Five Ways to Boost Your Energy
Do you have enough energy to do all the things you love?
Have you ever reached for caffeine just to make it through the day?
Here’s the good news:
It is 100% possible to build and manage your energy so that you can enjoy life and pursue your dreams. You just need some strategies that will help you feel awesome all day.
Listen in and learn five easy things you can start doing right now to increase your energy. More energy means more joy!
Your best self is waiting, watch now and get ready to take action!
Five Ways to Boost Your Energy
1. Get a morning routine
Are you intentional with how you start your morning or does it just kinda happen to you? How you start your day is going to determine how the rest of your day flows. It is so much easier to start off your day with a fully charged battery and a clear mind. Then, if something comes along to challenge you, you'll be a little more resilient because you're coming at it clearheaded.
Instead of reacting to the day by engaging with a thousand demands via email or reacting to other people’s lives on social media, start to look at your morning routine as a time to build energy.
Start something very simple, like this:
First thing in the morning: lay in bed take three deep breaths in and out. Make them full and complete. Then, list three things that you are grateful for. Take a moment to really generate a feeling of gratitude.
This will build energy and it points you in right direction because you're starting the day clear about what you're grateful for. Rather than reacting to the external world, you are taking responsibility in that moment for your own energy.
Ask your family or friends to hold you to this new routine! Have your kids ask you at breakfast, or ask a friend to text you at a specific time to check in to help you follow through on your morning routine. We all do better if we do things as a group and know that our loved ones are counting on us to be our best selves!
2. Be intentional about your food choices.
Whatever your dietary needs are, we can all benefit by being more intentional about our food choices.
All too often we don’t eat until we are in “reaction mode”…we are overly hungry or tired and we just grab whatever is easy.
Instead, take a little time to plan your food each day. It will really nourish you and fill you with that great energy so you can feel fabulous throughout the day.
One resource I love is Thug Kitchen. Podcast, books, recipes, all done super simple and with a little attitude to keep it fresh!
This is a great help at transitioning from a processed food diet; with lots of ideas for families who need help getting reluctant members on board. Real food for real people. Highly recommend.
https://www.100daysofrealfood.com
Want to eat more plants or are looking to address cancer, check out Kris Carr. She’s a wellness warrior with books, recipes, wellness guides, videos. A huge treasure trove of all things plant based!
3. Do an intentional break with a “micro practice”
So often on breaks we scroll mindlessly on our phones, check email, or numb out with food.
What if your breaks actually built energy and decreased stress?
Try this micro practice:
Sit tall and relax your body
Take a full and complete inhale
Exhale and sigh out ….as you exhale release tension from the body
Repeat this cleansing breath three times
4. Laugh!
Many times our energy drops because we are stuck. We can be such overly serious adults and then our minds get stuck, our breath gets stuck, and then we feel droopy and tired.
Grab a few minutes and watch a sitcom rerun, ask your friends to share a funny video with you, or listen to a favorite comedian.
Laughter helps break up physical tension, improves blood flow to the internal organs, and frees up your breathing.
Laughing is simple, free, and will totally get your energy flowing!
5. Take a nap!
If your energy is depleted, sometimes the best decision is to take a restorative nap. Trust that if you refill your battery that you will return to your day fully refreshed. Honoring your need for rest will improve your health and your productivity.
Check out Yoga Nidra Network for lots of great and free guided relaxations!
https://www.yoganidranetwork.org
Remember that your energy level is all up to you.
Even if you are going through a stressful time, take personal accountability and figure out one thing you can do to boost your energy today.
When you have vibrant energy it helps you be a better spouse, partner, better coworker, and human being! You are completely in charge of your energy, my friends, and you can totally do this. Be the best you!
Full Transcript
Hello my friend and welcome to the Gita Brown show, bringing harmony into everyday life. I love being creative and I love wellness and I've been teaching both for about 30 years. To be creative. It helps if you have a lifestyle that supports your wellness because that's where creativity starts. My philosophy is simple and based in yoga tradition; simple practices, done daily over a long period of time will naturally lead you to a lifestyle full of wellness. And from there your creativity can flow. I'm a musician, I'm a writer and a yoga teacher. And today I'm going to share with you my top tips for keeping your energy flowing throughout the day. So let's get into it a little bit .and I just want to give you a little bit of an idea about how to think about today's little mini-class because it truly is a little mini class with me since I love teaching.
