Gaining More Energy in Your Life
Over the decades, our schedules have become more packed, our free time minimized, and our stress levels have soared. You pack in as much as you can possibly try to get done in a day – from carpool and commutes to activities and the gym, not to mention hours spent working and sleeping.
With all of this wear and tear on your mind and body, it’s no wonder your energy level wanes quickly and is difficult to call upon when you need it most. The good news is, you don’t have to resign yourself to a life of lethargy anymore – you’re about to learn how you can refill your energy stores and tap into them throughout the day as needed.
Has Your Quality of Life Deteriorated Due to Fatigue?
When your energy is zapped, it makes it hard for you to want to do anything, regardless of how small the task may be. You feel so tired that you just don’t feel physically capable of lifting a finger.
Left unchecked, fatigue can interfere with your life. There are several symptoms that can occur and serve as a warning sign when the quality of your life has been affected because of too little energy.
When your energy levels are decreasing, one obvious sign is that you’ll start to crave more sleep. This is how your body replenishes your energy. Craving sleep is a sign that your energy level is not where it should be – and yet, oddly enough, many people don’t fill up their tank and instead keep running on fumes, getting only 4-5 hours of sleep each night.
You might also get easily winded when fatigue has a foothold on your energy level. While you can still perform certain tasks, when you do, the effort drains you and you find that you get tired far quicker than before.
You don’t have the stamina to keep going for more than a little while. Muscle weakness is another symptom that fatigue is affecting your life. You might notice that your physical strength has worsened and it takes twice as much effort for you to use your muscles.
Weight gain can be caused by fatigue. This happens because when you’re tired physically, you cut back on the things you used to do activity-wise and sometimes rely on sugar to give you a quick, temporary boost of energy to complete a task.
Because of your decreased activity, you’re not burning off as many calories as you used to. Problems with your memory are also associated with fatigue. You may develop brain fog, have trouble concentrating, or difficulty remembering things.
Lethargy can happen due to fatigue and it can make you feel like not only do you not have the strength to do anything but that you don’t really care. You’ve lost interest in what you used to do.
Physical side effects are common with fatigue. It can cause headaches because it can make you have trouble getting the rest that you need when you go to bed. But it can also cause nervousness or other emotional upset.
You might notice symptoms such as a weakened immune system. You’ll end up getting sicker easier and may have more trouble recovering. If you have trouble eating, that can also be a sign of fatigue.
When you get fatigued, it messes up your appetite. You can lose the desire to eat and be so tired that making yourself something or even going out to pick up food isn’t worth the effort.
A lack of energy can also take an emotional toll on you. When you get fatigued, it can make you feel like you’re a bystander in your life. You might feel like you’re not in control of anything and that you can’t or don’t want to make changes for the better.
Life is happening all around you, but anything that transpires isn’t because you put forth the effort. It simply happened and you feel like a witness rather than a participant. This is a common sign that something has affected your emotions or mental health.
You might also feel like you’re not present in your life mentally or emotionally. You’ve checked out. This happens because you don’t feel connected to what’s going on because the fatigue has taken over and it can make you feel numb.
Moodiness can occur when fatigue is present. Your mood can be fine one minute and then the next, you feel angry, sad, or anxious. You might also feel like you’re just overwhelmed with life.
There are personal and professional responsibilities, but it’s too much to deal with. You get through the best that you can, but it stresses you out. Fatigue can cause you to have lower self-esteem, too.
This stems from a lack of concern over your mental, physical, and emotional well-being. You’re just too exhausted. You may end up beating yourself up emotionally by engaging in negative self-talk, too.
When you’re experiencing this kind of fatigue, you may have an inability to calm your mind. Your thoughts are racing from one thing to the next. You can’t seem to concentrate or feel at peace no matter how hard you try.
If you’re fatigued, you can tell that the quality of life has deteriorated for you when the quick fixes that you once relied on are no longer working. Maybe you used to consume energy drinks to give you the pep that you’ve been lacking, but now whenever you have one, you end up experiencing a fast crash.
This happens because most of these drinks contain sugar, so you get a spike followed by a crash. Power bars may have once been your go-to method of dealing with fatigue, but now you don’t feel any different after having the same amount.
Sometimes, people turn to sugar in an attempt to try to beat the lethargy. If you did that, but now it’s not making a difference, it’s because your fatigue has deepened and reached the point where it’s beyond the quick pick-me-up that sugar gives the body.
Sneaking in a cat nap when your energy waned hits may have been what always worked for you. But now, no matter how many quick naps you get in, you wake up and the fatigue is still there with no change.
It could be that you’ve always relied on methods such as taking deep breaths. Breathing deeply gives your body more oxygen. This works to boost your blood circulation and you gain energy.
But when you reach a place where deep breathing isn’t helpful, it’s a sign that your body needs more help to overcome the fatigue. Relaxation techniques are known to be helpful when dealing with the kind of fatigue that saps energy.
This helps to relax the body, which eases tension, calms emotions, slows your heart rate, and lowers your blood pressure. Over time, however, you’ll find that fatigue stops responding to quick fixes. This means that you need to figure out what the root cause of your fatigue is so that you can address it.
Your Diet Can Drain Your Energy
What you eat matters to your body. The purpose of consuming food is to create energy for your body. However, not just any kind of fuel will work. You have to put in the right nutrition in order to get good results.
There are foods that will generate energy and also help keep you healthy at the same time. You need carbs. While there are plenty of diets and meal plans that watch the carb levels, you have to make sure that you’re not eating too few carbs.
