It is important to have energy in your life. Imagine going through your day without energy and always feeling sleepy, do you think you can accomplish a lot in this state?
Well, the answer is pretty obvious, isn’t it? If you want to be successful, accomplish your goals, achieve outstanding feats, and live your extraordinary dream life, you need energy.
Not just energy, you need the energy to go through your day. You need the energy to handle the obstacles, the problems, the challenges and any setbacks that surface along your journey to success.
Most people did not realize that managing and maintaining their energy level is an important factor in living a successful life. They thought that the secret to success is about finding the path, which is only partially correct.
If you have the roadmap to success, but you don’t have the energy to execute or travel the road, you cannot reach your destination. And energy is one of the most underestimated ingredients that one needs to produce amazing results in life.
What do you think successful people like Richard Branson, Mark Zuckerberg, Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Oprah Winfrey, etc, have in common? They are great energy managers. They learn how to manage their energy level and maintain it at an optimum level so that they can handle their everyday task and go through life with a brisk.
When you run out of energy, you feel tired, you will be easily distracted, you can’t focus, and you will never be productive.
As a result, you will never get things done and produce the best result in your life. When you feel tired, lack of energy and often feel exhausted, how do you think you can make the best decision in life? Let alone to manage a multi-million-dollar company with hundreds of employees?
This is why energy is important. And the best part is that you will learn how to 10X your energy level and work like a superhuman using these 10 tips below.
1. Exercise and Workout
This is one of the most common techniques that almost every successful people used to boost and maintain their energy level. Exercise and workout have many benefits, including improving your energy level.
You have gazillion time that exercise is good for your health, but are you doing it? How often do you spend time into exercise each day? Anthony Robbins once said that if he was not able to come up with at least 15 minutes for exercise, he didn’t have a life.
Most successful people such as Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama, Jack Dorsey, Mark Zuckerberg, Richard Branson, Anthony Robbins, and more, choose to exercise and commit to moving their bodies each day.
Remember, these are extremely successful and busy people. And if they think that exercise is a crucial key to their success, don’t you think that you should learn from them and make exercise your daily habit too?
Studies have shown that exercise benefits every part of your body, including your mind. When you exercise, your body will produce endorphins, a chemical that makes you feel peaceful and happy.
Apart from that, exercise helps you sleep better at night, reduces your stress level, and gives you a sense of accomplishment because you have achieved your exercise goal.
It improves your overall immune system and raises your energy level. People who spend their whole day working in their office cubicle will suffer lack of attention and often have a higher risk of some illnesses. And if you exercise regularly, you will be able to better focus when you are at work and tend to have more energy level to handle your day.
Action Step:
Make it a commitment to exercise and develop it into your daily habit. You will be able to improve your energy level even if you just spend 15 minutes a day to exercise and workout.
2. The Power of Power Naps
Do you know that the secret to becoming more productive is not in managing your time or learn about any time management technique, but it is in managing your energy?
Extraordinary people like Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Eleanor Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, John D. Rockefeller, Ronald Reagan, and Winston Churchill took power naps to increase their energy level almost every day.
A power nap is basically a short nap that people take during daytime to refresh their energy level. It has been proven that it is an effective technique to boost your energy level after a long day of work.
A power nap restores your alertness and prevents burnout. Most people will feel tired and sleepy in the afternoon especially after lunch. This is because you have used up most of your energy in the morning and after your lunch, your stomach goes to work by digesting what you have taken as lunch.
Thus, taking a power nap able to restore your alertness and give a boost to your energy level. The National Sleep Foundation found that a power nap of twenty to thirty minutes can improve your alertness and performance without leaving you feeling groggy or interfering with nighttime sleep.
Besides, the journey to success is a long shot, not a sprint. If you want to win the race, you must learn how to stop and take rests. This is why taking a power nap is so effective as it makes you refresh and prevent burnout.
When you take power naps, you are managing your energy. And when you have energy, you can go through your day with higher productivity to get things done. A lot of people thought that in order to be productive, they need to learn to manage their time, and they often neglect their energy level which plays an equally important role in being productive.
Action Step:
Implement the power nap technique whenever you find suitable. Take a short nap of ten to thirty minutes in the afternoon to restore your energy and alertness. Never nap beyond 30 minutes as this will make you fall into deep sleep and make you feel groggy when you wake up.
3. Injecting “Newness”
Life can be boring at times because you are repeating your day most of the time. You go to work from Monday to Friday using the same route, getting to the same office, sitting in the same chair and doing the same thing too often.
Apparently, this is not a smart way if you want to 10X your energy because you are repeating your workday in and day out. Thus, learn to inject newness into your life.
When you experience new activities and events, you are stretching your brains, growing yourself, increasing your creativity and working in a new way. This will give you a sense of freshness and give you an energy boost.
Do you feel excited when it is time for you travel to a new country that you have never been before? Some people can’t sleep the night before their flight because they are so excited and are beaming with energy. This is what it means by injecting newness into your life.
