🌅 💪🏻 5 Tips To Boost Your Energy 🧠 👀

Do you tend to struggle with low energy levels and the frustration that comes with not being able to achieve everything you would like to in a day? Do you often feel tired and wish you could be more energetic and able to take better advantage of your time? Do you have spells of tiredness or lack of energy, often at the worst possible times, just when you want to get things done?  Two of the biggest complaints I hear these days are

1) I don’t have enough time and 2) I don’t have enough energy.  

Like any feeling, we don’t just wake up one morning and have “energy’ we have to generate energy.  The good news is there are some daily practices within your control that can help improve your mental, physical, emotional and spiritual energy. Studies show that when you feel energetic, you feel much better about yourself. On the other hand, when you feel exhausted, everything feels like a chore and hence you may feel overwhelmed and burned out.

We’re constantly on the run, trying to juggle all the things we have to do with all the things we want to do. We’re constantly trying to balance active social/family lives with dynamic work lives. And then what about personal health and fitness? Oh, and don’t forget our spiritual / personal growth! The dog needs walking, the goldfish needs feeding. When did you last change the oil in the car?

Yep. The energy crisis has a lot of people running on fumes with personal energy shortages that some people try to store up with vitamins, lattés and “power drinks.”  

The reasons why you may feel tired and depleted of energy can vary from a lack of sleep or dealing with stress at work,  having to work on too many complex tasks, balancing conflicting priorities to living with a chronic condition or following treatment for a chronic disease.  While dealing with fatigue caused by a chronic condition may be more difficult, forming some good lifestyle habits can help you to maximize your energy levels on a day-to-day basis. Here are some of my favourite tips on how to feel more awake and alert and how to generate and boost your energy:

1. Get Up and Move

Even a quick ten-minute walk will increase your energy and boost your mood. This really works! Try it! People often say they’re too tired to exercise, but in fact, unless you’re exercising at a very intense level, exercise tends to boost energy rather than deplete it. Sometimes, in the middle of the work day, I start to feel sluggish and my brain can “shut down.” At those times, I find it useful to get up from my chair, stretch a little, walk around the home office, and then continue work at the standing desk.

A little movement helps to revitalize me, and no wonder. As specialists from the Harvard Medical School explain in their dedicated report, although exercise may not be the first thing that you’ll want to do when feeling depleted of energy, it stimulates your body and mind in some vital ways. First, they write, in any form of exercise, at cellular level, more energy-producing units form in your muscles, so that your body may sustain the activity.

Exercise also “increases your body’s oxygen-carrying capacity” and boosts circulation, so said oxygen will reach and “feed” all your body parts sooner. Moreover, it stimulates the release of stress hormones — in moderation — which make you feel more energized and alert.

The most common finding in neuroscience studies looking at the effects of long term exercise is improved attention function dependent on our prefrontal cortex you not only get better focus and attention but the volume of the hippocampus increases as well and the most transformative effects is its protective effects on your brain.  Studies have proven that a single workout immediately effects your brain by increasing your levels of neurotransmitters like dopamine serotonin and noradrenaline – and scientists say that one workout can shift and focus your attention which will last for at least two hours as well as improve your reaction times.

You don’t have to spend a lot of time worrying about this. When it comes to exercise and energy, it’s hard to go wrong — and you don’t have to run for miles or work out to the point of exhaustion to start reaping benefits. Recent studies involving hundreds of participants over a period of 15 years confirms that doing just half an hour of light aerobic exercise (going for a wee walk,) every day will help you to stay healthy, and it will bring long-reaching profit.

2: Connect

Reach out and connect and Talk to family and friends. We get a real charge from connecting with other people. Especially now as we are all locked down and dispersed everywhere some of us are isolated considerably... There were moments during lock down there were my breath was so bad I hadn’t spoken to anyone in ages! I’ve noticed that if I’m feeling low, and then have a video call , I walk away feeling much more energetic. Reach out if you need a boost. This is true for introverts and extroverts alike.