I thought it'd be really fun to kind of break down the sort of concept of energy and then to give you five ways to think about energy. But also five ways that you can start to practice today to increase your energy so you can be more productive, more joyful, just more happy in your everyday life. So you are now officially a Gita Brown student. Yay! Welcome to class my friends. Um, so it might be helpful if you have a little notebook or something you can jot some things down on. But if you're just listening to this driving in your car as a podcast, please know you can always hop over to gitabrown.com there's a full transcript there. And I always break down the takeaways for you so you can really quickly scan those and check them out. And if there's any links there too, to some books, I'm going to reference everything is there for you at gitabrown.com.
So you can either take notes or don't take notes and look at the notes that I create for you later over on my website.
But let's get into today's topic, creating more energy for your life.
So I have a few questions for you to start out cause I want you to check in with yourself so you can use this information so it's going to work best for you. Check in and ask yourself, do you have enough energy throughout the day? Are you humming along at a good rate? Just kinda like rate it maybe like on a one to 10 where are you at? Is your energy consistent all day long? So you feel like, yeah, I met at 10 all the time? Or is there a time throughout the day where you always know that you always have that energy crash, like at two o'clock or at four o'clock?
Or maybe it's when you get home from work and you're just so depleted that you have nothing left for your family or for your home life. Do a little check-in. Note your energy throughout the day and pay special attention to as you're kind of doing this mental scan. Where are those moments when you know that you're reaching for the caffeine. You're reaching for the sugar, or you're getting kinda cranky, or you just notice that you're not productive or really connecting with your life. Make a little note of that and as we go through the five ways you can increase your energy, you'll know then which one to grab and apply in that moment so you can start to shift it a little bit.
So there's another way to think about energy though because some of you listening might have really good energy. You're like, yeah, you know life feels really good right now, but I want to challenge you.
If you're doing really, really well, you've got a wellness routine, your creative, your home life is great, your relationships are good. I bet there's maybe that like one thing you want to try. That new hobby you want to add. Maybe there's that new thing you you want to learn about or something in business you want to try. If Canada had been hesitant to, because you look at a jam packed schedule and you go, how am I going to ever add that one in? It's not going to be possible and you're kind of worried underneath there that maybe you won't have the energy to drive that new dream into coming forth. So here's a thing to think about. The more energy you have, the more your battery is charged, the more you can do with your life. You can add that hobby, you could add that new relationship, you could take more of the trips, you could enjoy your time off even more.
So even if your energy is good, I challenge you my friend, there's always another level, right? There's always a way to get that little extra thing that you've been looking for. You know, our life on this planet is short and our time is not guaranteed. So it is 100% up to you to generate the energy you need for your life and to take personal responsibility for maintaining that energy throughout the day. It's totally in your hands, how you manage that energy, how you produce it. And then how you use it. So let's get into it and let's kind of level up your game so that when I see you a month or so from now, you are going to be shining my friend. Okay?
So for a second, imagine how you would feel with more energy. Kind of bring it into your mind's eye. Think about that thing that you really want to do or how you want to show up more in a relationship with your kids or your loved ones.
Or just pick that thing that you've always wanted to try and see yourself for a minute. Doing it. See yourself with that vital energy. Kind of create that vision of yourself in the future, how you feel doing it. How nice it's going to feel to show up with more energy. Make that strong in your mind right now. You got that image? Yes. Now let's get practicing and showing you some ways you can work your way towards that. So number one, Oh really quick. Before I get into the lesson, we're going to go through the five things kind of sequentially in a day. So I'm gonna start with things you can do in the morning. Then we'll go to stuff that you can use in the afternoon and then through onto the evening, just to give you a little structure for the five ideas. But you know, keep in mind it's mix and match. You're, the student.
Take this information and use it for yourself. And if you're hearing something that I say today that you already know and you do really well, that's awesome. Think about it at an even deeper level then and challenge yourself. Well, what new can I learn from what Gita is telling me today? So always take that next level. Remember, it's up to you.
So if we start in the morning, then with our number one way to boost your energy, think about how you start your day right now. Does that alarm go off and you just get out of bed and you go and you hit the coffee and you have no sort of really morning routine. The kids are coming at ya, the dogs, the animals, your, your daily, you know, the email starts going, you reach for the phone. Are you intentional with how you start your morning or does it just kinda happen to you?