From time to time, you must choose to do something new and something fresh to stretch and grow your brains. When you focus on new skills or experiences, you are pushing yourself out of your comfort zone and connecting new neural pathways in your brain.
Now, don’t think that injecting newness has to be something big or monumental. It is not. It can be as simple as taking a meal in a new restaurant, taking a new route to the office, making new friends, learning a new skill like playing the piano, or even playing a new game.
When you are doing something new, you keep your mind fresh and as a result, you are energizing yourself and recharging both your mental and physical health to a new level.
Action Step:
Try out something new from time to time. Each week, take a meal in a new restaurant or go to a place that you have never been before. Try to learn a new skill such as speaking a new language, learning to dance, play a different sport, or visit a museum that you have never been to. Doing something new regularly to get yourself out of your comfort zone and improve your energy level.
4. Create a Wind Down Ritual
Nowadays, people tend to work late and sleep late. They neglect the importance of rest and recovery, instead, they choose to work long hours facing their computer screens, swiping their smartphones, playing games until midnight, and idolizing the “busy” culture.
This is especially obvious for the people who lived in the city. They tend to spend more time on their work, chasing material possessions and never spend time into maintaining their personal well-being.
If this continues for the long-term, they will suffer many chronic illnesses including the lack of energy and often struck by tiredness.
The solution is to create a wind down ritual. How you physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally end the day matters. The aim here is to consciously engineer an evening wind down habit that will improve your overall well-being and give you the energy you need the next day.
It is about the quality and not the quantity. Most people have the wrong perceptions and think that if they can spend more hours at their work, they can get more done, which is not always true. There is no point to work longer hours when you cannot focus and deliver only sub par results.
You want to be effective and use your time for the most result, not spending most of your time to producing a lousy result. This is why winding down is important.
Create your own wind down evening ritual so that you can fully rest and recover and start the next day strong.
For instance, you can take a hot bath, read a book, dim the lights an hour before you get to bed, meditate, turn off the TV and computer, and write gratitude lists as your evening ritual.
When you slow down your pace in the evening, you are telling your body and mind that it is time to rest and end the day. This allows your body and mind to fully recover and gain better momentum the next day.
Action Step:
Create your evening wind down ritual right now. Choose to do something that will improve your sleep and slow down your pace. Never take alcohol and caffeinated drinks at night, and do not spend your last minute checking updates on social media. Use your final hour before sleep to readjust your body and mind for rest.
5. Build A Good Sleeping Environment
Just like creating your wind down ritual, you need to build a good sleeping environment to maximize the result you are going to get from resting.
Never underestimate the power of having quality sleeps. Do you know that on average, most people spend seven hours of sleep each day and this is equivalent to one-third of your lifetime?
Sleep is one of your biggest activities that you spend time into. If you don’t agree and don’t believe that sleep is important, try not to sleep and stay awake for as long as you can.
When you go without sleep for over 24 hours, you will suffer performance impairment like a drunken person. And if you go without sleep for over 48 hours, your body and mind will operate in altered states that will put your health and life at risk.
Getting enough sleep is important and the same goes with getting enough quality sleep. Imagine if you live next to a busy highway, unless you have installed a good sound-proof system, you will never have a good quality sleep each night.
It will be absolutely fine if this happens just for a day. The problem is that most people suffer sleep deprivation and low quality sleep over the long-term, which causes their energy to leak every day and suffer many serious health issues.
Action Step:
Invest in improving your bedroom to have better and more quality sleeps each day. Get a comfortable mattress and pillows. Make sure your bedroom temperature is between 60 to 67 degrees, free from noise and lights. Never bring electrical devices into your bedroom and try to stick to a sleeping schedule each day.
6. Watch What You Put Into Your Mouth
What you eat will greatly affect your energy level. One important factor is your blood sugar level. Experts say that understanding how to balance your blood sugar levels is considered the most crucial thing you can do to increase your energy in the long run.
Most people crave for snacks at 3pm because they have unstable blood sugar levels. And this is usually the cause of eating a lunch that is not suitable for your needs.
Whenever you eat something, the food will be digested and broken down into three parts, proteins, fats and carbohydrates to produce energy. The problem with most people is that they will consume whatever they like without thinking about the consequences.
For example, if you consume a huge amount of refined sugar and processed grains, your blood sugar level will spike and you will suffer energy crashes as insulin is produced to handle the rush of glucose and fructose.
Therefore, watch what you put into your mouth. The food you consume can either be good for your health and maintain your energy level, or it can cause harm and take away your energy and makes you tired.
Action Step:
Eat more green veggies and fruits. This is because dark leafy green veggies contain a lot of nutrients that your body requires. Try to include green vegetables in your everyday meals and eat fruits regularly. The saying, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” is a sound advice.
