How to Increase Energy Levels – The Healthy Way

From lemon juice to better sleep, there are many ways to increase energy levels. These are my favorite:

Replace your morning coffee with lemon water

If coffee is the first thing you drink after waking up, try downing a glass of water with a squeeze of lemon juice instead. You can have your first coffee a few minutes later. I was recommended this from a friend. He said that the lemon juice gave him more energy than his usual morning coffee. He now uses it instead of coffee in the morning.

Your body relies on sleep hormones like melatonin to make you sleep. When you wake up, it needs to clear out those hormones and replace them with ones that are responsible for wakefulness (like ghrelin). It takes a while for your body to do this, hence taking time to be fully awake even after the alarm has rung. Lemon juice activates the liver and kidneys so that the chemical exchanges can happen quicker. This gives bigger bounce to your step in the morning that overflows into the rest of your day. By delaying initial caffeine intake, you will be more receptive to its effects. Your internal system will use it for actual energy release instead of using it to wake up.

Drink more water

Many headaches are caused by dehydration. I’ve noticed that my energy levels drop soon after I’ve forgotten to get my regular water fix. According to News Medical, even light dehydration will negatively affect mood, energy levels and your ability to think.

Your body needs water to function properly. Without water, it is harder for your body to do simple tasks. Your body can adapt to constant dehydration by decreasing some bodily functions like concentration and fat metabolism. It is easy to get so distracted by work or other things that we forget to drink water. Light thirst disappears when our focus is redirected, leaving us to only recognize how thirsty we are when it turns into extreme thirst.

Drinking water regularly is a great weight loss tip. If you keep a big bottle of water at your desk and sip from it regularly, you will get a good detox while needing to go to the bathroom regularly. Regular toilet breaks are a great way to break up long periods of staring at screens or sitting in the same position. Have you ever heard that you should look away from your computer screen at least once an hour? If you drink enough water throughout the day, you do that automatically. Our bodies aren’t made to sit in the same position for long periods of time, so the occasional mini-walk will be good for your muscles, blood flow and overall concentration and mental output.

How’s your sleep?

Your body and mind needs good quality sleep to recover from the daily stress. Low quality sleep decreases the body’s ability to recover. If you don’t recover properly, your body still needs to recover from yesterday’s physical or mental pressure, decreasing its ability to cope with new pressure. Here are a few tips to increase sleep quality:

• Sleep at the same time every day (read more about your circadian rhythm).
• Use the last hour of your day to unwind and relax: No screens or exciting stimulus (read a book, write a journal, pray or meditate).
• Eliminate as much noise and light as you can. (If noise bothers you, try using white noise to drown out irritating sounds).
• Avoid mid-night snacking.
• Balance mental stress with physical stress. If you are burnt out mentally, exercise more to increase sleep need.

Do things that increase energy

When energy levels are low, we crave low-energy activities that usually involve electronic stimulus or negative substance use like alcohol. Both these activities end up draining our energy levels even more. Alcohol decreases sleep quality and gives your body another thing that it needs to recover from. Electronic stimulation reinforces low energy production. Our bodies are constantly adapting to whatever we put them through. If you spend hours doing very little, your body (and your mind) adapts by producing less energy.

My dad was right when he said, “It takes energy to make energy”. Physical activity trains the body to produce more energy. The energy-boosting effects of exercise aren’t only long-term either. I have noticed that when I work out in the mornings, the rest of my day is more productive. This is because my body responds to the exercise by producing more energy. It increases blood flow, refreshes the mind and eliminates toxins that could be weighing the body down. If you don’t enjoy exercise at first, you will if you stick to it for long enough.

Our thoughts can increase energy as well. Thinking about an activity as enjoyable will decrease the amount of mental stress placed on your body, decreases physical tension created by the activity and increases overall productivity during that activity. I often tell myself how much I enjoy something to increase my concentration during that task: and it really works. That is why adding humor to learning activities increases information retention. Besides the fact that thinking of something as enjoyable increases energy, positivity is good for your health.

The end

Drinking lemon juice first thing in the morning, increasing daily water intake, reducing low-energy activities whilst increasing exercise and changing thought patterns are all great ways to increase energy levels.

Have any of these methods worked for you in the past? Please let me know in the comments below.

As always; feel free to link to, share, like, reblog or comment on this post. Happy living!