3: Nutrition

We all know and have said we are what we eat but I prefer we are what our body can absorb. If we are eating the right things but feeling stressed or emotionally toxic about it then we are not necessarily getting the benefits. What we put in and on our body will affect our body’s fundamental frequency at a cellular level. For instance, if your diet is mostly made up of foods with low megahertz like meats and processed foods, your overall body frequencies and cellular energy will be lower. Over time, your body will began to be hospitable to bacteria, viruses and pain normally kept in check by proper body chemistry. There are many things that will increase your cellular energy, raising your frequency, keeping your body healthy. A healthy balanced diet high in raw plant material, healthy fats, grains, nuts, seeds and proteins is critical to cellular vitality. 

4:  Give Your Head Space

One of my favourite Northern Ireland Sayings: “give my head peace”...  which means stop bothering me or "leave me alone".. This is so important folks... we need space and time for our heads to find peace.. Hence the huge rise in the practice of yoga, mindfulness and meditation as they have been proven to help to boost your energy levels. This is because these practices focus on techniques — such as mindful breathing — that aim to promote a state of calm.

They also help you to fend off stress and fatigue.

So, if your fatigue is due — at least in part — to increased stress, taking up meditation, yoga or mindfulness practices as a routine “self-care” approach can help you to become more resistant to stressors. One study from last year found that people who practice meditation and yoga often seemed to have better immune systems and to have developed resilience in the face of stress and anxiety. Another study saw that engaging in just 25 minutes of yoga or meditation can boost the brain's executive functions, cognitive abilities linked to goal-directed behaviour and the ability to control knee-jerk emotional responses, habitual thinking patterns and actions. In essence it helps peoples’ mood, as well as their energy levels as well as  improving resilience to stress, reductions in anxiety and improvement in the symptoms of depression.   

Think of meditation as a break or a reset – like when you shake a snow globe and leave it to settle ... you are letting your thoughts just float around and take time to settle and calm down. One of my favourite apps to use is Calm where they have some free guided meditations you can listen to... Give your head space to reset and recalibrate...   

5. Get enough sleep.

If the alarm blasts you awake every morning, you’re not getting enough sleep—and it matters. Most adults need at least seven hours each night. Don’t underestimate sleep. It’s vital to make sure that you get enough good-quality sleep at night to prevent fatigue or recover from the effect of tiring or stressful activity throughout the day. Getting enough sleep should be a top priority.

Although this may be the most obvious advice, many of us often underestimate the impact that shortened sleeping time, or disrupted sleep, can have on our energy levels and health and well-being, in general.

Research has associated disrupted sleep with neurodegeneration, mental health problems, and increased predisposition to worry. How much sleep we need largely depends on our age and some other factors. However, on average, adults should sleep for around 7–8 hours per night in order to feel refreshed.

In order to get a good night’s sleep, we should form a helpful routine. This includes going to bed at roughly the same time each night and getting up at roughly the same time every morning.  Avoid screen time before bed, as this interferes with your natural body clock, leading to a state of alertness that will keep you awake even if you are tired and would like to sleep.

In short, the key takeaway from this Spotlight is that if you lack the energy that you think you should have, make sure that you familiarize yourself with your own needs and prioritize them.

Caffeine might help you to feel more alert in the short-term, but there are no shortcuts for keeping your energy resources well stocked. So, it’s best to form healthy habits that will help you to cope with stress and avoid energy depletion.

So if you do these 5 things, you will start to boost your energy

Everything is topsy turvey right now with the uncertainty, the increased screen time with working from home, less movement with our more sedentary lifestyle – most working from home or less interacting with others...  With the change in season with darker nights coming in for some of us, this is a time for us to start working on generating more energy and put in the effort to start some new daily practices that can help improve your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual vibrancy. Just take one of these tips and work on it... Share this with someone setup an accountability partner to share the journey with .

Personally, my best habit is ensuring my environment is setup for me to win   - enlist help with others, daily habits and routines. If you want to drill down in more detail you can Download our  "4x4 Energy and Focus Boost Blueprint" for Free  https://www.cimaomega.com/pl/213879 

1: Get Up And Move

2: Connect

3: Nutrition

4: Give Your Head Space

5: Get Enough Sleep

Remember the higher your energy level the more efficient your body the more efficient your body the better you will feel and the more you will use your time better to focus and produce the results you want.

Enjoy folks, thank you for joining me please share this blog post if it resonated with you or if you think it will resonate with someone else. See you on the next episode until then, stay safe, keep learning and unlocking your potential one day at a time.