, or never receives a clear signal that the threat has passed. The researchers behind the PNA study suggest that negative social ties may function as chronic stress, repeatedly activating stress responses and potentially contributing to inflammation and poor immune function. You may think the interaction is over because the person has left the room, but your clenched jaw, shallow breathing, racing mind, and disrupted sleep tell a different story. Your body may still be attempting to complete an experience your mind is struggling with. One reason we carry interactions is that we're trying to find the perfect interpretation. We believe that if we replay the conversation enough times, we will discover what they meant, what we should have said, or how we can guarantee a different outcome next time. Rumination feels productive because the mind is active, but the activity is not the same as resolution. Another reason is that we've not separated what belongs to us from what belongs to the other person. Their disappointment feels like evidence of our wrongdoing. Their anxiety becomes a problem we're expected to solve. So now knowing this, try to create a deliberate recovery ritual when you leave a difficult interaction moving forward. This is especially important if the person cannot be removed from your life. You may have to work with them, care for them, live near them, or see them at family gatherings. If exposure cannot always be prevented, recovery becomes part of the boundary. A recovery ritual does not have to be complicated. Take a 10-minute walk before returning home. Sit in your car and breathe slowly until you feel your body begin to settle. Move your shoulders, unclench your jaw, and notice where you're holding tension. When you get home, if your mind is still racing, I want you to pull out a pen and paper and write down four questions. First, what actually happened? Describe the interaction using observable facts rather than interpretations. Second, what am I feeling? Name the emotion without judging it. Third, what belongs to me? Maybe you agreed to something you did not want to do or avoided saying what needed to be said. Take responsibility for your part without taking responsibility for the whole relationship. And finally, what belongs to them? Their reaction, their assumption, their choices, and their emotional work belong to them. You can care about those things without carrying them as if they are yours to resolve. After you've written this out, write the end on the paper. Remind yourself you don't need to carry this forward. The mind often needs a deliberate signal that reflection has ended and the rest of your life is allowed to begin. This form of recovery does not solve the relationship, but it prevents one interaction from governing, but it also prevents one from moving forward. You are teaching yourself that another person may affect a moment without automatically gaining access to every moment that follows. 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There's something about gathering around food, making time for family, and being present with people that has stayed with me wherever I am in the world. And I think that's one of the greatest opportunities travel gives us. You don't have to come home and change your entire life. Sometimes you just bring back one idea, one ritual, or one new perspective that makes your own life a little richer. Travel can remind us that there are so many different ways to create a meaningful life. And when we stay curious about how other people live. We also learn a lot about ourselves. With the Chase Sapphire Reserve card, you get more value from seeing more of the world, including a $300 travel credit, access to award-winning lounges, and curated travel experiences featuring coveted dining and cultural events. Learn more at chase.com/sapphirereserve. Cards issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank, NA member FDIC, subject to credit approval, terms apply. After hearing these five signs. May be easy to start mentally labeling everyone in your life. You may think about the friend who complains too much. The family member who asks intrusive questions or the colleague who dominates every conversation. But we need to resist turning self-awareness into a trial where everyone who frustrates us is found guilty. The research does not say that relationships are bad for us. Decades of evidence show that strong social connection can support our cognitive health, physical health, and longevity. We know that loneliness and social isolation are also associated with serious health risks. The goal is not to create a life where no one ever disappoints, but to create a life where no one ever disappoints and no one ever disappoints. The goal is not to create a life where no one ever disappoints, but to create a life where no one ever disappoints, but to create a life where no one ever disappoints, but to create a life where no one ever disappoints, but to create a life where no one ever disappoints, but to create a life where no one ever disappoints, but to create a life where no one ever disappoints, frustrates, challenges or needs you. That life would not contain intimacy. Every meaningful relationship is going to require some form of emotional labor. There will be seasons when someone you love needs more than they can give. A friend may experience grief, illness, divorce or depression while you're in the happiest phases of your life. Healthy relationships are not perfectly balanced in every conversation. True reciprocity becomes visible across time. When you are experiencing chronic relational stress from a hassler, there are choices between unlimited access and complete removal. You can shorten a weekly call instead of ending the relationship. You can see someone in a group rather than alone. You can stop discussing the one subject that always becomes destructive. You can delay your reply rather than respond to it. You can delay your reply rather than respond to from urgency. Remember, boundaries are not just statements we make to people. Their actions we're prepared to take. You cannot speak to me that way is a request unless you know what you will do if they continue to speak to you that way. A true boundary is knowing that if you are spoken to that way again, you will simply end the interaction. A boundary does not guarantee that the other person will understand, agree or change. It just clarifies how you and your partner are going to respond and participate if they don't change. And their reaction to your boundary is not proof that the boundary was wrong. So the next time someone's name appears on your phone and your body responds with stress signals, pause. Do not immediately label them as toxic and do not immediately label yourself as selfish. Become curious about what your reaction is trying to show you. Ask yourself, what does this relationship repeatedly ask me to carry? Who do I become around this person? And is there a boundary expectation or pattern that needs to change? The people in our lives affect more than our calendars and our moods. They help create the emotional environment our minds and bodies live in every day. Some relationships allow us to breathe more deeply, see ourselves more clearly, and recover more quickly from the pressure of life. Others repeatedly place us on alert. Invest in the friendships where care moves in both directions. Be that person for others and let them show up for you. And where reciprocity is not currently possible, decide how much of yourself you can give without losing the energy you need to live your own life. Your energy allows you to love, create, connect and remain present. Protecting it is not a rejection of other people. It is how you make sure that your relationships remain honest and your care for others does not come at the cost of your care for yourself. Thank you so much for listening and watching. Remember, I'm forever in your corner and I'm always here for you. Ugh, I hate Mondays. Uh, Taylor Hanson? Sure, I'll try one. Mmm. Bites, ba-du-ba-dum-ba-bites. But Taylor Hanson's making my day way better with these new soft and swirly King's Hawaiian Cinnamon Bites. Taylor Hanson? Nice. Try one. Mmm. Don't you love 'em? Sweet, swirly, so good. Coca-Cola. For the big. For the small. The short and the tall. Peacemakers. Risk-takers. For the optimists. Pessimists. For long-distance love. For introverts and extroverts. The thinkers. And the doers. For old friends. And new. Coca-Cola. For everyone. Pick up some Coca-Cola at a store near you. Always rooting for you.