8 Atomic Habits || Negligence and Low Energy || Weakness After Covid Fatigue || I'm best Trainer
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| 8 Atomic Habits || Negligence and Low Energy || Weakness After Covid Fatigue || I'm best Trainer |
Okay, so chances are in the last few days
You have felt tired or depleted, but there are a few simple habits that almost anyone
Can do that is proven to boost your energy.
In today's article, I'm going to walk you through the eight simple practices, I've personally incorporated into my daily routine I have the one technique I use when everything else fails.
Let's get to it. My first tip is to go outside and get some morning sunlight as soon as you can after waking up.
Let me just say, this is not how I used to start my day. I used to start my day in the way I think a lot of people do, scrolling Instagram, and checking email until I eventually rolled out of bed feeling pretty anxious. But a few years ago, I decided to swap my morning screen time for a morning walk outside. And honestly, it has had huge benefits for my energy and focus, not just in the morning, but throughout the entire day, And apparently, scientists agree. They say that when we view sunlight first thing in the morning, we get so many benefits out of it. It improves our mood, as well as our energy, and it sinks our circadian rhythm, so it primes us for better sleep at night. I like to combine my sunlight time with a 20 to 30-minute walk in the morning, to get my body moving.
I find that I have more creative juices flowing that way, and I'm just more excited to start the day. But if you're thinking, "Listen, lady, I've got three crazy kids. I have to get ready for school in the morning," that's fine because even two minutes on a sunny day has been shown to have lots of benefits. Oh, and you don't want to look directly into the sunlight, just kind of in the direction of the sunlight, although it is pretty early right now, so the sun isn't too strong. But if your eyes start hurting, definitely look in a different direction. On the extremely rare, rainy, or foggy days we have here in Pakistan, I can't get my morning sunlight. I will instead take this desk lamp and shine it on my face while I work for 30 to 60 minutes in the morning. It's not the same as sunlight, but it's better than nothing.
Tip number two is to consume caffeine consciously.
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So I'm going to oversimplify this, but basically, adenosine makes us feel sleepy. So when we wake up in the morning after a good night of sleep, our adenosine levels are naturally low and they continue to get even lower. But if you drink caffeine as soon as you wake up, it's going to interfere with that natural process. So by the time your coffee wears off let's say one or 2:00 PM, you have more adenosine, I.e. more sleepiness in your system than you ordinarily would.
What I've been doing for the last year or two is to wait an hour and a half to two hours after I wake up to have my first cup of caffeine. In sciencey terms, that means your body can naturally clear those adenosine levels. In non-science terms, everyone can understand, that means you're so much less likely to have that afternoon crash. Now I know some of you're going to be like, "This crazy energizer bunny lady doesn't get it. I need my coffee in the morning," but I do get it. When I was in law school, I used to start every morning with a 16-ounce Americano. I'd have another one after lunch, and then another one at 5:00 PM. I basically was having nine shots of espresso every day and I was a caffeine fiend.
So I do get your plight, but I know there's a better way for you. As to the type of caffeine, I think it's a pretty personal decision. These days, I'm not as caffeine-dependent, so I find that coffee makes me feel a little racy, not that kind of racy. So instead, I drink matcha every morning. It has enough caffeine to make me feel energized, but also has l-theanine, which makes our bodies feel relaxed, so I get that calm, steady energy.
Tip number three is to remove the biggest distractions from your work environment.
One of the greatest lies we've been told is that we humans can multitask. We cannot. What we think of as multitasking is really just us very quickly switching back and forth between different tasks. This not only makes us more tired and less energized than if we were to work on a single task at a time, but it also makes us less productive. It can take upwards of 20 minutes to get back into the flow of things once we've been disrupted. Now multiply that 20 minutes by every time we get distracted, and honestly, I have no idea how anyone gets anything done. One of the ways I try to prevent this energy drain is to start my workday by removing the biggest distraction from my workspace, the cell phone, this little thing. I find that I have so much more energy and focus and get more work done when this thing is out of my office, ideally in another room, tucked away in her drawer, so I don't see it even when I take a break. And the reason I do this is that even if my phone is face down or completely turned off on my desk, it still implicitly distracts me.