This practice of eliminating all carbs can be as bad for you as eating too many carbs because your body uses these as the top source for energy. You just have to use carbs that are best for your body’s needs.
Some carbs are long-lasting and will give you energy for hours while some don’t.
When choosing carbs, you want the ones that are as close to the way they grow as possible.
The less packaging and processing, the better these carbs are for you. You also want to make sure that you’re getting plenty of proteins. If you don’t eat the daily recommended amount of protein, it can cause or worsen fatigue because this is used to help restore muscles and tissues and give you energy.
Protein also works hand in hand with the carbs you consume to help slow the fuel to energy process. This means that you not only stay full longer, but you also have a greater amount of energy that sticks around for a while.
You can find protein in foods such as lean meats, dairy, oats, beans, nuts, fish, and more. If you’re looking for a way to get some quick energy, then you’ll want to turn to fruit.
Choose items like bananas, oranges, mangos, watermelon, apples, and other fruits. On top of giving you energy, you also get a lot of vitamins and minerals as well. Just as there are foods that are known to give the body energy, there are also foods that can steal your energy.
One of these culprits is fast food. This can quickly deplete your energy because the greasier the food, the more fat it usually contains. When food has a high-fat content, it’s more difficult for the body to process it, which zaps your energy.
Fried foods are also high on the list of foods that can drain your energy. Most fried foods don’t contain a lot of fiber and some don’t have any. This lack of fiber, combined with higher fat content, makes the body have to work hard to get fuel from it and in return, it steals your energy.
Junk food of any kind can drain your energy. The reason behind this is because junk food is loaded with all the stuff that the body doesn’t need and these ingredients cause you to feel tired.
These ingredients are things like high-fructose syrup, sugar, and additives. When you consume junk food, your body gets little, if any, a nutritional boost from it. Sometimes junk food can contain a lot of sodium.
Many items contain enough sodium to equal an entire day’s serving, which can cause fluid retention and low-energy. Plus, all types of junk food cause your sugar level to quickly elevate.
When you experience this sudden spike in your blood sugar, you get a boost of energy, but it can just as quickly go away. When that happens, you end up tired, sometimes more than before you ate that item.
You’ll have to watch out for foods that claim to be great sources of energy but in reality, they’re anything but that. These so-called healthy foods can contain a lot of sugar, which can quickly lower your blood glucose and cost you energy.
Not all foods that drain your energy will be bad for you. For example, turkey is a good source of lean protein and it’s packed with nutritional value. But it also contains tryptophan, which is known to make you sleepy.
This amino acid by itself isn’t what steals your energy and makes you feel sleepy. It’s how it’s processed by your body. Once you consume turkey, the tryptophan gets to work boosting the amount of serotonin in your body.
When the serotonin gets this boost, it then causes your body to produce more melatonin, which is your sleep hormone. Besides turkey, pasta can drain your energy. Certain kinds of pasta are a simple carbohydrate.
These kinds of carbs are quick to get processed through the body so they give you a fast blood sugar boost followed by a drop so you end up tired. The way that you eat your foods can also drain your energy.
One of the biggest ways this can happen is because you might have the habit of eating too much food at one time. When you overeat, your body has to work harder and longer to process the fuel.
So instead of getting an energy boost, you end up experiencing an energy drain. If you’re someone who consistently experiences hunger often that drives you to overeat during the day, the best thing to do is to switch from eating three meals a day to eating six small meals instead.
What this does is keeps your glucose levels more even, which prevents a crash. Plus, it’s better for your weight and your metabolism to eat this way. Another way that your diet can drain your energy is if you eat too late at night.
Whenever you eat after you’ve had your third meal of the day or your sixth small meal, you can end up eating too close to the time that your body enters the circadian rhythm.
During this time, your hormones and chemicals are busy fluctuating.
If you eat during your rhythm, your body doesn’t take that fuel for energy. Instead, it simply holds onto it and you end up seeing higher numbers on the scale while still feeling very exhausted.
This is also the reason why your sleep gets disrupted. When you eat too late at night, it causes your body to work harder trying to process the food. Plus, eating and then lying down to go to sleep can lead to indigestion, bloating, or acid reflux, all of which interrupt your sleep.
Habits that Drain Your Energy
If you’ve noticed that you have a lack of energy, it could be that you’re doing something that’s causing this to happen. Check your habits to see if any of them can contribute to your energy loss.
One of these habits might be alcohol, which has a sedative effect. You might have some kind of alcoholic drink before you go to bed because you think that it eases tension and helps you get to sleep.
But actually, when you consume alcohol, it can disturb your rest because alcohol impacts the amount of stress hormone within the body. This means that after you fall asleep, your heart starts beating faster and your systems get a nudge to work harder.
In turn, you end up tossing and turning and have trouble remaining asleep. Consuming alcohol can affect your breathing rate and it can also affect your sugar levels. If you drink in moderation, the alcohol causes your glucose levels to jump.
This is why it’s bad for someone with diabetes to consume alcohol. It makes it harder to control the rising levels. But on the other hand, if you drink a lot of alcohol, you can end up bottoming out your glucose levels, and then it becomes an emergency.
It’s this swing in glucose levels that ends up stealing your energy. Different kinds of alcohol can have varying degrees of impact on your glucose numbers. This up and down path can steal your energy and interfere with your sleep – especially when your glucose rises and then drops.
Alcohol is also a diuretic. When you drink, it interferes with the hormone that causes you to stay hydrated. By impeding this hormone, you end up going to the bathroom more often.
