42: 10 Ways to Naturally Boost Your Energy, Mood, Productivity & Performance

Enlightened Entrepreneurial Badasses | Mindset | Brain Performance | Personal Development | Health | Personal Growth

Note: Click here for the 'Energising Exercises' PDF I mention on the episode.

Ever feel drained and like you’re getting things 10x slower than you should be?

Yeah, we’ve all been there.

That afternoon crash, bit of brain fog or sudden crashing in our mood that slows us down.

Not good for anyone.

But there are much better ways of dealing with all this than the usual reaching for a Red Bull, brewing up the extra strength coffee or smashing through the sugary snacks.

While all these may give a short term ‘buzz’, they’re rarely the best option.

Aside from tasting like cat piss (my opinion), they’re also full of all sorts of garbage that belong more on the bottle of some kind of industrial kitchen cleaning product than something you’re going to ingest.

So I wanted to share here my top 10 simple, yet very effective, natural strategies for boosting your energy levels (and therefore your productivity and performance).

I’ve started with a few simple, more proactive strategies that you may be aware of already, yet still need to be said. Before going into some more advanced shizzle.

Let’s start with #1 because, you know, that’s where these things normally start.

#1 Start the Day Right!

I used to say ‘have a good breakfast’ in this section.

But I feel that’s a bit misleading.

Because, truth be told, many people do well fasting in the mornings and not having their first real meal until 10am and beyond.

So my main point I want to put across here is to not have a shit breakfast!

If you’re going to fast, then fast. If you’re not, then eat properly.

Toast, croissants, cereals, breakfast bars and all that processed carby stuff is not what the vast majority of people’s bodies are craving for the first meal of the day.

Whether you choose to ‘break your fast’ from the night before as soon as you wake up or a few hours later, make sure you give your body a meal containing a healthy dose of protein, healthy fats and a variety of nutrients.

My go to is a good quality eggs cooked in whichever way you like and partnered with some coconut oil in there with plenty of low sugar veggies.

#2 Stay Hydrated

In over four years of working in this industry, I’ve only ever had one client where we haven’t had to increase their water intake.

In other words, dehydration is a very common problem. And most people don’t even realise it!

There are billions of water-dependent biochemical reactions taking place in your body every single second. So a water is a huge player in maintaining a ‘healthy metabolism’ and, therefore, awesome energy levels.

But I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again… the standard, generalised advice of two litres or eight glasses a day is not good enough.

The amount of water your body needs is directly correlated to its size. The bigger it is, the more water is required to hydrate it.

So we need to take out the guess work and be able to work out how much water your body actually needs.

I do this via the simple formula of taking your weight in lbs, halving it and then using that as your daily minimum water requirement in fl oz. If you’re a metric bunny like me then take your weight in kg and multiply by 0.033 to give daily minimum requirement in litres.

I start every day off with a big glass of water, at least 500ml and usually up to a litre before doing anything else.

This sets you off right for the day and helps to stop you ‘falling behind’ your daily minimum target that could result in diminished energy levels.

#3 Invest in Doing Nothing

At first, this may seem counter-productive.

If you want more energy and to get more done and be more productive, then going the other way and doing nothing for a period of time is surely going to hinder this, right?

But the key word here is invest in doing nothing.

This is a time investment that can be just 10 minutes at a time and can result in overwhelming improvements in cognitive function, energy levels and productivity.

In fact, as I discussed in episode #39 of the podcast last week, meditation has been proven to have all sorts of brain and performance related benefits (1, 2).

So I suggest starting off your day by getting up a little earlier and before you do anything, do nothing for 10 minutes. Literally just sit in a chair and focus on your breathing before breakfast, exercise, getting kids up or anything!

You can even have these little 10 minute ‘breathing breaks’ sporadically included throughout your day to help give you a jolt of energy where you maybe would have reached for the Red Bull.

#4 Sleep Better

It seems like every week I mention sleeping better.

I guess that’s just a testament to how important sleep is to your health and performance.

But it’s about as obvious as the sky is blue that sleep (or a lack of sleep) has a profound impact on your energy levels.

Again, I’m not going to go through the ins and outs of sleep her in this podcast.

Check out episode #31 of the podcast for my masterclass on sleep and to take a deep dive into the subject.

#5 ‘Ground’ Yourself in Nature

For me, simply getting out in nature and being around plants, wildlife, the ocean or whatever else considered to be ‘natural environments’ can be hugely beneficial for my mood, productivity and feelings of being ‘energised’.

So getting away from the concrete jungle we sometimes find ourselves trapped in and heading for the garden, the park or the beach can be hugely beneficial.

I challenge you to go take a walk in the park and not to feel more positive and ready to ‘go’.

But we can actually take this further by bringing in the concept of ‘grounding’.

This is where you connect your body in some way with the earth without the interference of socks, shoes or clothing.

Science is starting to back up this idea that connecting to the earth directly can help us ‘absorb’ free electrons and experience health benefits (3) and improvements in sleep and ability to deal with stress (4) as well as simply creating a more positive mood (5).

I know it sounds weird, but try it. It really does feel awesome if you don’t go in with the attitude that this is all hippy BS.

