How To Increase
Energy Levels

How To Increase Energy Levels To-Do List

• Ensure that you are getting at least 7 hours of sleep a night and try and stick to a regular sleeping pattern. Less than 7 hours is thought to be detrimental to your long term health.
• Cut out the alcoholic drinks – You may think that you are getting a great night’s sleep, but in fact, you’re not – alcohol consumed prior to your bedtime has a disruptive effect on the sleep that you get.
• Try and exercise for 20/30 minutes at least every second day. If you don’t have time for this then make time by physically adding it into your daily schedule.
• Focus on one thing at once. None of us can effectively multitask this has been scientifically proven even though many of us think that we are great at multitasking.
• Avoid email disruptions by attending to email only at one or two set times within a day. Avoid the temptation to be distracted by email by turning off email notifications or by going one step further and turning your email client completely off until that time of the day when you actually want to attend to your emails.
• Eat lots of fruit and vegetables each day and ensure that you start the day with a healthy breakfast. If you typically skip breakfast then don’t! Eat an apple or a banana or a healthy fruit shake at a minimum. Although please see my update on this point at the end of the bulleted list.
• Try and focus only on activities that you enjoy, feel good at, and give you a sense of purpose – these are the tasks that when you undertake them time seems to fly by as you are so absorbed/inspired. Tackle your most important, mentally demanding tasks at the start of the day.
• Give praise and appreciation to others. Others will welcome this and you are likely to feel good for giving out the praise.
• Decide what you value the most and try and live by those values. Write your values down and try and develop a personal mission statement. Place your mission statement somewhere prominent where you can refer to it regularly.
• Take intermittent breaks where you disengage yourself from your work – this is where your subconscious will take over and can potentially provide you with your most creative ideas. Remember that yawning is a sign that you need to take a break.
• If you’re fortunate enough to have a position where you are in control of your own time then consider taking an afternoon nap or power sleep. For some having a 30 – 45 minute nap early in the afternoon can fully recharge energy levels and enable you to have a completely new and refreshed look at that problem that you were pondering.

Note: Update on the eat lots of fruit and vegetables and to start the day with a healthy breakfast… I’m no longer as convinced on this point in terms of its ability to increase energy levels after reading two excellent books by Dr. Jason Fung, which you can read for yourself, here’s a link to them on Amazon…

The books are generally about when and what to eat in order to improve general health and well-being and to assist recovery from complications such as obesity and type two diabetes.

Dr. Fung, on the subject of breakfast, reminds us that the word stands for breaking the fast… break-fast, and he suggests that fasting is in fact very good for our bodies, our health, and therefore our overall energy levels.

There is also a mention of how fructose that is found in fruit is actually very difficult for our bodies to process.

So, a bit wordy I know, but my new recommendation is to skip breakfast for as long as you can and keep your fruit intake to a minimum, and only to eat fruit when the fruits are in season.

You honestly should read the books if you have time, they are excellent and are especially good if you’d like to shed a few pounds off of the old waistline!! Dr. Fungs writings are all based on published academic papers and they are put across in a way that is very easy to read/understand. They certainly helped me and you may be very surprised at just how much more energy you have from not eating anything!!

Go To Personal Development
Go From How To Increase Energy Levels To The Home Page