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Dr Mehmet Yildiz
10 Habits To Boost Energy
2021-02-20
Do you want to start your day with a surge of energy every morning?
I know the obvious answer is yes to this question.
But many of us suffer from fatigue and hardly have any energy to start the day. Waking up with fatigue is not fun. Starting the day having full of energy can bring joy and happiness. With a joyful day, we can overcome challenges better and produce more.
There is no secret to energy. It is all common sense revolving around good habits. Even though energy looks like a single entity, many factors can affect our energy production and maintenance.
In this post, I focus on ten broad topics covering several actions. Making these actions daily habits can help us sustain our energy throughout the day.
Energy is created in our cells via tiny organelles called mitochondria. These habits that I point out can maintain our mitochondrial health. Mitochondria are the energy sources of our cells. The denser and healthier our mitochondria, the more sustained energy we have and the happier we feel.
Even though I read a lot about these habits in the literature and learned from successful people, in this post, I reflect upon my experience.
When I turned these actions into habits, my fatigue disappeared gradually, and I never ran out of energy.
I want to start with sleep because it tops the list for me.
1 - Sleep
Probably you have heard about the importance of sleep many times. I emphasize it because I underestimated the importance of sleep on energy production and suffered a lot.
Having enough quality sleep is an excellent contributor to feeling healthier and energetic. The amount of sleep may vary from person to person. For me, at least an eight-hour sleep is essential for feeling rested. If I sleep under this amount, my fatigue comes back, and even caffeine does not help me stay alert and lively.
Related to sleep, the next critical item is stress. We cannot live without stress, but excessive stress can be harmful to our life thus affect our energy levels. Stress can cause burnout and fatigue.
Sleep and stress go hand in hand. The higher the quality of sleep, the better we manage stress.
Rather than stress itself, our response to stress matter. Awareness of stress-creating situations and eliminating them from our life add vitality, serenity, joy.
Our mitochondrial health is impacted by stress. Thus, a practical stress management approach is critical to increase and maintain our energy levels.
I have used many techniques to manage my stress, but the most useful ones were staying mindful during the day, a 20-minute meditation, and having a short break at work every hour.
3 - Blood sugar
After many years of experimentation, I noticed that fluctuating blood glucose created an alarming situation for my body. These excessive alarms increased my stress and made me feel hungry. Food cravings unfortunately forced me to eat junk food.
When I ate sugary foods, my blood glucose increased fast, and excessive insulin came to the rescue. When insulin removed the toxic sugar from the body, another hunger period started and I felt lethargic. It was like a vicious cycle.
Having stable blood glucose and optimal insulin levels can contribute to our mitochondria's health, thus to our energy levels. My toxic sugar experience is reflected in this article, "Sugar Was Killing Me But I Found Smart Ways to Beat It".
4 - Using body fat
Body fat as an energy source has been sustainable for me.
Relying on sugar fluctuated my mood, caused cravings, and induced fatigue. Once I became fat-adapted, all these symptoms disappeared.
Burning body fat as energy also helped me stay fit and motivated for exercise.
5 - Exercise
Workouts produce energy-boosting hormones like adrenalin, cortisol, and dopamine.
These hormones keep us awake and motivated. Excessive cardio can drain our energy.
Short high-intensity training and resistance training in weight-lifting and callisthenics also can produce growth hormone. This hormone helps us recover faster and eliminate fatigue.
6 - Hormonal Balance
Hormones are very complex and play a critical role in feeling energetic. Being aware of a few hormones can be useful to maintain our energy levels.
I mentioned energy-boosting hormones within the exercise context. I also touched on insulin on the blood glucose topic. Even though we wake up with cortisol's help in the morning, excessive cortisol can harm the body.
When I had elevated cortisol levels, my energy levels reduced, and I started feeling fatigued. One of the reasons was excessive cortisol adversely affected my sleep quality.
Hormonal balance requires quality sleep, moderate exercise, manageable stress, and a balanced diet.
7 - Quality nutrition
We are all unique. Our genetic makeup determines our nutritional sources. After adjusting my diet and aligning it with my body type, I experienced a substantial energy boost.
Related to nutritional intake, having adequate amino acids, vitamins, minerals, and electrolytes in the body can make a noticeable difference in energy levels.
A simple and overlooked problem, dehydration can cause fatigue and energy deficiency. Water with electrolytes in these times can replenish the body, producing more energy.
Rather than junks foods, consuming nutrient-dense foods can help boost our energy levels.
A few supplements helped me boost my energy. The most important one was magnesium. Magnesium is critical for 300 plus metabolic activities in our body. Supplementing the dermal form of magnesium was one of the contributing factors to increasing my energy levels. My magnesium experience is an article titled: How I Improved My Immunity With Wondrous Epsom Salts.
8 - Toxins
Toxins affect our mitochondrial health adversely. They can harm these organelles and healthy cells. Removing toxins from our food supplies, water, and air contributes to our energy levels.
Environmental toxins are harmful. Air and water pollution are known toxins. Our lives depend on air and water. The quality of air and water matters. With this awareness, I invested in air cleaners and water purifiers. Having an air cleaner in my bedroom and study room helped me eliminate lethargy and increase my energy levels.
The best way of removing toxins from my body was the use of a dry sauna. I use the dry sauna to increase heat response in the forms of perspiration. Perspiration helped me remove toxins from my body. Exposing the body can also activate the SIRT2 genes, known as longevity genes. I shared my experience on Wonders of Dry Sauna.
9 – Sunlight
Sunlight has a significant impact on our mood. Its effect relates to hormones. When we are exposed to sunlight, melatonin decreases. This hormone helps us sleep. Sunlight increases other energy-producing hormones.
We feel lethargic on dark and cloudy days. To overcome the sunlight challenge in winter, I used sun lamps, aka SAD lamps. Lack of sunlight is associate with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD); therefore, they are also called SAD lamps.
These lights send sunrise signals to the retina in our eyes aligned with the time of day. SAD lights were an excellent investment for feeling energetic during the winter days.
And the most crucial benefit of sunlight was Vitamin D. When I optimized my Vitamin D levels, I experienced a substantial energy boost.
Last but not least is cold water.
10- Cold showers
Perhaps it is not for everyone but I replaced my coffee with cold showers in the morning. They energized me as much as caffeine.
Coffee used to upset my stomach and made me feel jittery. But cold showers sustained my energy. It lowered my heart rate and helped me feel serene after the shower.
Each item I touched on in this article is critical for energy production and maintenance. However, the combination of these ten items made a great compound effect for boosting my energy levels.
Introducing these ten factors to my lifestyle and making them habits made a substantial impact on boosting my energy levels.
These ten items improved my mitochondrial health. They helped me eliminate my chronic fatigue and enjoy a healthy and energetic lifestyle.
Starting the day with a surge of energy added meaning to my life.
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