#6 Move!

So many of us get caught up so much in work that we can go for days, weeks or months where the only movement we do is walking from the house to the car and the car to the office.

But what this helps to promote is a metabolism that makes the average sloth look like Speedy Gonzalez.

Your body and mind will start to get sluggish, slower and feel ‘off the pace’.

A morning workout of some sort is great.

Now, I don’t mean you have to do a full gym workout (although that could be great).

But just getting yourself moving with a fast-paced walk or a little bodyweight routine in the garden can do wonders for your energy through the day.

#7 Use Caffeine Sparingly

There’s no getting away from the fact that a big ass coffee can give you an energy kick.

But there are two things to remember here.

First of all, your body can very easily get used to dealing with caffeine and so cause you to not feel the effects as much.

This is how we create the need to have more and more and at greater strengths each time until we’ve suddenly found ourselves needing to have a quadruple espresso every hour in order to feel the ‘buzz’ of a few years ago.

Obviously, this isn’t the best and most long-term of options for how to get enough energy to get through the day.

So I would invite anyone in this boat to try a ‘coffee cleanse’ for a week before adding it back in at a lower amount.

Secondly, coffee can be a very beneficial and enjoyable beverage. But you have to be careful as to what else you’re putting in your body along with it.

That instant stuff is full of all sorts of shite.

So I advise getting an espresso machine or a good drip filter (or at least a French Press) and get yourself some good quality, organic, ground coffee.

When you’re not dependent on it and it’s good quality, coffee can be, in my opinion, a great, healthy option.

#8 Energising Exercises

Something I’ve found very powerful in helping to feel more energised is looking into more ‘eastern’ philosophies and ideas.

This stems from the idea that you must cultivate energy (known as Prana for Yogis or Chi in oriental martial arts) before expending it.

The power of this principle stems from the breath.

The oxygen we breathe in carries a very strong positive charge, acting like the positive pole of a magnet. And the tissues and water in your body act as the negative pole.

Now wherever you find a positive and negative pole, there is energy and work potential. So breathing energy into the body can create this work potential in us.

We can manipulate this through specific breathing exercises that effectively help to ‘charge’ the body up and cultivate energy for us to then utilise throughout the day.

It’s even possible to target specific ‘zones’ in the body to rebalance the chakra system and therefore reclaim a healthy ‘flow’ of this energy through the body.

As you can imagine, this is a more advanced subject than this little piece here in this blog post.

But I’ve put together a PDF all about energising exercises, how they work and with specific examples of how you can use them to increase your energy and vitality.

Click here and I’ll email the PDF to you straightaway.

Checking out some Tai Chi or Qi-Gong classes in your local area or heading to good old grand master YouTube can also be very beneficial.

#9 Take Control of Your Environment

The environment you’re in can be a powerful player in how energetic, happy and positive you’re feeling.

Your brain is constantly scanning your environments and can create incredible neuro-associations with the seemingly minute things around you, causing you to feel a certain way that could be positive or negative. Checkout podcast episode #40 for more on utilising neuro-association.

As you can imagine, if you’re trying to work in an office that’s boxed in, congested, messy and generally not very nice to be in, then it can cause you to feel low on energy and drive.

So our environments are very powerful tools.

Something as simple as having access to natural light as often as possible can improve your workplace performance and mood, according to a study published in the journal SLEEP by Northwestern University.

Getting that regular dose of vitamin D from natural light is a game changer when it comes to our mood, so if you don’t have windows then taking regular trips outside or investing in a lightbox would be a good idea.

But also getting some greenery around our homes and offices can also be very beneficial for our energy, mood and performance.

Plants help purify the air and therefore help to improve the quality and toxicity levels of everything we’re breathing in, which means you get a better air quality and create a much more energetic ‘feel’ about a particular space.

So, you can start mastering your environment via the following:

• Learning about neuro-associations (podcast episode #40) and building more positivity into our environments.
• Work on strategies for letting more natural light in.
• Adding greenery and plants into our environments.

#10 Get More Magnesium

As always, supplementation when it comes to these things comes after all other interventions have been considered.

But magnesium can be a key player here.

It plays a role in over 300 different biochemical processes in our bodies, ranging from muscle and nerve cell function, to brain health, to our immune system function and much, much more.

So if our bodies are under a lot of stress and being worn down, then magnesium can easily become depleted.

In short, the result is that our physiology doesn’t operate effectively and we become to feel worn down.

And because of how much stress most of us tend to put ourselves under, magnesium gets burned through very easily and deficiency becomes very common.

Eating a healthy, balanced diet is obviously a way to get more magnesium.

But a good quality supplement can be very beneficial, especially when applied transdermally (via the skin).

I suggest using a magnesium spray daily and combining this with a regular bath using magnesium or Epsom salts.

There You Have It!

So you definitely don’t need to rely on the Red Bull and coffee to get you through each day.

A few preventative actions and daily practices can really get you feeling energised, positive and performing like a badass.

Take a listen to the podcast episode for this blog post via the player at the top.

Or head over to iTunes and subscribe there for Apple lovers, and over on Stitcher for non-Apple peeps.

Love, Laughter & Light, Mike

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