What everyday habits boost our energy?

ᆢI recognize two factors which contributes to my energy levels and will work for you too:

I. TAKING A PROPER CARE OF YOUR BODY.

You've got a plenty of advice in other answers about that.

I won't give you some specific instructions because taking care of one's body is a highly individual issue. What if I shoot you with the advice to eat more animal protein when you are a vegan or have religious beliefs that limits such food to a minimum? Or tell you to do pushups and you are quadriplegic? Let's stop at the general level.

There are four elements of taking care of your body:

-diet
-hydration
-sleep
-exercise

You have to eat, drink, sleep and move every day of your life. How you do it determine your level of health and energy.

There is only one general advice regarding diet that majority of research and diet specialist agree upon: eat non-processed foods. Hint: if the food wasn't alive a few days ago, it probably was processed (I mean, apples grow on trees, pizzas don't).

Hydration is also an individual issue. No matter how much fitness fanatics try to push slogans like "drink at least 16 oz of water per day" it doesn't make them a reality. A hulky guy needs more water than a cute like a button gal. A few things to consider about your water intake:

-make sure that the level of minerals in your water is appropriate.

If you drink too much water with low content of minerals, it will leach minerals from your body. Beware: most bottled water is no better than tap water in that regard, don't overpay.

-beverages (coffee, tea) tend to leach minerals too. It's better to drink pure water than them.

Sleep.

Quantity.

Average adult needs from 7 to 9 hours of uninterrupted sleep a night. Be careful with "I don't need so much sleep" bravado. Only 5% of the population possess bodies which need less than 7 hours of sleep. People who notoriously undersleep (6 hours a night or less) suffer from degraded focus and performance and they don't even realize that they function below their optimal levels. They think they act normally when in reality they are slower and less bright.

Quality.

Have you ever slept too long and woke up tired or with a headache? The same can happen of course if you sleep too short. Have you ever slept in a new place and felt uncomfortable in not yours bed? It's not enough to sleep the optimal period of time, you need to sleep well too.

For both sleeping well and long you need three factors:

-silence
-darkness
-peace of mind

Your sense of hearing is the last to turn off and the first to turn on when you sleep. You can train yourself (or be so tired) to fall asleep in a noisy environment, that's how people who live near railroads are not disturbed in their sleep by passing trains. But it's so much easier to simply have silence in your bedroom. Invest in the good door and windows. Sometimes as simple thing as rubber can make a difference.

Your eyes, and too much lesser degree your skin have photoreceptors which sense the light and control hormones level in your body. Exposed to the light they wake you up, in the darkness, they are inactive and/or send signals to put your body to sleep. Thick and dark curtains in your bedroom are the best solution to assure darkness.

Peace of mind is a bit harder to achieve, however after some initial training, it may be more under your control than noise or lights are. A few tools that help to increase your peace of mind are meditation, prayer, dreaming, and evening ritual.

As a part of your evening ritual, you should avoid electronic devices, which screens disturb your sleep/ awake patterns. In the last half, an hour to an hour of you day do the things that soothe your mind. I pray with my kids, write my gratitude journals, make sure all the tasks for this day are finished and pray laying in the bed.

Exercise

You don't need to go to the gym, weight lift, run an hour a day or practice any other extreme physical activities. They are desirable, but not indispensable. You move all the time, you just need to introduce more physical activities into your day.


Play some sport, play with your kids, take stairs instead of the elevator, use a bike instead of a car to commute to work (if you can of course), walk as much as possible, etc. Whatever you do, do it regularly, habitually. It's not enough to work out one week and spend another sitting on your a... hem, back. Your body needs constant stimulation.

If your body is up to the challenge, try to do Heavy Intensive Interval Training workout every morning. It will increase both your strength and endurance, wake you up and release fat burning hormones all at the same time.

II. HAVING A REASON TO LIVE.

There are many words for that: passion, purpose, mission, vision, focus. They all comes down to the reason what you are looking for every morning, what makes you feel alive, what makes you happy.

The normal mode of operation for a human being is survival. Most of us are stuck with it. We fret about food, shelter, air, water, and relationships and when those are secured, we simply don't know what to do with ourselves. If you are in the survival mode, you don't need more energy. All of your interest are dealt with. Like a crocodile, you should now lie in the sun and preserve your energy.

Higher aspirations take you further.

When you want to make a name for yourself, an impact on the world or to improve lives of people around you, you need more energy for this all.

We are very good at doing the things we have to do, or rather: we feel we have to do, like raising children. The success ratio in raising children is astonishing comparing to any career pursuits. Success ratio in breathing is even higher.

From my experience, it's not like mission gives me more energy. It's like I demand more energy from my body and soul to fulfill my mission, so they provide this energy. It stops to be an option for you, it's a necessity.

I have good news for you: you, I and we all have our own unique purpose on this world. Your life has a meaning. You need to discover it. This is the message of my church (I'm Catholic). This is also the message of Victor Frankl (he is famous for his book "Man's Search for Meaning") the creator of the new psychology school called Logotherapy. He choose a more scientific approach, check out his book (the new edition with basics of Logotherapy explained) if you want to know the details. Below is just a summary in layman terms.