It's like it's saying, "Hello, open me." There are so many fun surprises in here that are more interesting than whatever you're doing right now. So out of sight, out of mind. But if you are really addicted to your cell
phone, you might need to take a more aggressive option. I recommend getting one of these timed lock boxes. Basically, you put your cell phone on the box, set a timer for let's say 25 minutes, and then you cannot access your phone for those 25 minutes. There's no emergency valve. You are stuck with your decision. I feel like these days, I no longer need to use that for my cell phone, but I do use it When my favorite dark chocolate goes on sale I don't want to eat it all in one day. Can also download the app Freedom. You put in the websites and apps you find distracting. Set a timer, and then Freedom will block you from using those apps during that time period.
It can be just for 30 minutes, or it can be every day from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. If you try to access that app or website during the window, Freedom will remind you that's time to get back to work. Tip number four for improved energy is to avoid eating a sugary breakfast. Look, as a kid who grew up in the nineties, I ate a very standard American diet for breakfast, sugary cereals of all kinds, pop-tarts of all kinds, and of course Eggo waffles. Luckily though, as a kid, you have pretty limitless energy. But as with most things in life, as you get older, as you become an adult, it gets a little more complicated.
As we age, when we eat really sugary foods, especially on an empty stomach like we do when we break our fast in the morning, it causes our glucose levels to spike and then inevitably crash, and that leaves us with that sluggish low energy state. So, what I try to do at least 90% of the time is to eat a savory breakfast, ideally one with a good amount of protein, fat, and fiber, something like seeded whole grain toast with avocado and smashed chickpeas and hemp seed, or just leftovers from last night's tofu curry. I find that when I do this, my energy levels are higher and more sustained throughout the entire day. And I am by no means saying that donuts are pastries are bad foods you have to avoid.
I like them and I eat them, but I try to eat them as dessert after a meal instead of on an empty stomach like for breakfast. But I'm definitely not perfect when it comes to this because I am a food blogger and my job is to test and taste recipes basically all day long. So if we are testing my pancake recipe for the 20th time because I want to get it right, I'm just going to go ahead and have some pancakes. But on those days, I tried to do this next technique to make sure that my glucose levels don't spike, which is to go for a walk after a big meal. Studies show that going for a walk after a meal for as little as two to five minutes can help regulate your digestion and your glucose levels. For me personally, going for a walk after lunch, again, even for five minutes, has been huge in helping me avoid that afternoon slump. If you can't take a walk after a meal, maybe because you don't have time or it's winter in Minnesota and that sounds miserable, there are a couple of other things you can do.
So instead of taking the elevator to your next meeting, you could take the stairs after lunch, to get all of your to-dos and work worries out of your head and onto paper.
My personal workday shutdown ritual is to write all the things I want to get done tomorrow in this planner, including things I didn't get to today. Once I have that list, I then start to schedule specific tasks into specific time slots. This is known as time blocking. While it might sound rigid to some people to schedule every hour of the day, including when you exercise or eat lunch, I personally find that it's liberating and actually gives me energy back because once I started doing this ritual, I stopped thinking about all my work to-dos at night when I was trying to unwind and go to sleep because I had already written them down. So now I fall asleep quicker, which obviously leaves me more energized in the morning. Another benefit is that I don't have to spend the time or energy in the morning thinking about what's the biggest thing I want to accomplish today. When am I going to get it done? How am I going to fit it around my meetings? Because I've already done all that work for myself the night before. And when I skip this ritual, which sometimes happens, I just find that I have less energy In the morning, I'm more distracted, and it takes me a little longer to get into the flow.
Whatever your specific shutdown ritual is, I think it's really helpful for folks who work from home because it creates this nice structured separation between your work life and your after-work life. Tip number seven is to use temptation bundling to get yourself to do hard things. I think everyone has experienced that end-of-the-day feeling where you really need to do something important, whether it's folding the laundry or getting on the old exercise bike, but you feel like you just don't have the energy.
