11 Ways To Boost Your Energy Levels

​There are smarter ways to boost your energy levels than reaching for an unhealthy energy drink or a sugar-filled cup of coffee.

Unsafe energy pills and powders packed with caffeine and other stimulants are also not recommended. When you let your body do what it does naturally, you enjoy high energy levels and vitality all day, you sleep soundly at night, and your health benefits from head to toe.

Overweight and obesity, as well as the many health problems which accompany those conditions, are often the result of too much sugar in your diet.

Sugar is a wonderful energy booster, alone and especially when added to coffee, but it is also incredibly addictive.

Because of the high levels of endorphins and hormones that are triggered by sugar consumption and which create positive feelings and emotions, a sugar addiction is as difficult to beat in some people as a heroin or cocaine addiction.

Fortunately, there are plenty of smart and healthy ways to naturally boost your short-term and long-term energy levels. 

The following 11 tips and activities lead to high and natural energy levels and vitality, so you don't have to reach for an unhealthy energy boost instead.

1 - Develop a Healthy Sleep Routine

While you sleep, your body heals and repairs. You have probably noticed that after a good night’s rest, you feel charged and ready to go in the morning.

The entire day following 7 to 8 hours of restful sleep is highlighted by high energy levels that allow you to focus and concentrate, and perform all the physical actions you need to get through the day.

• Develop a sleep schedule if you don't currently have one. 
• Begin going to bed and waking up at the same time every night and every morning. 
• After 3 or 4 weeks this will become a habit your body is used to. 
• Proper sleep is needed for literally all your physical and mental processes and functions to work properly. 
• Prioritizing restful sleep is important for health and well-being, and a feeling of high energy levels and vitality.

2 - Lose a Few Pounds

Being overweight leads to fatigue and low energy levels. Overweight and obesity have additionally been linked to a long list of very serious health problems.

Even if you are just 10 pounds over your naturally healthy body weight, you can experience fatigue and tiredness, and very little energy.

Losing a few pounds if you are overweight, and especially if you are obese, can have a significant effect on both your short-term and long-term energy levels.

3 - Try Aromatherapy

​Aromatherapy has been used for centuries to deliver a multitude of health benefits, both in mind and body.

It involves the use of essential oils, whether applied topically, inhaled or ingested, to deliver specific health rewards.

For example, lavender essential oil lowers stress, anxiety and boosts positive moods and emotions.

As one of the most versatile essential oils in aromatherapy, lavender oil boosts your skin health, helps wounds, scratches, cuts, and burns heal quickly, and promotes healthy sleep.

It also helps calm and soothe your mind, and delivers healthy, focused energy.

​The following essential oils additionally help create short-term energy. When used in regular aromatherapy practice, your energy levels are routinely high.

4 - Eat These Herbs

Adaptogenic herbs change how your body works. They help your body adapt as needed to stressors, whether they be airborne or environmental, physical, biological or chemical.

They can be taken in combination or on their own, and provide steady, healthy, high energy levels and vitality without excess stimulation.

They are not habit-forming or addictive and crank up your energy while also keeping you calm and clear-headed.

This is not the case with several traditional energy levels boosters like caffeine and sugar.

The following herbs can help create short-term energy soon after they are consumed, and long-term energy when taken regularly.

They also provide additional and significant health benefits, as described below.

• Ashwagandha - promotes positive moods, improves memory, endurance, and focus.
  
• Maca - boosts sex drive, fights fatigue, improves endurance.
  
• Ginseng - Korean ginseng fights the effects of stress and helps you feel balanced, and American ginseng boosts your immune system.
  
• Guarana - can help you reach and maintain healthy body weight.
  
• Oregano - natural detoxing properties, boosts immune system health, aids digestion.
  
• Rhodiola - alleviates depression and anxiety.
  
• Gotu Kola - improvement in performance and memory, boosts the circulation of blood throughout your body.
  

5 - Drink Green Tea

​Green tea is one of the best health promoters on the planet.

It is a superfood that delivers healthy antioxidants that boost your immune system, and it has cancer-fighting properties.

Additionally, drinking green tea regularly leads to high energy levels and fewer feelings of fatigue.

​6 - Ditch the Sugar

​Sugar is a simple carbohydrate which is absorbed by the body rapidly. The calories which this simple carb delivers are immediately stored in your fat cells. 

This is so you can have access to those calories for energy when you need it later. The problem comes with consuming too much-refined sugar.

Your fat cells continue to grow, and if you don't begin using more energy than you have already stored, overweight and obesity become problems that lead to fatigue and low energy levels.