So there's a really interesting thing. My friends, how you start your day is going to determine how the rest of your day flows. It is so much easier to start off your day with a fully charged battery with a really clear mind and with a relaxed mind and a relaxed body because that way you just flow into your day. And if something comes along to challenge you, you'll be a little more resilient because you're coming at it clearheaded. Makes sense, right? I'm going to give you a little bit of a story and a little bit of a different way to think about the morning routine.
So you know how there's that phrase we all use. Like I need to wind down at night or one of my students said to me the other day, it's "wine O'clock," which meant it was five o'clock and somehow that meant he had to drink wine.
Um, we had that notion like when we get home in the evening, whenever that is for us, that's when we relax and we wind down. So that means though, that all day you're winding up, right? Stress happens and you get more tense. And then another thing happens and you get more tense than another project happens and you just kind of built and build and build and build. And then by the time you get home, then you have to do all this work to unwind. And most of us use like food, alcohol, TV, we use all kinds of things to kind of numb out a little bit, which is kind of the opposite of winding down.
Here's a totally different way to think about it. One of my dear, dear yoga teachers in the Integral yoga tradition has a very fancy name. Are you ready? Swami--Swami is just a monk in the yoga tradition.
So he's taken vows of renunciation. So Swami next name is Asokananda. Isn't that lovely? Let's say that together. Asokananda is a wonderful um, monk in the Integral yoga tradition and he's been a monk since I believe the 70s and he currently works at the Integral Yoga Institute in New York city. He's been on one of my teachers for years. He's very witty, really funny, and he keeps like this spiritual aspects of his yoga philosophy, very real and grounded in humor and everyday practicality. So he has this concept that just really changed the way I thought about the morning and I want to share that with you. So he said, you know how you always want to like wind down at the end of the day? I'm like, Oh yeah, I totally get that. I get home. And you have all these like little things you'd like to do to kind of calm down from all the stress.
He said, I think about it differently. He said when I wake up in the morning, I think of my morning practice for him--In this case it's yoga, meditation, breathing, maybe some journaling. Obviously he's a monk so he does a lot of morning practice. You don't have to do as much. I'm going to show you that in a minute. But just picture for a moment. He considers that morning practice as himself winding up. He described it like a spool of thread, . so you have that spool of thread and he's through the practices. He's winding up his energy, he's building energy in his body. He's building energy in his mind. He's letting his mind be really clear, settling his emotions and he's winding himself up in that morning practice full of like really good balanced, healthy, clear energy. So he's kind of wound up after he does his yoga, his meditation, his journaling, and then he has breakfast and then he said then all day long that wound up thread.
He said, then I can play that thread out all day long. That energy I created, I just give it away. I give it to projects, I give it to students. He was president of the integral yoga Institute there, so he has a lot of responsibility and management. He lets that energy just kind of thread out and play out all day long. He said, "that way when I get to the evening, I'm actually completely unwound. At that point. I'm so relaxed and I just drift into the evening." Now, the first time he told me this, I was like, well, yeah, right. That's easy for you because you're a monk! And this was a long time ago. I'm like, I don't know. That sounds really nice in theory, but I'm not really sure I can do that, But I said, okay, maybe I can start small and maybe he's onto something there that if you look at your morning routine as a time to build energy, just like you charge your phone before you go out the door, you make sure that thing is charged before you go on a trip.
You make sure that car is full of gas, right? You charge yourself up with energy in the morning, then all day long you have it for your family, for your friends, for your projects, for whatever you're doing, and then by the time you get to the end of the day Ahhh, there you are. You're ready to just drift into sleep and then start the process over again. Is that a totally different way to think about it? Right? It's kind of interesting. And most of us miss that like a magical time in the morning, which in the yoga tradition we say that morning time is the best time to build energy in your body. So you don't have to do a big hour and a half long yoga practice every day. You might be doing something like that already. I applaud you if you are, but you can start something simple right now. So reflect for a moment right now.
