Are you running on fumes? Boost your energy levels with these 3 hacks instantly

Do you feel like you’ve been running on fumes? Do you have trouble sleeping through the night or falling asleep even when you're exhausted? Do you feel you're slower mentally and physically? Do you feel moody or anxious more often? 
Let's say you have an easy gym session, do you feel dead-beat and still have aches and pains days after? 

Well, my friend, you might be heading towards chronic fatigue syndrome. 

Watch the video for 3 super simple strategies that will help you recharge your batteries now and maintain high energy levels

*** If you’d rather read than watch, please scroll down to the full article.***

Now - I know: The high-achiever in your head is whispering: "What doesn't kill me makes me stronger," or "I'll sleep when I'm dead."or other such things to keep you going. 

Unfortunately, pushing yourself through will not do the trick. 

As long as you stay exhausted, your batteries will not start loading again. 

What you need is one thing: 

A serious commitment to paying attention to your energy levels and to installing powerful recovery practices. 

But as they say, Rome wasn't built in a day, and we can start small and easy, too. There is an effortless way of recharging and maintaining high energy levels.

These 4 simple hacks I’m giving you will not only beat tiredness but also will prevent burnout, and boost your productivity, creativity, and cognitive capacity. 

No big effort. I promise.

Ready? 

Here they are:

Super doable hack number one. Greet the sun.

When you wake up in the morning, the first thing you want to do is get out and - like a sunflower - turn your face towards the sun. 

If you wear glasses, take them off. Eyes closed, let the sun rays warm your eyes and your face, and just enjoy the feeling. 

Spend around 10 minutes outside for a powerful boost.  Every day.

If it's dark when you wake up, get yourself one of those “SAD” lamps. “SAD” stands for seasonal affective disorder. 

These lamps simulate sunlight and work well to trigger the release of serotonin and cut off melatonin production. 

You might want to talk to your doctor before starting to use one.  

Super relaxing hack number two.

Plan a non-negotiable Power Down Hour into your schedule. 

Power Down Hour is the hour before you go to bed when you reduce your exposure to light, especially blue and green light, and wind down. 

You want your body to start producing melatonin, which you need to sleep deeper. 

In a deep sleep state, your body performs maintenance, and the cells get cleaned up and restored. Also, the mitochondria - your battery cells, are cleaned up and recharged.

I will not go deeper into the science of it now. Watch this space for another article about it later on. 

What is important to know at this stage is that melatonin production gets disrupted by light exposure in the evening, and this negatively impacts all the maintenance processes in your body. No proper clean-up, regeneration, and recharging is possible then. 

Another point of the Power Down Hour is reducing cognitive load, so your mind can also prepare for maintenance, just like your body. 

Some of it happens in the deep sleep phase - the clean-up, repair, and more; and some will be done in the so-called R.E.M. phase. 

Simply said, the R.E.M. phase is when the memory gets consolidated and patterns built.

What you could do to support it?

First of all, avoid reading stuff that will make your mind work hard.
And if you feel anxious, you can do some meditation, write down your thoughts in a journal, and make a list of your goals for the coming day. 

Do what you have to do to unload. 

And relax. 

Super manageable hack number three. Ensure your bedroom is dark, cold, and quiet. 

It makes all the difference.

To get your bedroom dark, you can get some black-out curtains or something similar. Pretty easy, isn’t it?

The temperature. The research shows that the optimal room temperature is around 19 degrees - about 66 Fahrenheit.

And as for a quiet room - that's not always so simple. Especially, if you live in the city or go to bed earlier than the rest of the household. 

You might want to find a white noise device or an app on your phone to cover the irritating background noise.

Some months ago, when our AC was super loud, I used the Rain Rain app. The sound of ocean waves helped me fall asleep when the buzz of the AC drove me crazy. 

A little bit more challenging hack number four: Optimize the timing of your sleep. 

I know, stay with me.  I hear you, night owls! I invite you to experiment for just one month. 

Adjusting the sleeping window to your chronotype is what you want to do, and I’m pretty sure that even if you are a night owl, you will likely benefit from going to bed one or even two hours earlier.

Many people are simply conditioned by their surroundings to go to bed later than it is optimal to recharge. 

It does not make you a night owl. It only makes you tired. 

Sidenote: You can take this assessment to find out if you are a bear, lion, dolphin, or wolf. It is a bit more specific than the well-known night owl and lark assessment. In the report, you will get your chronotype and some helpful tips in exchange for your e-mail address.

While we're on the subject, let's also talk about how much sleep you're getting. 

You have probably heard that the optimal sleep duration is about eight hours. If you sleep under seven and a half hours on average, you are chronically sleep-deprived. 

Research shows that chronically sleep-deprived people do not realize how much sleep they miss until they experience more of it over a prolonged time. 

Undersleeping will have an enormous negative impact on your energy throughout the day, on your performance and mood, and on your physical and mental capacity. 

Give your body enough time to recover, you will be able to accomplish much more in a bit less time. 

You don’t have to take my word for it. Trust the research or simply experiment. 

Experiment for a month with one or all four strategies to restore your battery levels and see how things improve each day. 

Are you doing any of these already? 

How's it going for you? 

Or maybe you're ready to give your energy a boost now. 

In this case - Which one will you try? 

If you want to go deeper, take the Peak Performance Scorecard and find out what you could do to improve also in other areas and reach the flow state easier and more often.

Here is the link to the scorecard again.