Refined sugar is linked to several serious health conditions, and is not required by the human body.

Replace table sugar with Stevia extract or powdered Stevia, or use locally grown, raw honey as a natural sweetener instead.

7 - Kick Coffee to the Curb

Coffee has been found in a lot of studies to promote health and wellness in several ways.

A single cup of coffee every morning, without unhealthy creams and sweeteners, has been linked to multiple health rewards. Most coffee lovers do not drink a single cup.

They enjoy several large cups of coffee each morning, sometimes in the afternoon and evening, and their cuppa Joe is routinely spiked with sugar, artificial sweeteners, milk or cream.

That is not the healthiest way to drink coffee.

The ingredient which makes coffee such an excellent energy levels booster in the short term is caffeine.

Get too much caffeine into your body on a regular basis, and you suffer energy spikes and crashes, while simultaneously elevating your heart rate, sometimes to an unhealthy level.

When your body begins to depend on its own resources and physiological processes for energy, instead of a caffeine-filled coffee injection, you train your brain and body to level out natural energy production.

Drinking coffee regularly can also lead to a ruined sleep schedule. You learned earlier how important it is to establish and stick to a set sleep routine, especially for boosting all-day energy levels.

There are a lot of good reasons to minimize or eliminate coffee and high levels of caffeine from your diet.

8 - Get Plenty of Protein in Your Diet

​Protein is harder for your body to process than fat or carbohydrates. This means that if you need energy levels to boost, or you are fighting fatigue, it will be 30 to 40 minutes after you eat protein-rich foods before that energy is available. 

When you eat protein throughout the day, with every major meal, you always have energy available.

Protein is required by every cell in your body, so it is an extremely important nutrient for energy reserves and so many other mental and physical bodily processes. 

You should be eating at least 0.8 grams of protein for every 2.2 pounds (1 kilogram) of body weight daily.

9 - Drink More Water

​Do you drink enough water? You should be sipping on water all day long. Water is a simple and effective detoxing agent, removing poisons and toxins from your body. 

Drinking it all day long can keep hunger at bay, which can help you regulate healthy body weight.

Drink a glass of water before every meal, and you will eat less. Water is required by your entire body for brain and body health from head to toe, and when you keep your mind and body hydrated regularly, your energy levels are naturally high.

10 - Practice Yoga and Meditation

​When something triggers a stress response in your body, you enjoy a short-term surge of energy.

Your heart begins racing, your breathing accelerates and becomes deeper, and all your senses are on high alert.

 This is the way your body naturally protects you against what it perceives as some type of threat.

Chronic stress, being in this position much of the time, leads to inflammation and inflammation is present in most chronic disease and illness.

Even in the short term, after your stress response is over, you feel energy being sapped away.

This is why you want to minimize the amount of stress you experience, whether physical, mental or emotional. One proven way to do this is with yoga.

​Yoga is a centuries-old practice that combines slow, flowing movements and physical postures with a specific method of breathing and mental focus for a multitude of health benefits. 

For relieving anxiety and stress and preventing depression, yoga has a well-earned and ancient reputation.

The same can be said for meditation. Most meditation practices focus on the present moment. You don't think about or concern yourself with one second from now or one second ago.

Time is not a consideration. You simply exist and focus on that single moment of existence. As with yoga, specific breathing practices accompany this singularity of focus.

11 – Exercise

Exercise and moderate to intense physical activity can provide you with a short-term energy boost.

All your bodily processes are cranked up and active, and you experience high or low energy levels and more vitality.

The real benefits where energy is concerned come from a regular exercise regimen followed over time.

Exercise gets your blood pumping and moves oxygen through your body. Oxygen is required throughout your body for a number of bodily processes.

This rush of oxygenated blood leads to a "right now" rise in energy and vitality.

Exercise regularly, adding strength training and aerobic activities to a weekly schedule, and your body benefits from higher natural energy levels all of the time.

​This means if you want a short-term energy level boost, get moving. Go for a jog or run. Hop on your bicycle. Take a brisk walk. Lift some weights.

These are all physical fitness activities that can improve your energy levels right now.

When you do these types of things regularly, and you stay active and moving more frequently than when you are sitting and sedentary, you create all-day energy over the long term, as well as benefiting from a short-term dose of energy.

​Final Thoughts

​Your body knows how to naturally deliver short-term and long-term energy supplies. Unfortunately, sometimes we adopt unhealthy fitness, dietary and lifestyle practices which make us feel tired and sluggish. 

We reach for a cup of coffee filled with sugar or an energy drink and receive a short-term energy boost. Then the inevitable crash occurs, and we feel wiped out once again.