Where are you with your morning routine? Number one, do you even have one? Great. If you have one, what's a little something you could add? What's a way you could challenge yourself to go a little deeper with something you already do? Are you consistent with that morning routine? You know, is it really realistic? Do you stick to it every day or do you kind of times of stress? Do you let it go? So challenge yourself right now thinking about how could I up my morning routine? But Hey, maybe you're someone who just like rolls out of bed and you roll with the day and life hits you right in the face. Maybe you can start a morning routine first thing tomorrow morning and it can be super simple. You could say, you know what? First thing in the morning when I wake up, I'm going to lay in bed and before I move I'm just going to take three deep breaths in and out. And then I'm going to think about three things that I'm grateful for and I'm just gonna list them.
I'm grateful for my healthy body. These are just examples. I'm grateful for my loving spouse, my partner. I'm grateful for my health, my home, whatever it is for you. List those three things and then move on with your day. Wouldn't that be a nice way to start the day? And if you need a little trigger, most of my students say like, Oh yeah, I got up and then I forgot, and by the time I was brushing my teeth and I did it, you can start to set an alarm. However you use your alarm system, whether it's your phone or an actual alarm clock, you change the chime or the sound of your alarm. So it triggers you to remember. Some of my students put a little post it note right on their alarm. So when they see it, it says three deep breasts, three gratitude practices.
They see it, they, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. That's my morning practice. See can be really, really simple guys. Creating a life of creativity and wellness starts with these small little things that you do. But when you do that morning practice consistently over time, I trust me, my friends, it works because it builds energy and it points your day in the right direction because you're starting it open and clear about what you're grateful for. Rather than reacting to the external world, you are taking responsibility in that moment for your own energy. And wouldn't that be a nice way to start the day starting out grateful and a little bit relaxed? Ooh, think about how different your whole day would flow then. So you can also do something like make yourself a little bit socially accountable for that morning routine. If you have kids, include them in on it.
Say, Hey, you know what guys, mom or dad, I'm trying something new with my morning routine. Can you guys check in with me at breakfast and make sure I did it. Kids will totally ask you if you did and they will love that you're role modeling for them starting the day with an intentional focus. Or you can tell your spouse or something. I do, I don't have kids. I usually text a friend and I say, Hey, can you check in with me at like eight o'clock tomorrow morning and just send me a text and say, did you do the thing you said you were going to do? That little bit of social pressure is like so good, right? Cause otherwise we let ourselves slip. I mean we're human, right? We're like, no one's watching. No one will know if I don't do it. So if you can, uh, make yourself socially accountable and make it like a group thing, you'll be so much more likely to start your day with that morning practice.
Make sense? Right. Um, you can also do something like a little more tangible one last little example of a morning practice. Then we'll get on to number two. But some of my students really like to do like a guided practice. They're like, you know, I have like a little something I'd do in the morning and then I have a little something I do, um, that, that short, and I want to do something a little bit more so you can check out some resources over at my website. I've got a course called relaxation rescue. You can do a guided relaxation to start the day. I do all the time. It's a great way to start. You can check out a really great website called Glo, G, L, O, formerly known as yoga glo. Glo has like hundreds of really great yoga classes on it that you can stream right to your phone or your computer.
So check out those out. Oh, there's one more headspace.com is an app you can use that has really great guided meditations, so that's number one way to get yourself some more energy. Start your day with a morning practice. Got it.
And now my friends, number two, one of the number one things I see my students doing that really messes up their energy is their food choices. I'm not going to get like a way super into it because everyone needs different food at different times and all of that. What I am going to talk about though is being intentional about your food and when I say I see my students messing up their food choices, it's usually that they're not being intentional. They usually wait until they're really like way over hungry and then they make a choice that's not great for them or they go to fast food or they're carrying around cups of like caffeine and sugar and using that as energy instead of what it really is, which is it's a treat.
I'm not opposed to carrying around cups of caffeine and sugar. I love my cup of caffeine, but I don't look at that as an energy source. To me that's like a treat. It's a little like nice, nice different tastes to have that's not really being intentional. So again, you gotta think of how you start your day as having a plan before you go on a road trip. You know where you're going and you fill that car with gas. So your morning practice, you give yourself some of that energy, you wind yourself up. Then having a food plan is like knowing your little map of where you're going throughout your day. Just taking a little time to plan it out will really nourish you and fill you with that great energy so you can feel fabulous throughout the day. Couple of resources for you to check out.