7. Keep Your Body Hydrated
Our body is made of more than 60% water, thus, making sure that you are getting an optimum amount of water each day will ensure your body operates at the optimum level as well.
Water can be your ultimate energy booster because your body uses water to transport nutrients, to help digestion, maintain body temperature, detoxification, relieves fatigue and also improves your mental concentration.
Science has shown that an average person requires at least 2 to 2.5 liters of water intake each day. When you suffer dehydration and take in less water, your overall performance will decrease. You will find that it will be difficult to focus, feeling tired and exhausted, sleepy and your worry will increase.
Therefore, if you want to maintain and boost your energy level, drink more water throughout the day, especially on a hot summer day.
Action Step:
Get a big and personal water bottle. Bring it to your workplace and bring it whenever you go out for long hours. Drink plenty of water especially the moment you wake up in the morning as you need to hydrate your organs and body system to operate normally. You can even set reminders for it.
8. Identify Energy Boosters and Suckers
Not all activities are created equal. Some activities you do will take away your energy while some will increase your energy level and make you fresh.
When you go for a drinking session or visit a busy and noisy mall, you will feel lethargic and exhausted when you get back home. On the other hand, when you take a walk in the garden or share memorable moments with your lover in a quiet coffee shop, you will feel a surge of energy. Do these seem familiar to you?
How you go through your day counts. And if you want to experience energy boost and live each day with great energy level, choose to experience activities that will boost your energy.
If you focus on regrets, fears, resentment or worries, they will take your energy away. When you focus on love, success, gratefulness, and joy, you will find that these activities give you energy.
Thus, identify the activity gives you energy and which activity takes your energy away. You want to focus and practice more activities that will give you energy rather than taking it away.
Action Step:
Try to spend more time with people who believe in you and will support you. Focus on the love, the meaningful moment and feel the purpose. Enjoy activities that you are passionate about as they will make your heart sings. Do you love cooking, working out, hiking, camping, and swimming? Practice more energy-inducing activities to maintain your energy level high.
9. Cultivate Productive Habits
In 2004, the young billionaire and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg explained to the public why his outfits never changed. He said, “I really want to clear my life to make it so that I have to make as few decisions as possible about anything except how to best serve this community.”
Billionaire Mark wanted to turn everything into habits so that it will require less willpower and less decision making so that he can utilize his energy on other more important work.
And you too can utilize this technique by cultivating productive habits and turning things that you do automatically.
When something becomes your habit, you require less energy and willpower to perform it. The resistance will be lowered and it will take less of your attention unit. Think about how you brush your teeth or how you wear your shoes, are these activities hard? Not at all because they are your habits and you perform them effortlessly without much energy, just like how you drive your car.
You go through your everyday life by making hundreds of decisions. What to breakfast, how to get to work, what clothes to wear, what to lunch, who to call, what to do, etc. Your aim is to transform these repeatable activities into your habits so that you can save more energy on them and become productive on other more important activities.
Action Step:
Identify activities that take up your attention and energy and transform them into your habits if possible. Like Mark Zuckerberg, spend less of your energy on things that are less important in your life and use your energy on things that truly matter.
10. Spending Time in Solitude
When you want to recharge your energy and give yourself an energy boost, one of the best ways to do it is to be in solitude and stay clear from distractions.
Studies have found that people who spend more time alone not only understand themselves better, they are more productive because their minds are fresh, more creative and calmer.
When you spend time alone, you give yourself the time to do a self-reflection or simply just let your thoughts wander. This will rebuild your energy level and allow you to rest and relax through a quiet mind.
Besides that, you will be able to come up with creative solutions to your problems because you take yourself away from the situation and able to look at things from a bigger perspective.
Most of the amazing ideas come to the extraordinary people when they are alone, in solitude, just like how Albert Einstein discovered the theory of relativity while daydreaming and how Archimedes discovered density while taking a bath.
Action Step:
Boost your energy level by spending time alone from time to time. Take a jog in the woods, spend time alone in the garden, take a long bath, meditate or just sit by the beach from time to time.
These are the 10 tips you can use to 10X your energy level and work like a superhuman. Apply these tips to your daily life and start cultivating the energy you need to live a better and more successful life.
References
- prsuit.com/life-in-review/increase-energy-5-habits-10x-performance/
- notsalmon.com/2012/10/26/increase-your-energy/
- inc.com/joel-comm/3-quick-habits-to-boost-your-energy-levels.html
- bepure.co.nz/blogs/news/healthy-habits-increase-energy
- kidshealth.org/en/teens/exercise-wise.html
- michaelhyatt.com/why-you-should-take-a-nap-every-day.html
- health.clevelandclinic.org/2015/09/happens-body-dont-get-enough-sleep/
- sleepfoundation.org/sleep-tools-tips/healthy-sleep-tips
- independent.co.uk/news/people/why-mark-zuckerberg-wears-the-same-clothes-to-work-everyday-a6834161.html
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