7 Ways to Naturally Increase Your Energy

When you take a break from alcohol, it’s normal to feel a little tired at first. Don’t worry. You will have more energy as time goes on. How long that takes varies. It may take anywhere from zero to 100 days alcohol-free for your body to find its new normal. Your body is just trying to re-calibrate.

If you're waking up and still feeling a little lethargic or tired, I want to share some really great tips to change that. You don’t have to feel blah all day. Here are seven tips to increase your energy naturally.

But here’s a small caveat before we start. This isn't about whipping yourself into shape. This isn't about fixing yourself. This isn't about adding way too much to your plate or taking on more than you can handle right now. This is about making small, holistic shifts in your life. Below are my favorite tips to naturally increase your energy:

1. Practice good sleep hygiene

Studies show that we need a lot more sleep than most of us are getting. We need a minimum of eight hours. Some people need 9 hours.

And to actually make that happen, your bedtime should be 30 minutes before those eight hours starts. It's going to take around 30 minutes just to wind down—maybe to read a book or do a meditation + the time it takes to fall asleep.

I love sleep hygiene practices because I know how much they work! Today I sleep really deeply. I rarely have trouble falling asleep and I don’t usually wake up in the middle of the night either. Compare that to the sleep I got as a drinker and I’m surprised I got anything done.

But there are rules I follow pretty strictly in order to sleep well. First up, caffeine. I only have one cup of coffee a day in the morning. That’s it. Be really cognizant how much caffeine you're drinking. Ideally, it should only be one cup in the morning too. Never have caffeine past 1 p.m. Studies show that caffeine has a half-life of 12 hours, so if you drink a cup of coffee at 12 p.m., you still have that caffeine in your system at midnight. Isn't that insane? And remember tea, kombucha, and soda all have caffeine, too.

Another recommendation is to put screens away two hours before bed. The blue light we're getting from all these different screens keeps us up at night. Screens include your phone, laptop, computer, and even the TV.

The last thing I do to practice good sleep hygiene is having a nightly routine. Every night, I stop watching TV, go upstairs, and take a bath. That's really soothing and relaxing for me. Then I’ll do my skincare routine, which also feels like a luxury. Then I’ll go to bed and read for a little bit. I don't even use a Kindle or anything like that. I read an actual book. That really helps me fall asleep. To practice good sleep hygiene, try to keep the same routine each night.

2. EAT MORE HEALTHY FOODS

My second tip to improve your energy naturally is to look at your nutrition. Again, you don’t have to be perfect. If you're noticing that you're pretty lethargic, take a look at the foods you're eating every day.

I love the strategy of adding more. Instead of reducing bad foods, add more really healthy stuff into your life. That way, you end up reducing bad stuff because you're full and you don't want to eat it anyway. So have a strategy to make sure you're eating at least five fruits and vegetables a day. If you really want to be healthy and prevent most diseases, aim for nine.

How do I do that? First of all, I have a smoothie every single day. My smoothie will have a lot of those fruits and vegetables in it. Fruits and then lots of greens too, like kale, spinach, cilantro. Then, sometimes, I’ll make a vegetable soup. I'll throw in a ton of different vegetables into a vegetable soup and puree it. These strategies help me get my fruits and vegetables in. I don't have to just eat roughage. Another really easy way to hack it and to sneak it into your life is to snack on baby carrots and baby tomatoes. That is a perfect snack to have right before dinner. Tangerines, apples, and bananas are great for snacking, too.

If you're not eating enough fruits and vegetables, you will feel lethargic. You will feel very, very tired. We’re probably eating some foods that aren’t good for us, and it'd be great to eliminate them. For me, it's just easier to focus on what should I be eating and make sure I get enough of that into my day. When I’m full from eating healthy foods, the bad stuff kind of just seems to fall away.

Take a multivitamin every day too. Find a brand of multivitamins that you really like. Often, our energy actually comes from vitamins that we're not getting enough of in our diet. Things like B-12, for example, are really great for energy. I actually love gummy vitamins, because sugar cravings can be intense when you're changing your relationship with alcohol. Instead of becoming a sugar addict, you could actually just get gummy multivitamins and get your hint of sweetness from those. You're still treating yourself pretty well, and they usually have low sugar.

3. MOVE YOUR BODY

The third tip to increase your energy naturally is to move your body. I think we all know that, on days we work out, we have more energy. If that’s something that's possible for you to do in the morning, I highly recommend it.

Personally, I am not the type of person to wake up and work out for an hour. My energy is the best in the morning and if I want to get some work done—if I want to create new videos and do creative stuff—I have to do it in the morning.

