No Sleep. Need Energy.
Didn’t sleep last night? Can’t afford to be tired AF and dragging yourself all day?! In this post I will share 5 FREE tips to get energized and feel good for the day.
So for the past week or so I haven’t slept well. If my son sleeps through the night, I sleep through the night but if he wakes up I am screwed. This is new for me and frankly has been frustrating as hell. I NEED MY SLEEP! Sleep is where our body basically cleans up all the mess from the day so we are good and ready to go the next day. Our brain also processes the day’s events so we can start fresh when we wake up.
I don’t have the time to be lazy and I don’t like the idea of being so tired that I am struggling and dragging myself through the day. So what do I do?!
I DON’T DRINK COFFEE
What?!?!?! Yup, coffee for me is a trigger for stress. I get anxious, sweaty, and jittery.
Caffeine also triggers a release of cortisol in the body.
Okay seriously, what do I do?!
- Drink 8 – 16oz of room temperature water with a pinch of sea salt upon waking up
- Eat a solid breakfast loaded with protein and fat with some carbs
- Walk outside for at least 20 minutes without sunglasses
- Exercise; and
- Continue eating meals every 2-3 hours, never carb loading but not restricting. Every meal has protein and fat
Why?
Humans are primarily water. Sleeping is when our bodies primarily detox, cleaning up our cellular waste. Water helps with fluidity of our blood and lymph while also keeping our cells, tissues, and joints mobile. Help your body out by watering it and flushing the junk out quickly.
Breakfast should be its own topic as it relates to stress but the quick of it is food is the gas to our bodies. We need it for energy. We haven’t ate for hours. Our bodies maintain a tightly controlled level of sugar in our blood to survive. A breakfast containing protein and fat provide energy until our next meal as it is slowly absorbed into our blood stream, while carbs provide a quick source of energy that is used up quickly. Without breakfast, our body needs to be able to maintain a specific level of sugar in our blood. Here comes the stress response, your body releases cortisol to maintain your blood sugar by releasing more glucose (sugar) in the blood stream. You are basically setting yourself up to have a stressful day.
The light from the early sun contains natural blue light that when received through your retinas suppresses melatonin (hormone that helps you fall asleep) and increases cortisol (hormone that hells your body it is time to wake up – I know I said above it is creating a stress response. Hormones have multiple roles. This balance of melatonin and cortisol is a gradual and minimal response, it is not the same output of cortisol when it comes to surviving!) Gentle movement outside helps stimulate the lungs, heart, muscles, and joints. If you can opt for dirt or grass but even a paved trail will do.
Doing some form of exercise helps wake up the body. Gets the blood really circulating. Exercise increases oxygen intake and also helps uptake sugar (glucose) into the cells to increase energy. Be sure to eat afterwards!
Eating consistently throughout the day is key. This is because when we are sleep deprived 2 hormones tied to our appetite are affected:
- Ghrelin, feelings of hunger, are increased
- Leptin, feelings of satisfaction and fullness, are decreased
Applying these tips:
Now I do not do these things all first thing in the morning. Life with a toddler forces you to be flexible and go with the ebbs and flows. So here’s a look into how I incorporate these things.
The night before I filled a mason jar with filtered water from my Berkey and added a pinch of sea salt to it and it is left on my nightstand next to my bed. Upon waking up, I take a chug of water and continue to drink the glass while I move around my bedroom, getting changed, brushing my teeth, etc. It is gone before I leave my bedroom.
Breakfast never looks the same any given day so let me share a compromise. We woke up at 8am the other day and because it was so late I made the quickest breakfast for both my son and I. This was to get something in my belly, instead of waiting until I could make a proper meal. I cut 2 pieces of fresh sourdough, set the oven to broil to to toast my slice. I made avocado bread for my son and cut up a slice of smoked salmon too. As he started on his, I finished mine. I added ghee (fat) to the toast (carb), followed by a quarter of an avocado (fat), beet sauerkraut (carb), and smoked salmon (protein and fat).
Got all ready for the day, dropped my son at daycare, did a 20 minute brisk walk in the park before returning home.
Around 10:15AM I made myself a proper breakfast – sauteed chopped cabbage (carb) and dandelion greens (carb), roasted sweet potato (carb), a medium over easy duck egg (protein and fat), and a slice of bacon (protein and fat).
Around noon I had a cup of bone broth before doing a quick 20 minute workout in our basement that included step-ups and dumbbell lifting work.
I continued to eat every 2-3 hours the rest of the day.
Tell me if you try these things or do you have anything you do that helps you be energized after a rough night?