This hormone suppression can cause you to go to the bathroom in the middle of your sleep cycle. This breaks your sleep pattern and causes you to have less energy the following day.
Sometimes, people have a few drinks during the day, not realizing that the alcohol content will affect them at that moment and still affect them well into the night. Once you have a drink, the alcohol hits your bloodstream.
From there, it impacts the GABA neurotransmitter in your brain. This transmitter is what communicates with your nervous system. When the alcohol impacts your GABA receptor, this is the step that causes you to relax, feel like you need to sleep and you experience a loss of energy.
But once the alcohol is processed in the body, it has the opposite effect of making you sleep. When the effects are over, you wake up. Smoking is another habit that can steal your energy.
You might think that the opposite is true, that because cigarettes contain nicotine, you gain energy – but that’s not true. While nicotine is a stimulant, it’s not a long-lasting one.
So when you smoke, you end up feeling edgy or wired, but that goes away quickly and leaves you feeling lethargic with little or no energy.
This is why people end up craving more and more nicotine. When the energy level bottoms out, you start to feel tired. What you’re doing by smoking is trading the body’s natural ability to create energy for one that’s a synthetic measure every time you use nicotine.
It can also interfere with your sleep because of the addictive nature of nicotine. While you’re sleeping, you may wake up desperately wanting a cigarette. Nicotine is also known to cause insomnia.
When you smoke, your blood doesn’t flow as easily, which means that you end up with less oxygen than the body needs to function well. As you continue to smoke, your body begins to experience oxygen-deprivation and fatigue among other issues.
The nicotine in cigarettes can also get in the way of how your body is able to use the insulin that’s produced and has been linked to insulin resistance. When your blood sugar levels get higher, you experience a greater deficiency of energy.
Besides smoking, you might have the habit of not drinking enough water. You may not even realize this because most people aren’t aware of what the mild dehydration symptoms are.
But being even a little dehydrated will steal your energy. While there are recommended amounts of water suggested, that’s not a guarantee – because everyone’s life is different.
You might need more or less than someone else does. The amount of water you need will change because you might be more active one day than you are the next. You have to figure in exercise and other activities when you’re trying to decide how much water you need to drink.
Keep in mind that any kind of physical activity impacts your need for water because you’re burning energy, and this can cause you to dehydrate. The kinds of food that you eat can also impact how much water you need.
The more salt you have in your diet, the greater the chance that you’ll end up getting dehydrated. It’s not difficult to determine if you need to add more water to your day. The first thing to remember is that if you feel thirsty, you need water.
If you don’t drink water when you feel thirsty, you end up feeling more fatigued as the day goes on. Feeling physically exhausted is a sign of dehydration and so is feeling sleepy, especially during the day when you’ve had plenty of sleep.
If you notice that you’ve started to hold onto more water and are bloating, that can be a sign that your body is trying to prevent the dehydration from getting worse. Though it sounds strange, if you have water weight, drinking more water can fix that.
The color of your urine can determine if you’re dehydrated. Your urine should be clear or a light yellow, the color of pale lemonade. If it’s dark yellow, that’s a sign of dehydration.
Headaches, mood swings, constipation, and having trouble concentrating can also be a sign of dehydration. To avoid having your energy stolen from bah habits, start to address them early on and you’ll see a quick change in how much extra energy you have to tackle your day.
Sleeping Affects Your Energy
Some people believe sleeping will always restore any energy drain that you might be dealing with, but that’s not always the case. How you sleep can affect your energy. You might be thinking that you’re going to sleep like you should and you don’t understand why it’s not helping plug the energy drain.
That’s because there’s a right and a wrong way to sleep. Your sleep environment has to boost sleep rather than subtract from it. That means wherever you sleep, it should be peaceful and quiet.
You can’t get a good night’s sleep and hold onto your energy when things are going on that impact your sleep. One of the things that can bother your sleep is when there’s any kind of noise.
This might be from a car outside, a noisy neighbor, a dog barking or something else. Even though you’re asleep, these noises can jerk you awake. If you live in a noisy area, you might want to consider investing in some sleep aids.
This could be soothing music or something that produces white noise for you. Your sleep environment should also be comfortable. This means that it shouldn’t be too hot or too cold.
When you experience a variation in temperature, it can cause you to wake up. If it’s too hot in the room, you’ll end up feeling stuffy and uncomfortable and it’ll wake you. But so will feeling cold.
You’ll wake up and want something to cover up with. If you get too hot or cold while sleeping, this affects your energy. You’ll also want to make sure that you have the right kind of mattress as well as the right kind of blankets and sheets.
A mattress that’s old can negatively impact your sleep and cause you to toss and turn because you can’t get comfortable. If you have too much light streaming into your room this can also cause issues with your sleep and lead to a lack of energy.
When it’s darker in your room, you’ll sleep better. So if you have lights from outside poking through your window, consider investing in some blackout curtains. Sometimes people can’t stand a completely dark room and need a light in order to be able to sleep.
If that’s the case with you, then use a soft light such as a nightlight. Keep distractions out of your room. Don’t keep things in there that cause your brain to have trouble shutting off.
Leave technology outside. Have discussions about relationships or bills in another room and make your bedroom your sanctuary. You don’t want to check texts or have phone conversations before you sleep because it’ll make you feel more awake.
It’s the same thing with playing a game on your cell phone. You’ll end up feeling too alert. You also shouldn’t work before sleeping. This can not only cause stress to build, but it also keeps you awake because it can stimulate the brain.
