Welcome everyone and happy Sunday! The other day, I took a poll on my Instagram to see who was feeling sluggish vs energized. I was feeling very sluggish so I wanted to see who felt the same way. After the poll ended, 86% of people who voted felt sluggish and 14% felt energized. I knew some people would feel the same as me, but I didn’t expect so many! Because of the results, I thought today’s post should focus on ways to boost your energy. Looks like we all need it!
I did a lot of research and picked out what I think would work best. There was some really good ideas and some really silly ones, but obviously I only noted those worth sharing . To keep it organized I filed these ideas into 4 categories: Activities, Diet, Exercise, and Sleep. So without further ado, let’s get started!
Activities
- Splash Your Face With Cold Water – The first activity that will help with energy and fogginess is splashing your face with cold water. I’ve done this the past couple days and it definitely wakes me up haha! I typically hate anything that makes me feel cold but splashing my face instantly wakes me up and oddly boosts my mood.
- Meditate or Stretch – As we all know, too much stress and being overworked can make you feel really tired and sluggish. So taking some time out of your day to meditate or stretch will not only boost your energy, but benefit your mental health as well! Meditating for just 10 minutes when you wake up or take stretching breaks from whatever you’re working on can pay dividends dividends in boosting your energy.
Diet
- Drink Water – When I say diet, I don’t mean that you need to lose weight or starve yourself with certain dieting, I mean to pay attention to what you’re putting in your body! One thing to do is hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. Drinking water has so many benefits, but the main one we are focusing on is that it improves brain function.
- One Cup of Coffee – Another tip to discuss is to manage coffee intake. You all know how much I adore my morning cup of coffee, but there is a limit on how much you should drink. With my research, I found that you should only have one cup of coffee a day and only have it before 2PM. Having more than one cup can make you crash more quickly than just one cup. Having one cup is basically the sweet spot.
- Eat Complex Carbs and Proteins – The last part of your diet to consider is what you’re eating in the morning. As emphasized throughout our lives, breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so you want to eat foods that will give you energy. I found that it is important to stray from the fatty and sugary foods because they take a lot more energy to digest. So for breakfast try to eat complex carbs and proteins. For example, oatmeal with fruit. I’ve eaten oatmeal with fresh blueberries for breakfast the past couple mornings and I haven’t had any early morning energy crashes.
Exercise
- Midday Exercise – Among my research, I found that midday is the best time to workout for energy purposes. Most of the time when we get fatigued, it’s in the middle of the day, which is when we want to take a nap. Although this is the time you won’t feel as motivated, it will provide the greatest energy benefit. I tend to do my workouts at night, but that’s because it usually makes me feel tired whenever it’s time to fall asleep.
- Short, Intense Workouts – This one is funny to me because Nick has always given me crap for doing shorter work outs, when in reality there’s a lot benefits to them. One being that you’ll still feel energized after doing a shorter, more intense workout. Lately, I have been doing the 21 Day Tone Challenge with Blogilates and I have actually loved them! Every day I do a workout ranging from 20-30 minutes depending on the workout for that day. Because they are short, I actually feel motivated to continue because they don’t take too much time out of my day. I also still feel energized and in a better mood after I do them. Any time I have exercised for a long period of time, I feel exhausted afterwards. So stick to the shorter, more intense workouts!
Sleep
- Go To Bed Earlier – Sleep is a HUGE factor in how much energy you have the next day. So it just makes sense that getting more hours will boost your energy. I know I’m a night owl, so I definitely need to work on this one. Especially since classes are about to start up again.
- Wind Down Before Bed – A couple activities you can do to help you wind down before bed is to read a book or listen to soothing music. The idea for this is that you want to do something that doesn’t take much body movement because when your body is still, it’s much easier to fall asleep compared to when you’re moving around. In addition, this will limit your phone usage before bed because we all know staring at a screen for hours does not help with catching Z’s. If you’d like, you can also check out my nighttime routine, which helps me get into the sleeping mode.
I hope you all enjoy the last day of your weekend. Here’s to more ENERGY in 2021!!
Kindly,
Ken
kindly, ken 