Frankl said that every human being can find a meaning of his/ her life through one of the three ways.

1. Suffering.

If the source of your torment is unavoidable, like a genetic disease or death of a close person, people can still find the meaning of their life; what is more, they find this meaning because of their torment.

2. Love.

People can find the meaning of their life in giving their all to others. It's applicable both in the case of saints who dedicates their lives to improve other's lives (or to save them from Hell) and in the case of average mortals who deeply loves their families.

I have a friend, who spent the whole life in her village, who never had any worldly success, but dedicated her life to her children (and now grandchildren). She didn't succeed even with that. One of her sons is alcoholic and on the downward spiral for years. But I also never met more grounded, compassionate or wise person in my whole life. She draws her meaning from her family life. She is optimistic, grateful, happy, supportive. I lived with her family for a year and I witnessed how many of her relatives and neighbors were seeking consolation and counsel from her.

3. Work.

Not everybody suffers and cannot avoid the source of suffering. We are all capable of love, but sadly, it's not common to find such dedication as my friend possess. But we all can, should, and most of the times, have to work.

By no means, I encourage workaholism. A balanced life needs good relationships and this is impossible to achieve if you spend your whole time at work (or business). However, the ability to contribute via our work is basic. I have kids aged from 9 to 14 and they can contribute. My youngest is always very proud when she do something above her call of duty (like cleaning not only her room but also a kitchen). My oldest helps me with my publishing business as an assistant. Everybody can contribute.

My addition to Frankl's conclusion is that we are all capable of all of above to some degree. We all can work, love and I've never met a person in my life who never suffered. You don't have to fix on just one of those sources of meaning.

Frankl wasn't just a theoretical, he implemented Logotherapy in his clinical practice and got results. He was bold enough to say that we all have the pre-defined purpose and our job is to detect it.

My experience confirms that. I led a life without purpose for a decade or two. It seemed to be impossibly hard to recognize my purpose, but I managed to do it in a few short months.

Self-image

Another method which can bring you more focus and meaning comes from the book "Psycho-Cybernetics". Its author, Maxwell Maltz, was a plastic surgeon and he discovered that people can't act against their self-image. He had patients who after a successful surgery couldn't see the difference, because their self-image put negative filters on their sensory inputs. Everybody around saw the change but not those unfortunate patients. He had also patients who seeing their new faces shifted their self-image and, as a result, changed their lives.

This is another idea which doesn't finish in the realm of theory. For example, I identify myself as a writer. It's hard for me to smuggle an hour of writing into my day with my full-time job and family obligations. But writers write.

So I write. Writers also put their work out there, interact with readers, plan how to make the biggest impact and so on.

Maxwell Maltz recommends in his book to use the power of imagination because subconscious doesn't see the difference between reality and imagination. Imagine you are someone else, someone better, more confident, richer, more compassionate, bolder... Do it every day. Make a habit out of it.

Mission

Another tool is a personal mission statement. This idea was explained in "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People." I tell ya' personal mission statement is relatively easy to create. If I could do it, you can do it too.

I avoided self-analysis for 16 years. I was stuck in old mental patterns. But I wrote my statement within a couple of months and it serves me extremely well. I'm no exception, that's the norm. One of the readers of my book "Personal Mission Statement: Your Road Map to Happiness" wrote to me that she lived in quiet desperation for years, she haven't read a single book from cover to cover in 25 years; yet, she created her personal mission statement.

I agree with Frankl, we all have our mission, we all are capable of detecting it if we only put some effort into it.

How do I write a personal mission statement?

But we are not given our purposes randomly. We act best on our strengths. If you are 5'' tall girl, it's not likely your purpose is to play in NFL as a defender. You act even better if you know what your strengths are.

Another good news for you: your desires are like the radar signals when it comes to detecting your hidden abilities. Wallace D. Wattle in "The Science of Getting Rich" wrote that "Every desire is the effort of an unexpressed possibility to come into action" and this was my experience as well.

You see, my writing shouldn't be good enough to publish. The sober assessment of: my experience (I've written my master thesis),
education (in IT, not humanistic),
talents (problem-solving)
and deficiencies (aesthetic sense approaching absolute zero)
clearly showed it was a crazy idea.

Yet, I wanted to write. Yet, my books sell. Yet, when I'm sharing on Quora my blog posts from the early phases of my blog, written when I had written only about 200,000 words, they get thousands of views.

I simply had a knack for writing I hadn't previously acknowledged. My teachers were always positive about my written works. My friends were praising a short story I created out of the session of RPG game. I carried inside me this potential all the time but didn't properly utilize it. Nonetheless, once I started serious writing and published my works, they found readers immediately.

There are several methods to get to know your strengths and in my experience they all include self-analysis. I meditate and journal every day and I consider both activities excellent self-analysis tools (among many other things).

The last habit I recommend is cultivating gratitude. It will not magically reveal your reason to live, but it will facilities everything else. Gratitude causes that you become more positive. Everything it's easier with it, including the serious task of discovering and pursuing your life purpose.

Take care of your body. Find YOUR reason to live. Energy eruption is guaranteed.