It’s the same thing with watching news before bed. Watching the news can trigger your stress hormones, especially when the topic is something that upsets you. This upheaval can make it hard to fall asleep.
Just like there’s a wrong way for you to rest when you do try to get sleep, there’s a wrong way when you’re waking up, and this can also affect your energy. If you hit the snooze button, you lose energy.
That’s because most snooze buttons operate on a five or ten-minute window. The alarm goes off and you hit snooze and fall back asleep. You think that you’re getting some extra shut-eye and that you’ll feel less tired once you get up for the day.
But the opposite is true. When you hit the snooze button, your body doesn’t enter into a restful sleep so you gain no benefit from those extra minutes. In fact, it only worsens the fatigue you might feel, and you end up feeling sluggish all day long because those extra minutes didn’t help.
Hitting the snooze button and then dragging yourself out of bed after it goes off a time or two later, gives you poor energy. You end up feeling like you’re moving in slow motion. That’s because the best time to get that morning burst of energy is right after the alarm clock goes off.
To break this habit and end the energy drain, stop having the alarm clock beside your bed. If your clock is within reach, it makes it too easy to hit the snooze button and keep that cycle going.
Move it across the room instead. Once you get out of bed, you’ll be more fully awake and ready to get started with your day. There’s a lot of scientific research that tells you to get enough sleep because it’s important to your health.
When you get the sleep that you need, it’s good for your body. While you sleep, your body works to repair muscles, boost your immune system, and more. But you can overdo a good thing.
So don’t fall into the trap of thinking if some sleep is good, then more would be even better. You can end up getting too much sleep and this is just as bad for you as not getting enough.
When you get more sleep than what your body needs, instead of replenishing your energy, it leads to low energy levels. When this happens, you don’t just feel drained at that moment, you end up feeling drained of energy all day long.
As a result of that, you’ll feel sleepier during the day. Then you’ll start to crave more sleep and it’ll become a cycle of oversleeping, having no energy, and wanting to sleep more.
Your Morning Schedule Can Drain Your Energy
Having an energy drain could be because of something that you’re doing during your morning routine. There are a right way and a wrong way to get your morning going and set the pace for the rest of your day.
When you wake up, your body isn’t fully charged. It needs time to wake, so take it slow. If you try to rush into things, you walk around feeling sluggish and half-awake. You might have a morning to-do list that seems never-ending, but even if you do, don’t launch right into doing tasks.
This isn’t restful and it doesn’t help your body to wake up. Plus, if you jump into everything before all your systems are firing, you end up draining your energy. Instead, you need to find a way to ease into the day.
Start by doing something that soothes you. This might be something like meditating. When you meditate, it chases away the morning sleepiness and lets you gradually feel more alert.
You won’t feel like you were jerked awake and forced to start your day when you meditate. Plus, this can set the tone for helping you handle any stressors that might come your way.
If you like herbal tea, start your morning by making sure that you relax and sip some of your favorite flavor. This action can calm your mind as well as relax you so that when you do get started, you don’t feel rushed or pressured to get going.
Take the time to stretch your body when you get out of bed. Stretching eases your muscles and gets your blood pumping. Make sure that you take the time to eat something you enjoy.
Sit down while you eat and don’t rush through it. Put on some of your favorite music that’s upbeat. This can help invigorate you first thing in the morning. Once you get out of bed, don’t spend a lot of time in your nightwear.
This can make you feel tired and drain your energy. In addition to what you do in the morning, what you don’t do can be extremely helpful. By avoiding certain tasks or issues, you can prevent your mornings from heading in the direction of an energy drain.
If you have something stressful going on in your life, your morning schedule is not the time to take that on. If there’s something that irritates you, you should avoid that until later in the day.
Not only will you be more awake then, but you don’t start your day out on a stressful note. This means that you shouldn’t immediately start handling your bills. Even if your finances aren’t an issue, the act of paying bills can put knots in your stomach.
This happens because of the stress associate with the action. For example, you try to log into a website of one of your creditors and the site won’t load. Or, there are problems logging in.
Or you get logged in and you see that your bill is much higher than it should be. You don’t know why but you don’t have time to deal with it because you have to get going. Or you do reach out to try and call a customer service representative and you get put on hold far too long or told that the call volume is so high it’s going to take a while to get through.
That problem will nag at you all day. You’ll wonder why the bill is higher. You’ll feel upset if you couldn’t reach anyone about the bill. If there’s a health crisis going on, dealing with it as part of your morning routine won’t make it any better.
That problem will still be there later in the day, but if you try to handle it first thing, it sets the tone of stress and energy drain for the rest of the day. Nothing can zap your mental or emotional strength as quickly as handling health issues can.
Avoid dealing with any emails that might come in. It doesn’t matter whether these emails are about good or bad things. It’s easy to get caught up in emailing people back. The next thing you know, you’re running late.
Or someone says something in the email that’s upsetting or dumps something in your lap that you have to deal with. Stay away from family drama in the mornings. When there are unresolved issues in a family, it can weigh on your emotions.
You’ll quickly get stressed or feel angry or sad about whatever is going on. Any type of stressful thing can quickly drain your energy. You don’t want to start your day off like that.
There’s a habit that a lot of people have in the mornings that’s a well-known energy drainer and if you’re doing this, then stopping it can give you back your energy. Never skip breakfast.
It doesn’t matter if you get up late and have to rush around in order to get out the door in time. Take a few minutes to eat something that’s good for you. If you don’t take the time to do that, you end up caught in a cycle.
