7 Keys to Effortless Energy
I am thrilled to share with you a few secrets behind the effortless energy I enjoy every day. Back in my unhealthy days, I used to think that high energy all day long was a joke. Who could enjoy that kind of sustained mood for real?
These days, my life is all about energy, regardless of what is going on. Whether I am under stress, out at a party or enjoying the holidays, I still have uplifting, boundless energy to spare because I chose a long time ago to ADD into my life some very basic principles:
1. Start the day with a vegetable juice or smoothie that includes leafy greens.
This is number one for a reason. It is the most instant way to see an increase in energy, immunity and all-around good mood. Vegetables and fruits have life-force energy. If you are what you eat, then raw, living plants are a great place to start increasing your energy. Leafy greens, specifically, have an intense energy force due to their chlorophyll content. Plants create chlorophyll by soaking in the sun - when you consume greens, you literally consume the energy of the sun. Start your day with a basic blender green smoothie: 2 cups water, 1 cup fruit, and a few handfuls of leafy greens. Search this website under recipes for delicious energy-boosting smoothies and juices.
2. Eat real food more than anything else.
Real food grows in the ground or walked around. It usually doesn’t come in a bag, box, wrapper, package, and only has one ingredient. It hasn’t gone through a “process” to make it something other than what Mother Nature intended, and so it contains maximum energy-giving nutrition. Human bodies recognize, connect with, and thrive on real food. Human bodies don’t recognize the other stuff, and waste a lot of energy trying to figure it out. Grab an apple or almonds for snack, a salad for lunch, and at least half of a plateful of veggies for dinner. Your grateful body will recognize it and reward you with extra energy all day long.
3. When you are tired, sleep.
Sleep is VITAL for all body systems to function properly. Just because we can get by with little sleep doesn’t mean it’s healthy. Pushing ourselves to the max catches up later on in the form of exhaustion, sour mood and health concerns. The body prepares for sleeptime by lowering metabolism between 6 and 10pm, and is ready for rest so that primary organs can rejuvenate and detoxify. Shut the television and go to bed by 10pm. The laundry, dishes, Facebook, etc. will all still be there for you to enjoy after a solid night of sleep.
4. Drink spring water in glass.
Most humans are in a chronic state of energy-depleting dehydration. Spring water is the most pure and cleansing beverage humans can consume. (The earth filters out impurities so your body doesn’t have to do so later on.) Water in glass is not contaminated by plastic-leaching hormones and toxins. Search for brands like Mountain Valley (who delivers in glass) and Saratoga Springs, for example. For instant energy and brain rehydration, start every morning with a glass of room temperature or, even better, hot spring water with lemon.
5. Breathe.
You might think you are breathing, but are you really taking in the air around you? Eating, drinking and breathing are the ways in which humans can literally consume life-force energy. Make the most of all three: eat real food, drink spring water in glass, and take deep breaths throughout the day. Most of the time, busy humans take shallow breaths as they hurry through their days. Form a habit of deep breathing by working it into your daily routine. For example, take 5 cleansing breaths before you get out of the car after work, and before you enter the house. If you can incorporate a yoga practice into your life, there are few better ways to become skilled at deep breathing.
6. Get grounded.
Throughout most of evolution, humans walked barefoot and slept on the ground, largely oblivious that the surface of the Earth contains limitless healing energy. Science has discovered this energy to be free-flowing electrons constantly replenished by solar radiation and lightning. The ground provides a subtle electric signal that maintains health and governs the intricate mechanisms that make our bodies work, much like plugging a lamp into a power socket. Our modern shoe-wearing lifestyle has disconnected us from this energy and, of course, we no longer sleep on the ground as we did in the past. You can be grounded on the Earth or when submerged in water, so “plug in” by going barefoot as often as possible, gardening, enjoying a hot shower, or, quite literally, hugging a tree.
7. Start the day with gratitude.
Where attention goes, energy flows. If we focus on everything that isn’t working, makes us feel bad, and isn’t what we want, not only do we get exhausted, but we only keep getting more of that. Shift the focus onto things that DO work, that feel good, and that energize you, and tomorrow will be filled with more and more of that. Make your first thought of the day one of gratitude: when you open your eyes in the morning, think of at least 5 things that you are grateful for, specifically from the day before.