Top 7 Tips To Increase Your Energy!
Are you the type of person who, whenever you feel like your eyes are starting to sag, immediately goes for a cup of coffee or a Red Bull to try and boost your energy levels back up?
You might have convinced yourself that all of this is just normal.
I mean, it seems like everyone else around is sipping on coffee 4 to 5 times a day, whether they’re busy office workers or college students doing all-nighters desperately trying to get their last-minute assignments done before the deadline.
Well, I’m here to let you know that feeling chronically fatigued is not, in fact, normal, and there are many natural ways that can boost your energy levels that don’t involve the quick highs of caffeine.
From exercise and diet, to sleeping habits and stress levels, we will take you through everything you need to know about how to supercharge your energy levels and get you feeling vibrant, energized, and ready to take on the day.
Top Ways To Increase Your Energy Levels
While there is nothing wrong with having a cup of coffee each morning or having one with a work colleague during your lunch hour, coffee shouldn’t be used as a crutch when it comes to your seemingly chronic fatigue.
So, with that said, what exactly are the best ways to increase your energy levels without the use of caffeine?
1. Sleep More
I get it—it is obvious—you’re tired—you need more sleep. This isn’t exactly the groundbreaking advice you’ve been searching for.
However, some people seriously neglect just how much sleep they get a night.
For many people, their concept of ‘sleep’ is lying in bed on their phone for 1 or 2 hours, if not more, watching videos on their phone before eventually deciding to leave the phone off.
Not only have you missed out on those extra sleeping hours, but you will also lose more time now because you can’t just immediately fall asleep after having turned the phone off.
In fact, a study done by the NCBI found that restricting mobile phone use before bedtime for four weeks was effective in reducing sleep latency, increasing sleep duration, improving sleep quality, reducing pre-sleep arousal, and improving positive affect and working memory.
Even if you are short one hour of sleep a night, that does not sound like much but that adds up to 7 hours a week, and that is like missing a whole night’s sleep!
2. improve Your Gut Health and Diet
Believe it or not, your gut health can directly affect your energy levels.
Eating the correct foods will lead you to having a healthier gut and by having a healthier gut your body will be able to digest foods far more efficiently leading to an increase in your vitality.
Your Gut-Brain Axis has a crucial role on your mental health which directly affects your energy levels.
Your gut can improve the production of neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine, which are linked to your mood regulation and energy levels, so better mental health translates to reduced feelings of fatigue and increased motivation and energy.
It’s not enough to just start eating certain good foods either. Reducing Ultra Processed Foods can help increase your vitally.
Ultra processed foods are often high in added sugars, unhealthy fats, and artificial additives, which can lead to blood sugar spikes and crashes, causing fatigue.
If you’re having problems with your gut health, then advanced stool testing like the Gut Zoomer test or the GI Map test can help to identify more accurately the underlying cause of your gut issues – this can help to understand if you need to focus on reducing pathogens or supporting beneficial bacteria.
3. Do Exercises
Regularly exercising helps to strengthen the heart and improve your blood circulation.
By having a more efficient cardiovascular system your oxygen and nutrients are delivered more effectively to your tissues and organs, helping to enhance their function and increasing your overall energy levels.
By increasing your muscle mass your muscles will fatigue at a slower rate over time which will grant you greater physical performance and energy throughout the day.
Exercising regularly can also improve your gut health, release endorphins for better mental health, and can lead you to having better sleep, so as you can see, so much of how to increase your energy levels is interconnected.
4. Hydration
Water helps lubricate joints, and transport nutrients to cells. When you’re well-hydrated, your body can function more efficiently, reducing fatigue and improving endurance during physical activities.
If you’ve ever been to, or live in a hot country, you probably noticed you start to fatigue far more quickly under the heat than you do when the temperatures are lower.
So why is it that your body craves liquids at a time like this and not food?
That’s because your body instinctively knows that water regulates your body temperature keeping you cooler.
Proper thermoregulation prevents overheating and ensures that your body can continue functioning optimally, which in turn helps to maintain energy levels.
Your brain is also incredibly sensitive to changes in your level of hydration.
Even mild dehydration can impair your cognitive functions such as concentration, alertness, and short-term memory.
So staying hydrated will help to maintain your mental clarity and focus, contributing to sustained energy levels.
5. Manage Your Stress Levels
Stress can affect your energy levels in a direct and indirect way.
Stress can lead to Hormonal Imbalances in both women and men, like increased Cotrisol and Adrenaline levels.
While both of these hormones provide a temporary energy boost, continued releases of both hormones will ultimately lead to a crash in energy levels due to overstimulation.
Being stressed can also affect your sleep, which in turn will lead to mental fatigue.
Chronic stress can also directly affect your gut too, and as we know, poor gut health can be a direct cause of lowered energy levels.
If you feel like you have a Hormone Imbalance and want to get tested. We have the DUTCH Hormone Test available here to help provide valuable information about your body and about your hormone production.
Indirectly, chronic stress can lead to poorer lifestyle choices such as diet and lack of regular physical activity, two of the fundamental ways of increasing your energy levels. Being highly stressed can also lead to other poor lifestyle choices such as:
Alcohol Abuse
Alcohol abuse can disrupt your sleep cycle, particularly the rapid eye movement (REM) stage of sleep, which is crucial for restorative rest.
Poor REM sleep results in feeling tired and unrefreshed upon waking, and alcohol can also cause frequent awakenings during the night, leading to fragmented sleep and decreased sleep quality.
Alcohol also causes dehydration, impaired digestion and even hypoglycemia all which will lead to increased fatigue due to increased urine production, poor nutritional digestion and a drop in blood sugar levels.
Smoking
Smoking as well as disrupting sleep, increasing stress from nicotine withdrawals and impaction nutrition absorption, also reduces oxygen supply within the body.
Smoking damages your lungs and reduces their efficiency in oxygenating blood.
With less oxygen reaching your muscles and tissues, this will lead to decreased energy and endurance.
Cigarette smoke also contains carbon monoxide, which binds to hemoglobin in red blood cells more effectively than oxygen.
This will reduce your body’s oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood, and with less oxygen being brought to muscles and vital organs, you’re going to feel the strain.
6. Use Vitamins
Natural vitamins play a crucial role in maintaining and boosting energy levels by supporting various physiological processes.
B vitamins are essential for converting food into energy and maintaining nerve function, while vitamin C protects cells from oxidative stress and improves iron absorption.
Vitamin D supports your bone health and mood regulation, which can help reduce fatigue and Vitamin E enhances blood circulation and protects cells from damage, contributing to overall vitality.
Incorporating a variety of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins, and healthy fats into your diet ensures you receive these essential vitamins, helping you stay energized throughout the day.
If dietary intake is insufficient, supplements can be considered under professional guidance.
Conclusion
So if you made it this far you can see that boosting your energy levels isn’t some unattainable goal, or quick fix relying on caffeine.
Boating your energy is about making consistent lifestyle changes that promote long-term vitality and well-being.
However, if you’ve taken our advice on board and are still feeling like your energy levels still aren’t where you think they should be, considering booking a one on one consultation with me for functional pathology and/or genetic testing to find out how you can prevent and treat health issues for yourself or your children.
Or you can also check out SelfDecode for comprehensive Genetic Analysis that provides in-depth interpretations of genetic data from various DNA tests, offering extensive and detailed health reports that can help explain your constant fatigue.