You’ll have to have some caffeine in order to wake yourself up and gain some energy because your body must have the fuel it needs in order to stay alert and function. Otherwise, you’ll be dragging and have a hard time focusing on anything.
You’ll find that you end up reaching for something that’s loaded with sugar because you desperately need the energy that comes from a quick fix. But when you load up on caffeine and sugar to try and gain energy, it always backfires.
You’ll create a cycle that you’ll get caught up in. Plus, this type of routine causes a sharp rise in energy, but it’s not the kind of energy that’s long-lasting. If you handle mornings this way, you’ll inevitably head for an energy crash.
Lean proteins and healthy carbs are what your body needs in the mornings to function well. If you say that you don’t have time for breakfast, what you don’t realize is that you lose time later in the day because of the energy crash.
You’re not as productive as you could be if you take a moment to eat the breakfast that you need. Skipping breakfast causes your metabolism to slow, can affect your muscles, and can also make any stress you deal with feel worse because when you eat, the body gives you a surge of feel-good hormones that you’ll miss out on.
Exercise Can Give or Drain Energy
When you’re lacking energy, it can make you feel like you’re barely making it through the day. You might be someone who’s trying to get energy by doing things like using quick fixes such as caffeine or sugar.
Those habits aren’t good for your body and the kind of energy they give you isn’t the type that lasts. Instead of using a quick fix, you can turn to exercise for help restoring your energy.
Just as with the other things you may have tried, exercise can be used to give you energy or it can cause you to lose energy. The key to success with exercising for energy is to know how to use it well.
You’ll want to establish an exercise habit because it improves your blood circulation. When your blood circulates more freely, it carries oxygen more easily to your muscles, tissues, and organs.
When this happens, you automatically get a burst of energy and you feel better and more energized. The type of exercise that you use needs to be one that makes your heart beat faster.
When your body accelerates your heart rate, it pumps the blood faster, giving you a quick boost. At the same time that your heart is beating faster, your body is busy giving you a boost of endorphins, which are also known to elevate your energy.
One of the best types of exercise to do in order to reach this stage is cardiovascular exercise. The more cardio exercise you do consistently, the more energy you gain long term as well.
So you can actually jumpstart your energy the first day you engage in this type of exercise and then by sticking with it, you create an energy source that’s there when you need it.
Exercising for energy doesn’t mean that you have to go full speed ahead and exercise until the sweat is dripping off your body. Low impact exercise can be just as helpful for giving you energy.
Yoga is known to boost energy levels as well as calm stress and anxiety, so you get double the benefit from practicing this form of exercise. What you must keep in mind, though, is that you need to choose something that you like doing.
If you absolutely hate the exercise routine you’re trying, then all your efforts will go to waste because you’ll dread doing it. That will create a mental energy drain. So make sure that whatever physical activity you choose, it’s one you look forward to doing.
You don’t have to hit the gym if that’s not what you like. You can swim a few times per week or go for regular bike rides. You can jog on hiking trails or dance while you work at home.
You can go for a run with your pet or get involved with a group sport. Exercise doesn’t just give you energy physically. It also gives you energy mentally. Every time you exercise, your brain releases endorphins.
This makes you feel good and it also lowers your stress level. But on top of that, exercise clears your mind. You’ll notice that every time you engage in the physical activity that you enjoy, it’s easier for you to think.
You might feel as if while you’re excising, the cobwebs are being blown away and you’re able to see things more clearly. That’s because every time you exercise, your brain’s ability to think is sharpened.
In addition to that, you’ll feel happier, more at peace, and have a greater cognitive function. The reason this happens is because any physical activity helps boost the amount of blood flow that your brain receives.
In turn, you’ll find that you’re able to think easier and have a greater capacity to focus on whatever it is you need to. What you might not be aware of is that when you exercise, your brain is busy forming more neurons.
This is why you’ll find after exercising, you just feel more mentally sharp and have greater energy. Emotionally, exercise is a good strategy that you can use to calm stress.
People who have stress in their lives will always find that they feel depleted energy-wise. That’s because whenever you’re stressed, it drains your energy. The minute you begin to feel stressed, your muscles tighten up.
You might get a headache and start experiencing stomach pain and more. When you exercise, that activity ends the effects of what stress does to your body. Because it releases a natural pain killer, you’ll feel better – not just physically, but emotionally as well.
Because people feel better when they exercise, it can be easy to go overboard. You might think that if a little bit of exercise is helping you feel better, then a lot of exercises could give you an even greater boost of energy and emotional uplift.
But what you may not realize is that too much exercise is just as bad for your health and energy level as not exercising at all is. When you overdo it on the exercise, it steals your energy because it makes you overly tired.
You’re losing energy every time you exercise more than you need to. In addition to that, exercising too much can cause depression and anxiety. If you continually exercise more than you need to, you’ll lose more energy because you’ll begin to have trouble sleeping at night.
When it comes to exercise, you must have a balance. Do enough so that it’s good for your mental and physical health and gives you the energy you seek. Don’t use exercise as a way to avoid dealing with things.
Sometimes people exercise because they don’t want to think about harrowing issues. Since they get endorphins from the physical activity, this helps them feel better so they can start to crave exercise in place of fixing whatever needs to be addressed.
Work Habits Drain Your Energy
If you’re feeling exhausted a majority of the time, it might be because your work habits are causing mental fatigue and this can cause a loss of energy. If you’re at work all day concentrating on the tasks at hand and pretty much sitting behind a desk, it would be easy to think you’re not expounding much effort or energy.