Again, these will all be linked at my website so you can go check them out there. One that I love is this thing called thug kitchen and what I love about thug kitchen is like they keep it so simple, so easy, but it's also really fun. I'm a total hack in the kitchen. I like throw things together, I'm better. My friends will attest to this. I'm getting better, but I'm really not great at it, but they make it really simple, really fun and really super healthy, nutritious food. Another great place to start, especially if you're a parent, is a website called 100 days of real food. What I love about this website is they have sections in it for just getting started. If you have no clue where to start having a more conscious, healthy eating plan, she breaks it down for you. She also breaks down how to introduce the rest of your family into eating more whole foods, which is so useful.
Otherwise it just seems too overwhelming. Right? Another resource, if you're a little more interested in looking at like some vegan options or some options that deal specifically with caring for yourself if your body has cancer is a wonderful woman. Her name is Kris Carr. She has an amazing thing that she calls the crazy sexy diet. I mean, what could be more fun than that? And she really breaks down a vegan diet, vegan lifestyle. And how to integrate more plants into your life. Whether you go vegan or not, again, doesn't matter. The whole point here is have a plan. Be intentional about your food choices. Plan it out for the week so that you're not just grabbing for a bunch of crap. Get some good fuel in that body so you have energy. Okay, so now your day is humming along, right? You made it through the morning and now you need a little break and you might even need a break from Gita talking to you.
So here's the next thing. You can do a micro practice. Let's do one right now. Wherever you are, take a deep breath in and then out. Sigh out through the mouth, like just kind of let go of stress.
Take a breath in
and sigh out and just imagine all stress and tension is totally leaving. And then just do one more. And on this inhale kind of squeeze your whole body, little tight, kinda hold that tension. Maybe some tension has crept in through the day and then excellent. Let the whole body just kind of relax.
You just did a micro practice. A micro practice is just that. It's a little mini break that you do. It's that break you take at the computer to take a few deep breaths. It's when you're making photocopies and you stand there for a minute and you go, you know what? I need to stretch a little bit and move my body. You can think of your micropractice like this. It has three components. The first is moving. A micropractice also could be breathing or a micropractice could be breathing and moving so you can pick any one of those. We just did one that was breathing. Couple breaths in and out. Some very simple moving ones are my favorite is just to like usually make your body into a little bit of a bigger shape. We tend to get really stiff and tight throughout our day and that blocks our energy.
When we're holding, you're actually blocking your energy flowing. So sometimes getting your body in a little bit of a bigger shape, will help you to open up and get the energy or even just standing up and walking around a little bit will really help, right? Or you can combine moving and breathing. One of my favorite ones is a balloon breath, so I just hold my hands here and I go inhale, exhale. So I'm moving and I'm breathing. I inhale and I exhale and I do that like five or 10 times. Now some of you are like, I'll feel really self conscious if I do that. Don't worry about it. If you do go somewhere private. I have been known to take micro practices in the restroom, my friends. But as I've gotten more confident in it, I do these things all the time and he know what happens.
So interesting. Nine times out of 10 the people in the room around me are like, Whoa, that looks like it feels really good. And they start doing it too. They're like, Oh yeah, I needed to stretch. I didn't even realize I needed one. That feels so good. So these little micro practices, walking around a little bit, taking a few deep breaths, doing a balloon breath where you combine moving and breathing will be really, really helpful to you.
All right, number four, how you can build some energy. This one's a little wackadoodle. This is all Gita here. This is where my nerd shows. It's laughing. And right now I'm laughing for no reason because laughing gets your energy going. A lot of times why we feel our energy drops during the day is maybe not because you have lack of energy. It's that your energy has gotten stuck, right?
You've been sitting, focusing, concentrating, being a very serious adult for awhile and things just get a little bit locked. So laughing and opening up a little bit can help your energy to be a little bit more free. It also helps to free up your breathing because it's like a natural breathing practice. Laughing also gives your belly a nice massage. So I do this so many days. I'm gonna let you in on a, you know, Gita life here. I do. My morning practices, I have all this like yoga stuff I do. And then I take a walk in the woods and I have this whole like very serious wellness practice. But most days when I'm eating breakfast you will find me eating my breakfast while watching a sitcom. Currently it's Seinfeld. For awhile it was Parks & Rec and uh, also I been watching Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis.