In reality, most of us, at least those of us who don't do manual labor during the day, do have the energy. What we lack though is willpower. What I've found to be really helpful in these situations, which I struggle with all The time is to do temptation bundling. This is a term invented by the researcher Katy Milkman in this book, and the basic concept is that you bundle or pair an activity you really like that gives you immediate benefits with an activity you really don't want to do but that provides long-term benefits. In my own life, I need to do physical therapy exercises on a regular basis because I just have some old injuries, but usually, I don't have time to do them during the day. By the time 8:00 PM rolls around, I have a million excuses to not do them.
Off the couch and exercise. Alexa, stop. However, a few months ago I started using temptation bundling to get myself to do my physical therapy.
What that means is, at night, I can't watch a TV show, it's an activity I like doing, It's an easy way for me to unwind with my partner unless I start by doing my physical therapy exercises. It's gotten me to be so much more consistent with it, and I honestly kind of look forward to my exercises now because I know that I'm doing something I also enjoy. Obviously, not all difficult activities can be paired with watching TV, but try to think about how this applies to your own life. Maybe you can only listen to your favorite podcast if you're also tidying up the house, or if you really want to go to that fancy coffee shop that sells $9 adaptogenic mushroom lattes, maybe you can only do that if you also spend some time there clearing out your email inbox. In a minute, I'll share the strategy I use for more energy when all else fails. But for now, let's talk about tip number eight, optimizing your sleep environment.
Possibly the best thing you can do for more energy that no pill or energy drink or even workday routine can do is to get enough good quality sleep on a consistent basis. Remember when I told you back in law school, I used to drink nine shots of espresso every day? I had a terrible time sleeping so no surprise. These days, I get seven and a half to eight hours of sleep each night, I fall asleep easily, and I wake up super energized. There are lots of things I do to achieve that, including if I'm being honest, not having children. But today, I'm going to talk about just three of them.
If you're interested in a full sleep routine Article, let us know in the comments below. The first thing I do to optimize my sleep environment is to keep the bedroom as cold
As comfortably possible. For our house, that's about 68 degrees Fahrenheit, sometimes cooler. In the summer, we use the AC to make that happen. And in the winter, our house is very poorly insulated, so it's already freezing cold.
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The second thing is to keep our bedroom as dark as possible. We're renting our house, so we still work pretty well. We hang a black curtain on our curtain rod, and we take it down every morning so that it doesn't look like vampires live there. Raise your fangs to all who agree. Well, Max does all of this. I'm too short to reach the curtain.
Third, we sleep with a white noise machine. Maybe it's because I lived in New York today for eight years, but I find it very difficult to fall asleep in a super quiet environment. It's eerie. It's like I'm in a horror movie waiting to be murdered. So instead, we sleep with a white noise machine. It helps us fall asleep faster. We recently upgraded to the Hatch restore alarm, I believe it's called, and it has lots of different sounds you can fall asleep to, nature sounds, and white noise, very calming, and it also acts as a natural sunrise simulator in the morning, so it wakes you up more calmly and gently than an alarm clock. If you're interested in one of these, I've got a link in the description box below the Article. Okay, so despite my best efforts, sometimes
I just have one of those days. Maybe I didn't sleep well or I'm distracted
by my never-ending thoughts. If I need to be productive or energized on those days, I will do something that I absolutely hate. I will take a cold shower. Oh boy. And I hate it because I'm already always cold all the time, so why would I want to get a cold shower? Well, it's because cold water immersion has been shown to dramatically boost your dopamine levels, which gives you more energy and motivation. At the moment though, it's mostly painful and I hate everything and everyone around Me. But I know that if I can suffer through two minutes of a cold shower, I will feel so refreshed and have energy for several hours. All right, those are my tips for improving energy. If you have any strategies or tips, let us
Know in the comments below. Thanks for Seeing this blog. Bye!