But the simple act of not being as physically active drains energy. In fact, when you sit most of the day, you’ll end up feeling like you ran for miles and there are several reasons why this happens.
The big reason is because you’re just not moving. If you work at a desk, then you have a sedentary job and this lack of movement causes an energy deprivation. You’ll feel tired and sluggish because sitting still with minimal movement decreases the amount of blood flow and oxygen that you have circulating.
Once you move, this is reversed. You get the oxygen that you need to your brain and you get a burst of energy. You’ll feel more alert and able to concentrate once you’ve moved, even if it’s not a lot of movement.
Not having natural lighting near where you’re working can cause an energy drain. When you have to do your work while relying only on artificial lighting, it can leave you tired and drain your energy.
Studies have shown that there’s a link between the type of indoor lighting people are exposed to and how it can impact the circadian rhythm. Exposure to natural lighting helps you to stay focused and feel alert.
Plus, if you have natural light flowing into your workspace, it can lift your emotions, make you feel less stressed, and also make you feel energized. When you sit at your desk, you need to move and take frequent breaks.
This can help prevent you from getting overloaded mentally. Even if you have a busy schedule at work, you should still make sure that you intentionally move around every forty-five to sixty minutes.
Because it can be easy to lose track of time when you’re busy, set an alarm if you need to so that you’ll get a reminder. When it’s time to pause work, walk the hallways or go up and down the stairs to get your blood flowing and prevent that energy drain.
Perform stretching maneuvers every so often to help with alertness. Or, practice some simple office exercise movements. This will stop the energy drain and help you feel better.
When it’s time for lunch, make it a walking lunch. Eat something as you walk around outside or even in the building if the weather isn’t good. One work habit that you might have that’s stealing your energy might be that you’re doing all your tasks without moving.
Maybe you’ve developed the habit of using your wheeled office chair to slide over to the filing cabinet so that you can quickly get back to work. Instead of doing that, stand up and walk over to the filing cabinet.
There are many tasks that you perform during the day when you’re sitting down that you could switch and instead walk or stand. When you’re on the phone with a colleague or client, don’t remain sitting at your desk.
Get up and pace the floor of your office instead. If you work in an environment where you’re in an area with a lot of other employees and you have to remain seated, then do alternating leg lifts while you’re sitting and on the phone.
Or use a hand weight and alternate lifting that while you talk. You can also use ankle weights. Even this little bit of exercise can prevent the energy drain. If you need to communicate with a coworker, don’t just do what’s easiest and send an email or call them on the phone.
Get up and go find that person. Take the long way around to that department. See if you can bring in a portable standing desk to use instead of sitting down to work. If you can’t, then give up your office chair for an exercise ball.
Any of these actions can help stop the energy drain. If you need to have a meeting with someone else in your office, make it a walking meeting. Walk around the building as you discuss work or walk outside and do the same.
Multitasking might be one of your habits. You might believe that you can do it all at the same time and maybe you try. While you’re answering a text or email, you’re also researching a task that you need to do and reading what’s going on in the news.
What you don’t realize is that this habit is a huge energy drain for your brain. Any time you attempt to try to work on several tasks all at once, you’re losing focus and you’re less efficient.
This habit can cause both overwhelm and stress. You’ll also end up limiting your ability to make good decisions because your brainpower is divided. Research has shown that you can cut your energy in half when you practice the habit of multitasking.
This happens because the constant switching between things is an effort for your brain. This is why, when you’re busy, it can quickly lead to mental fatigue. You’re giving your brain too much to do at once, which is causing a huge energy drain.
People get into the habit of multitasking because they believe that to do one thing at a time takes more energy. But because your focus is all over the place, you lose more in energy than you gain back in the time.
Rather than multitasking at work, focus on completing one job at a time. Not only will you end up being more efficient, getting the job done well, but you’ll also protect your energy level.
Energy Boosters for the Afternoon
You’ve charged through the morning and you feel like you’re ahead of the game. You’ve been getting things done left and right, but the next thing you know, your energy has dissipated and you’re struggling to work up the energy to finish out your day.
This happens to everyone and can make you feel like the only thing you’re capable of at that moment is napping. You might feel as if you’ll never be able to muster up the energy to think clearly, much less get the rest of your work done.
Feeling this way is known as the mid-day energy slump. Though it happens to everyone, why it hits you can vary because there can be different reasons why it happens.
Sometimes this can be mental or emotional and sometimes it can be physical. For example, if you haven’t been drinking enough water through your morning, by the time the afternoon rolls around, you’re dehydrated.
When you’re dehydrated, you don’t have as much blood volume. Since your blood is what carries oxygen to your brain, you end up feeling exhausted. Some people have a lot of energy when they start their day.
When you have that energized feeling in the mornings, it can make it easy to work for hours without moving because you feel so good and the progress you’re making keeps you pushing forward without hesitation.
By not pausing to take breaks, you’ve been slowly draining your energy so when the afternoon arrives, your energy has fizzled. When this happens, you can suddenly feel lethargic.
There are other factors that can bring on the afternoon energy slump. If you’re someone who has a big meal at lunch, that can cause it to happen, especially if you consumed a lot of carbs.
These things can affect your energy level. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t do something about this issue. You can stop the energy drain by learning to create good habits.
Start by taking care to make sure your body can produce the energy it needs. When you’ve been struggling with afternoon slumps, turn to vitamins. You can head off the afternoon slump by making sure that you’re taking a multivitamin.
Some people who experience energy loss have it because their vitamin levels, especially the important Bones, aren’t high enough. You need these vitamins to help with your blood so that you get the right amount of oxygen.