If you haven't watched that, it's totally hilarious. I choose things that are really short and very, very funny and that don't trigger too much other stuff. Right? And nothing that's going to be like very like, um, triggering like national news stuff or also have like a very dark component. I want stuff that's light and funny that will get my energy going because I find when I'm in that place of laughing and joyful, my energy flows throughout the day and then I'm more creative. Laughing is a beautiful thing. So use humor breaks, please keep them short and sweet and you'll totally enjoy it. I just had this image of me eating like my, my omelet and watching Seinfeld. It's just a thing.
Okay, so last one for you. My friends are in the home stretch. Here's another idea for you, and remember you're going to pick one of these and start doing it.
So if you haven't found yours already, maybe here it is.
What about taking a nap? Oh, what about saying no to that next obligation and taking a nap instead. Sometimes your energy is just depleted, right? Like you know the difference when you're really like just done, but you feel like I have to be productive because it's related to my self worth and I have to get that thing done and you know you're pushing and you know it's not going to be that great. What would happen if just one of those times throughout the week you said, you know what, I'm going to take a little nap. I'm just going to take a little bit of intentional rest and trust that if I refill my battery, I'm going to come back in my day and be able to complete that project in half the time instead of kind of excuse my language half-assing the project a little bit and slogging your way through it.
And not doing a good job. Would it be nice to just take a 10, 15, 20 minute power nap and then come back to it, finish that project, and then have energy for the rest of your day too? Wouldn't that feel awesome? There's tons of resources on ways to give yourself an intentional rest. Not just like laying there and try to force yourself to relax, but teaching your body kind of how to let go and loosen up a little bit. So Yoga Nidra network, again, this is all linked over gitabrown.com. Yoga Nidra network has a lot of guided deep relaxations. I've done a lot of them, I love them and they're all timed so you can kind of see. I also have a whole complete course. It's a mini course called Relaxation Rescue in which I teach you how to relax. And there's two minute relaxations in there and 10 minute ones and ones that are 30 minutes long.
So you can start to teach yourself how to take those little mini naps throughout the day to keep your energy pumping.
So for all of this, my friends, remember that being in charge of your energy is all up to you. If your energy is lagging throughout the day, you don't need to point around at life around you, even though you might be going through a stressful time. Take some personal accountability and figure out what does that one thing out of these five that you can start doing today where you can level up doing today that's really going to fill your life with more vibrant energy. Because remember when you have that vibrant energy, that's where your wellness comes from and when you have that state creativity flows and you're a better spouse, better partner, better coworker, better human being, you are completely in charge of your energy, my friends, and you can totally do this.
I believe in you. I know you can because you watched this episode and are listening and you've made it this far. So right now, while you're listening to me, pick which one you're going to do, hop on over to YouTube, gitabrown.com and just drop a comment right there. Make some social pressure around your decision. I promise you, I will comment back and be cheerleading for you along the way. It can be hard to do this, but remember what you're going to gain from it. Remember how is you're going to feel and you might be doubtng, it's not going to change anything. If I do those little things, uh, I beg to differ. It absolutely will. You know that when you have a good night's sleep and are rested and refreshed, how great your day flows. So you can trust that doing these little things will create something powerful in your life.
And also you might be a little afraid of like losing your like little things that you do. Like you love your little Dunkin Donuts run, or, whatever. Don't stop doing that. Keep on doing that. You're not losing anything. You're adding some new habits in that are going to keep your energy humming, vibrant and alive so that you can be the best you that there is. So focus on what you'll gain. Pick one of those five things you're going to do. Drop a comment over at gitabrown.com and I can't wait to see how all this works out for you guys having bubbly, happy, wonderful energy throughout your day. So I'm going to close with a little chant for peace. This is a universal chant for peace. Afterwards, I'll give you the English translation because this is one way that I keep my energy going, is I constantly try and connect to something bigger than myself. And I think, you know, chanting for peace is something really good that keeps me focused on the bigger picture. So let's chat together my friends lokah samastah sukhino bhavantu
May the entire universe. And you my friend, be filled with peace and joy, love and light. Om Shanti Shanti Shanti, which means peace to you, my friends. Hop on over to gitabrown.com share this with a friend or follow me on social media. Always. You can find me. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Gita C Brown. I'll see you very soon, my friends. Keep your energy flowing!