I don't like to have this big long workout in the morning, but what I will do is a seven minute workout. There are apps out there with different strength training and cardio exercises that you can do just for seven minutes. It's enough to wake you up and really get your energy flowing. Then later in the day, I might go on a run, I might go to Orange Theory, or I might do nothing. You don’t have to work out for a long time every single day. When I work out for just seven minutes in the morning, it makes a huge difference. Moving your body is really, really critical.

Now, sometimes, you don't even have to put a sports bra on. If I think to myself, I have to put a sports bra on just to do this workout that stops me from working out. But if it's just seven minutes, I can wear my pajamas and hop in the shower after. Another way to trick your brain into working out without it being super, super formal is to dance. I love to put on a song and just dance it out.

4. HAVE A MORNING ROUTINE

Another way to increase your energy naturally is to have a morning routine. I have noticed that, when I don't do a morning routine, my energy is low. I’m just not as upbeat that day.

A morning routine is time I set aside before I check email and get to work. If you have kids, wake up before they do so you have time to yourself. Infuse your morning routine with things that help you feel grounded and ready for the day.

What it looks like for me is journaling, saying affirmations, doing my seven minute workout, reading, and meditating. I do all of those things and maybe a visualization as well. If you've never established a morning routine, I highly recommend the book The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod.

I also highly recommend Tony Robbins’ priming exercise. It’s a beautiful meditation that brings you straight into the most beautiful memories of your life and the most beautiful goals that you could ever accomplish.

5. Get Motivated

Tip #5 is to start your morning with some motivation. Our human brains were built for survival. When our survival brain is in charge, we’re always going to think negative and repetitive thoughts. That is literally how humans have evolved on this planet. It is a function of our brain to protect us from danger. These days, it doesn't make us happy, and it doesn't serve us anymore.

It is up to all of us to override that survival brain and to connect to something deeper—something deeper that's living in our heart or our soul. I do this by listening to something that motivates me every morning. If you're not listening to something that motivates you every morning, my recommendation is to do it in the shower. Just take your phone and bring it into the shower with you and put on a podcast or put on a YouTube video or put on something that motivates you. It could be a speaker, like Tony Robbins, Rachel Hollis, or Marie Forleo. Whatever motivates you, put it on while you're showering. I promise it will change the way you look at the day. This really helps prime your mind and your emotional energy, not just your body.

6. GET IN A PEAK STATE

My sixth recommendation is to get in a peak state. I follow Tony Robbins pretty religiously. I love everything he creates. He’s literally like the father of personal development. He believes if we have negative thoughts all the time, our lives will be pretty unfulfilling. So it's up to us to change our thoughts. It's up to us to get into the state we want to be in and believe in the dreams that we have for ourselves. Tony Robbins is a big proponent of getting into a peak state, which means that you actually do something physically, emotionally, and mentally to prepare yourself to feel the way you want to feel.

When you go to a Tony Robbins’ conference, he asks people to move. Moving could mean something like pumping your chest. It could be raising your arms up in the air. You do it over and over and over so you feel powerful. It’s really, really similar to Dr. Amy Cuddy's research. Dr. Cuddy is a researcher from Harvard who discovered that standing in a superwoman position—standing really tall and strong—actually increases your confidence that day.

When you want to feel high energy, you have to prepare yourself to feel that way. There are things we have to do. Getting into a peak state is one of them. Stand in the Superwoman pose. Put your arms up. Scream. Yell. All those things will change how you feel the rest of the day.

7. TRY SOMETHING NEW

My final tip is to have something that you're excited about every single day, like a new passion. In my coaching, I always have my clients do some self-discovery work to find out what they're passionate about, what they want to do, and what's their next big chapter. When you remove alcohol from your life, that's the first step to creating that beautiful space that you now replace with your heart, your passions, your soul, and your purpose.

It’s different for everyone. I've worked with so many people, and I've heard so many incredible dreams. I’ve coached women who want to be professional hula hoop dancers, women who want to open animal sanctuaries, women who want to become coaches, women who want to write books, and women who want to move to some beautiful location around the world. If you have something like that, it really drives you every single day.

My goal is to grow my business. I know the basics. I know the intermediate stage, but I don't know the advanced stuff yet. I haven't done that, so it challenges me every single day. Every single day, I learn something new. Every day, I try something that scares me. So that’s my final tip: to increase your energy levels naturally, have something that you're passionate about—something that you look forward to each day.

I truly believe that when we're working on something we're passionate about, when we get into what Mihaly Csikszentmihaly calls the flow state—where we are learning something new, doing something we enjoy, or doing something that stretches us.

Take the tips that really resonated with you and get started tomorrow. You don't have to do all seven—start with one or two!

Making these shifts is my favorite thing to work on when I’m coaching women who are taking a break from alcohol and want to work on their next chapter. Women who want to find out what they're passionate about and bring some more purpose and fulfillment into their lives.

If you’d like to work with me to find your greater purpose and implement change, you can apply here: euphoricaf.com/coaching.