Plus, B vitamins help to combat fatigue. If you haven’t been in the practice of taking a vitamin, it might be several days before you’ll notice a difference, but it will happen. Besides taking a multivitamin, deep breathing exercises can help give you a boost in energy.
When you don’t breathe deeply enough, your body doesn’t have the right ratio of oxygen to carbon dioxide. If you’re working hard or stressed at work, you might not realize it, but you might be taking shallow breaths rather than breathing well.
You need deep breathing to help your heart rate and your circulation, which gives you energy. Draw in a deep breath through your nose, then slowly let it out a few times during the day whenever you start to feel like you’ve lost energy.
Short meditation can also help to boost your energy. When you practice meditation, it helps with your brain’s cognitive ability and boosts the amount of energy that you have.
The reason that this occurs with meditation is because you breathe in more oxygen, you change your mind’s focus and you get a boost of endorphins.
A great way to get an energy boost for the afternoon is to get a snack. The food that you eat fuels your physical body, but it also fuels your mental energy. When you’re feeling like your energy starts lagging in the afternoon, that’s a clear signal that your body has run low on fuel.
When you have a snack, you replenish the energy that your body and your brain has used up until that point. But that doesn’t mean that just any kind of snack will do. You’ll want to stay away from the vending machine.
The snack offerings in it are high in refined carbs, sugar, and fat – none of which offer you a lot of nutritional value. Plus, whatever energy you get will be a fast spike and then a quick drop.
You’ll end up feeling even more drained later on after you have that type of snack. Make sure that you have a healthy snack instead. This might require some planning on your part, and you might have to bring food from home to keep at work, but it’ll be worth it.
One of the best kinds of snacks to have to boost your energy is to eat a piece of fruit in combination with some protein. When the afternoon slump has taken your energy, it’s time to get going.
Get away from your office or cubicle or wherever your work station is and go for a walk. No matter what type of work you do, your job can be mentally tasking. This is what can start and prolong an energy drain in the afternoons.
Though physical exercise can help, what you need is a mental break. Instead of using this brief time away from work to do something like take a smoke break or hit the vending machine, walking is a healthy alternative.
It doesn’t matter if you can only walk for five or ten minutes. You’ll find that the short break does wonders to boost your energy level. The key to remember is that when you feel this lack of energy, don’t just ignore it. That will only lead to a greater energy loss.
Use Natural Energy Boosts
It can be tempting when you’ve been struggling to gain energy to turn to methods that aren’t that good for you or that rely on a quick way to deal with the lethargy. But you’ll want to avoid doing that.
These methods won’t give you what you’re looking for. In fact, these things usually end up making your energy level worse rather than better. If you want to boost your energy, then you’ll want to look for natural ways, because this is what’s best for your body and lasts longer than any artificial or unhealthy means.
Many people are stuck inside for long periods of time. Working inside and then coming home and staying inside can quickly drain energy. Take the time you need to get outside no matter where you are.
Do this at least once a day. When you need energy, getting outside and being in nature revitalizes your energy stores. Research has shown that when you’re outside, you can get the same kind of energy pick-me-up that you get from drinking coffee.
You’ll end up feeling more energized after being outside than you did when you stayed indoors. Even spending as little as ten to fifteen minutes outside can make a big difference in your energy level.
You’ll notice that your concentration has improved when you spend time outside and you’ll also notice that being outdoors is just more fun than being inside. This makes you experience more positive feelings, which also boosts your energy.
When you’re out in the sunlight, your body produces more serotonin. You might think of this neurotransmitter as having to do with lifting your mood. It’s true that it does this, but serotonin is also known to raise energy levels.
In addition to producing more serotonin, being outside in the sunshine also gives you vitamin D. You need this vitamin for strong bones and even a small amount of sunlight can help your body get a full amount of vitamin D.
But it’s just not strong bones that this important vitamin helps with. It works in the cells to raise your energy levels and this can help you stay energized throughout the day. You don’t have to spend several hours out in the sunshine, either, to get this benefit for your body.
Even just 15 minutes of it can significantly alter your energy level and give you the boost that you need. When you’re outside, you’re in the fresh air, and this relaxes stress. That’s because breathing in the fresh air can cause serotonin levels to go up.
Plus, the scents of the outdoors work as natural aromatherapy to also relax the stress that you feel. The fresh air helps you to feel more alert and gives you energy, too – and because it’s a natural energy, the level will stay raised throughout the day.
Music is something that you can use as a natural energy booster. That’s because music can instantly improve your mood. The reason this happens is due to the tempo of the music.
It has the ability to get you fired up because as the music tempo rises, so does your heart rate. You end up with better blood circulation, more oxygen and you feel better. Try putting on some music that you enjoy, and you’ll notice that your body automatically wants to start moving along with the music.
When you’re moving, you’re getting exercise, which always boosts energy. You’re also moving in a way that’s fun as well as freeing. Dancing in the moment always makes you feel carefree.
When you exercise, it can take away anger or sadness and make you have a more positive outlook. Plus, it lowers stress because it calms frazzled nerves when you get upset or anxious.
When you listen to music, it can help you take a step back from any issues that you might be having and allows you to put things in perspective. You’ll be able to think things through more clearly once your emotions are calmed and you have more energy.
Listening to music gives you a mental break from whatever it is that’s going on. If you’re at work, music can help give you a boost because it allows your concentration to pause on something that’s uplifting.
A simple, natural energy booster that you can do anywhere is to stretch. When you stretch, it immediately calms you and gives you a break from any upset or stress that you might be dealing with.
