This year, it feels like energy is in short supply. The fatigue and stress of the COVID-19 pandemic have had devastating health effects, including chronic sleep problems, poor eating habits, and (you guessed it) a general lack of energy.
While this is expected, many of us are sabotaging our energy-stores without even realizing it. There are habits that are draining — physically, mentally, and emotionally. That leaves you feeling like you have to up your coffee intake to make it through the day, even though you feel like you’re getting enough sleep at night.
We can look for solutions to give ourselves more energy all day long, but if we ignore the things in our lives that are adding undue stress and strain, we’re going to be left fighting an uphill battle.
If you want to increase your energy levels throughout the day, start by culling these bad habits from your life.
6 Energy-Draining Habits to Eliminate
1) Gluing Yourself to the News
I’m putting this bad habit first because I believe, this year more than in years past, we’ve been sucked into the trap of “doomscrolling.” The New York Times has defined doomscrolling (or doom surfing) as “falling into deep, morbid rabbit holes filled with coronavirus content, agitating [ourselves] to the point of physical discomfort, erasing any hope of a good night’s sleep.”
You can replace “coronavirus” with just about anything. Political content, natural disasters, violence, civil unrest, or any other bad news. We’re living in a time where news is highly sensationalized, editorialized, and fixated on the negative. In our quest to know and understand the world around us, we’ve over-exposed ourselves to the bad in the world that we genuinely can’t do anything about.
It’s good to be informed, but many of us are over-informed because we can’t put down our Twitter feed or turn off the news. Limit your intake of news and your habit of doomscrolling by deleting offending apps or relegating your time spent on the news to once a day.
2) Eating a Bad Breakfast
Your first meal sets the stage for the rest of your day. Blood sugar plays a significant role in how we function throughout the day. Picking a highly processed breakfast of instant muffins or sugary cereals can cause blood sugar to spike, leading to a crash later in the day and suppressing adrenal function. Skipping breakfast entirely deprives the body of energy-giving glucose. The solution? Pick your breakfast wisely. Opt for proteins, probiotics, and whole grains!
3) Your Poor Sleep Schedule
Our bodies absolutely rely on sleep. It’s not just about having energy for the next day — during sleep, the body performs necessary tasks like cell regeneration, growth of new cells, and optimizing heart and brain function. Inconsistent sleep hurts your body and it doesn’t forget about the Z’s you missed out on. It will catch up with you and, beyond causing fatigue, will have a long-term negative impact on overall health.
Improve your sleep quality by having a regular bedtime and stopping the use of electronics at least an hour prior.
4) Ignoring the Clutter
Our environment plays a role not only in mental health but in physical energy. A cluttered or dirty environment is a distraction, pulling your mind in different directions rather than allowing it to focus on the task at hand. A clean environment means your mind is less likely to wander or have its attention split by distractions. When clutter makes your brain work overtime to stay on task, you’ll find your energy sapped, too! Mental fatigue sets in and makes it more difficult to do good work and function at your best. Instead, make sure your working environment is tidy and clean — your brain will thank you.
5) Being Dehydrated
Dehydration is a problem many of us face but few of us recognize. One of the first symptoms of dehydration is not dry mouth or thirst, but rather a lack of energy and feelings of lethargy. Dehydration can lower blood pressure and decrease bodily efficiency. The average healthy man needs to drink 15.5 cups (3.7 liters) daily, according to the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. If you’re only drinking a bottle of water or two a day, you’re not getting enough!
6) Skipping Exercise
Exercise plays a huge role in energy production. As men, we tend to have higher levels of testosterone during the morning, with levels steadily decreasing over the rest of the day. For men, testosterone is a major energy booster, as hormones play a big role in the energy and function of the body. Not only does exercise help boost testosterone levels, but it increases the production of energy in the body. Rather than making you tired, you’ll find that adequate daily exercise actually increases energy levels. This is because the mitochondria of the body produce energy proportionally to the energy we expend.
Because of this, being sedentary means you have less energy produced in the body — leading to feelings of chronic fatigue and lethargy.
What habits are giving you more energy throughout your day? Share in the comments.