Can you relate to the feeling of waking up tired, worn out, and don’t have enough energy for all your daily tasks during the day?
I was that person and to be honest, sometimes I still am.. I’m a night owl and because of that still struggling with this from time to time.
When I started to implement these following tips, I noticed a significant improvement in my energy levels!
So if you feel like this is something you want to improve in your life,
I suggest you keep on reading!
1. Wake Up Early!
Yes, I know this looks counter-intuitive. You might think: “ I have to wake up this early already, but then I get even less sleep than I already did!”
But bear with me here, the reason why you should get up earlier than the majority of people is that your productivity level is much higher in the morning. There is so much peace and quiet in the early morning because everybody else is asleep and you can get so much work done in that time.
There are no distractions of messages or social media and there are multiple study’s that prove you are the most productive early in the morning. It’s an amazing feeling you get when you did different chores and things on your to-do list of that day when other people are still asleep. (Even for the night owls among us.)
Your energy level is improving a lot because your high productivity level is setting you up for the whole day! There is a reason that most of the successful people are waking up at 4 or 5 am.
So give it a try and comment below how you experienced it. But before you do, let’s go to the second one!
“Wake up early every day so that while others are still dreaming, you can make your dreams come true.”
Hal Elrod
2. Exercise right after you woke up
You’re probably thinking “That’s not for me” or “She’s crazy!” (And okay I am a little bit crazy haha) but that aside, this is one of the best tips!
I think that you know this deep inside but maybe you secretly don’t want to know? 😉
A lot of people want to exercise more than they do, but they don’t have the time after work or they’re too tired, if you follow this tip you already exercised before you go to work, it’s already one achievement you can be proud of before you start the rest of your day!
We all know that exercise is good for your health and it comes with multiple counts of benefits but, did you know that you improve your energy levels a lot when you exercise?
And especially when you do it in the morning!
Why?
Well, you probably heard of the feelgood hormones dopamine and serotonin before? When you exercise you produce those hormones and when you exercise early in the morning before you go to work, you’ll feel amazing about yourself and set your day up for a good start!
You’ll feel relaxed, calm, and collected, and the rest of the day you are sharp, energized, and productive!
And the funny thing is, you did this when most people were still asleep.
I can’t stress you enough that this feeling is so incredibly satisfying!
The other great thing is, what kind of workout you do doesn’t even really matter! You can do whatever workout you like, as long as it wakes you up and it gives you the feeling that you exercised.
I’d like to do a 10-minute full-body HIIT workout before I start the rest of my day but, you can also do yoga or certain stretch workouts.
I would encourage you to do something that drives your heart up a little bit. Just 10 minutes to get yourself awake, get some energy and feelgood hormones and in the meantime, you’re improving your health by exercising!
You’ll feel much better and look better, that’s a triple win if you ask me!
3. Get enough REM sleep
There is a reason I said “REM sleep” and not just “Get enough sleep” That’s too vague… You have to get the deep REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep for enough hours per night so that you actually can get up early in the morning with enough energy. Most people think that they need 7-8 hours of sleep at night… but it’s a lot more complicated than that.
Let me explain.
You have an average sleep cycle of 90 minutes, so when you sleep 7 or 8 hours and the alarm clock goes off, you’ll be yanked out of your deep REM sleep and then you’ll feel SO tired! Most of the time even the rest of the day!
You probably experienced this already? And maybe you even asked yourself why you’re so tired despite the 8 hours of sleep?
Now you know why!
So you have to count 6, 7,5 or 9 hours… try it for yourself and see what your sleep cycle is!
You can get the Sleep Cycle App that will track your sleep, I learned a lot about my sleep cycle because of that app.
It also tracks:
- How long it took before you fell asleep
- How much time you slept, it detects when you wake up in the night
- The regularity of your sleeping habits
- How late you went to bed and woke up
- Snore time and recordings
And much more!
So why it has to be enough REM sleep?
Well because that’s the deep sleep in which your body can recharge and process all the things of the previous day, and this is so important to feel energized the next day!
I said it before, I’m a night owl and a few years ago I always was awake until late at night and slept in when I could but, since I got a job where I had to start at 6 am, I forced myself to bed at 9 pm, and the thing that I discovered was:
That I slept the best REM sleep in the hours before midnight!
And even I had enough nights where I just slept for 5 a 6 hours a night, I still was energized in the morning!
So that’s when I discovered this. Because I went to bed at least a few hours before midnight, that was the first key to feeling energized and happy during the day.
4. Don’t snooze the alarm
I have to be honest, I still do this sometimes, we are all humans, right? But I know that there is no benefit from snoozing… On the contrary, it’s even worse for your health and energy levels!
This has to do with what I said before about the 90-minute sleep cycle… When you snooze you do it most of the time for a few extra minutes of sleep right? (Maybe a lot of extra minutes haha) but you’ll get yanked out of your REM sleep every time you snooze and that’s very bad for your health and because of that you feel even more worn out and tired.
If you don’t snooze and get right out of bed you’ll feel much better and more awake in a few minutes.
“Success comes to those who have the will power to win over their snooze buttons”
5. Drink water when you wake up and during the day
You probably heard this before but this also has to do with improving your energy levels so I can’t skip this one.
After a night of sleep, you are dehydrated, that is one of the reasons that you’re so tired in the morning, and if you don’t drink a glass of water, also the rest of the day.
A lot of people are drinking coffee right after they got up, but coffee/cafeïne is dehydrating your body even more. The result of that is that you’ll get even more tired after the cafeïne rush.
That’s not what you want, right?
So what I recommend that you do, is you drink a tall glass of water right after you got up. The first time, you’ll probably notice that you drink that glass of water more easily than you thought.
That’s your body who is thanking you for hydrating it again.
The next thing you do is keep hydrating yourself with water during the rest of the day, this will prevent that you crash in the afternoon.
Also when you feel tired during the day: drink a tall glass of water!
It’s so simple and most of the time the answer to the afternoon crash.
It also will prevent that you want to snack so much because water is giving you a satisfying feeling, so again a win-win!
Bonus tip: If you don’t like to drink water, try flavored carbonated water! You can also learn to drink water, I did that too and now I like it.
6. Eat no more than 3 times a day
Do you know the feeling of the crash after a meal?
It’s not a nice feeling, right? And certainly not when you are at work.
My solution is pretty simple:
Eat 3 bigger meals instead of 6 small meals. The reason is that you’re blood sugar levels stay more steady when you don’t eat that often.
It helped me a lot!
If you eat small things during the day you spike your insulin and your blood sugar level is going up and down the whole day, that’s the reason why you feel tired after a snack or drink with carbohydrates.
What you eat is also very important and that is my last tip in this blog to improve your energy levels.
7. Eat healthy whole foods
So what do I mean with “whole foods”?
Whole foods are plant-based foods that are unprocessed and unrefined or processed and refined as little as possible, before being consumed.
Examples of whole foods are:
- whole grains
- tubers
- legumes
- fruits
- vegetables
The simple reason why you want to eat more of those foods is that it’s the nutrition that your body needs and it gives you more energy.
On the other hand, if you eat a lot of processed sugar and high carbs you’ll feel more tired and hungry during the day and you get those horrible crashes where I talked about before.
Those where my tips you can implement to immediately improve your energy levels in your life!
There are many more things you can do but these are the basics that helped me a lot.
If you’d like to know more about the lifestyle that can improve your energy levels, even more, leave a comment below and I will write a blog post about my lifestyle where I’ll get more in-depth about the Ketogenic Lifestyle and Intermittent fasting.