It lets you feel energized because when you stretch, you’re getting rid of any tension that you might have. Usually, people tense up when they’re dealing with home or work issues.
While this happens to everyone, what you might not realize is that having tension in your body is a quick way to lose energy because your body is under strain. When you stretch, this releases that tension and relaxes you.
As you stretch, you increase the amount of oxygen in your blood. This increase helps you to feel more alert and energized. At the same time that you’re getting this boost of energy, your body is also relaxing.
This part is what helps to get rid of both physical and mental fatigue. When you stretch, it gives more oxygen to your muscles, thanks to the improved blood flow. This makes your muscles feel good and relaxes them.
You don’t have to set aside a lot of time to practice a stretching routine. You only need a few minutes and you can do a mini routine. This will boost your energy quickly and you’ll feel better.
Ending Your Day with the Right Energy
You need energy during the day in order to be able to handle everything that you’ve got going on. But what you might not know is that it’s a bad thing for your energy to end once the evening hits.
In fact, if you aren’t careful, the way that you end your day can cause you to lose energy in a way that lasts through the next day and beyond. Most people are drained after work.
You’ve been on your feet or you’ve been mentally taxed all day. You feel as if you don’t have a signal drop of energy left in you. All you want to do is zone out. You want to ignore everything and everyone around you and watch TV or do something else that doesn’t cost you any physical or mental power.
You might not think that you could do anything physical, even if you wanted to because that’s how tired you feel. So you end up sitting and this is the wrong thing to do. People do it because it’s a common myth that sitting can restore your energy or keep it from draining away.
The truth is that if you go home after work and all you do is sit, it only further depletes your energy. Sitting around after work makes you feel so tired that you can barely function.
You might turn to bad habits like drinking alcohol because you feel like that would help you to zone out and regain energy. It won’t. You’ll only feel worse. The problem with the feeling that drained and going home after work to sit is that you will not recover the energy that you lost because you’re doing nothing to help it.
When you do this, it can become a cycle. You get drained of energy, go home, sit, feel drained of energy, get up, and go to work and it just keeps going. You can reach a point of complete energy burnout if you don’t break the habit of sitting.
What you don’t realize is that the very thing you’re dreading, movement, is what will help you have more energy later on. That’s because movement boosts your energy and it doesn’t have to be a lot of movement or take a lot of time.
When you move, the movements you do can erase stress, calm your emotions and rather than adding to your exhaustion, it takes it away. Sitting doesn’t do that. So when you get done with your work and you’re in need of an energy boost, get moving.
Do something besides sitting and you’ll end your day with the right kind of energy.
Plus, this will carry over into the next day so that when you wake in the morning, you won’t feel drained and exhausted.
Sometimes work just takes everything you’ve got. You leave with barely enough energy to get in the car and head to your home. But on the drive, your stomach starts reminding you that it’s time to give it some food.
That thought might make you groan in frustration because the last thing that you feel like doing when you don’t have any energy is going home and figuring out what you’re going to cook.
Even the thought of popping something into the microwave feels like it’s too much effort.
When that happens, it can make it so tempting to hit up the nearest drive-thru and order whatever greasy, fattening thing is on the menu.
But you’re not helping matters. Rather than eating and restoring the energy drain, you’re actually making it worse on yourself. Loading up on fast food will steal your energy rather than give it back.
When you eat this kind of food in the evenings, your body has to work hard to digest it and this action requires energy. It’s also one of the reasons why many people end up feeling more tired after they’ve eaten fast food.
Instead of hitting the drive-thru after work, choose to have lighter meals instead of heavy ones. Yes, it might be a lot more work on your part and you might not feel like it at all.
It might make you feel grumpy and stressed at the thought of going home and having to put forth effort. But eating better will stop the fatigue and give you energy. Plus, eating a lighter, healthier meal makes it easier on your body’s digestive system, which means you’ll end up getting better rest at night.
When you have better rest, you end up with more energy. You can also meal prep on the weekends so that you have healthy, nutritious meals to warm up on nights when your energy is lacking.
Make sure that you end your day with only good habits so that you have the right energy. One of these habits is to exercise lightly. Some people don’t get to exercise the way that they’d like to because they’re so busy.
So they think they can make up for that by going home after work and following a vigorous exercise routine. They’ll do a long cardio session or a program that gets the blood pumping and revs up the heart rate.
If you do this, it’s not helping your energy level the right way because exercising hard only revs you up before bed. When you get revved up before bed, it’s harder to sleep.
This is because it raises your adrenaline level and can make it more difficult to quiet your mind.
Instead of exercising hard, turn to the kinds of exercises that are lighter and more gentle on the body. Choose exercises such as Pilates or yoga that are easy on the body and the brain. These types of exercises not only help your body to relax but restores your energy as well.
Gaining more energy in your life is a mixture of pinpointing the sabotaging habits you’ve adopted over time that hurt you, paired with energy-boosting improvements that top off your tank and allow you to live life to its fullest.
You can’t rely on anyone else’s advice who is basing their words on their own energy issues because everyone is different. Your habits and thoughts may vary significantly from theirs, and your body and mind may respond very well to things that didn’t help them in their efforts.
Make sure you test and tweak your strategy along the way to optimize the amount of energy you’re able to store up for times when you need it. You might find that eating breakfast and pacing on calls keeps you energetic enough to get through your workday, while improving your sleep hygiene and surroundings helps you sleep through the night. Track your progress and soon, you’ll forget what it was like to feel tired all the time!
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