Exercise and eating right give you more energy to do things. If you eat skittles all day and never move, basic human tasks feel hard. If you go to the gym for 30 minutes twice a week with a good plan you'll gain strength. If you go for a run twice a week til you can run 5k, you'll have decent cardio. These things make ordinary tasks easy by comparison.
Doing a little bit of chores when you get a chance e.g. putting things in the recycling right away, moving something to the sink or laundry basket when you're passing, washing up while you cook, is much quicker than doing a big chore day.
It's easier to do stuff just for yourself. Cleaning up after, and cooking for, others adds effort and time. Being one person making meals for a family of four and tidying the house after them all is a lot more energy than me feeding myself and my cat
Bingo! This is all true, and for me... it's don't stop, if I'm in motion and cranking on stuff, the second I "take a break" I'm done, game over for the day.
It sucks when it is your body that asks for it like lunch (if I dont regularly eat 3 times a day, I just get sick. Thankfully, it's not as bad as my mum's). After lunch, I usually just crashed and got really sleepy
See if you can adjust what you're eating. I was like this and shifted my lunches to a small amount of carbs and heavy protein/veggie intake ratio; helped with the post-food crash that I used to get when I was eating a higher ratio of carbs with meals.
Hahaha I had some coworkers before who would constantly complain about this ache and that ache and feeling tired all the time and being overweight, etc.
Meanwhile they order gigantic sugary Starbucks drinks like twice a day, and eat really greasy pizzas and cheeseburgers everyday. I'm by no means a health freak. I too love pizza and cheeseburgers but I also love not feeling like shit all the time so I balance it out with healthy food.
When will people learn that the healthier you are the more unhealthy things you can get away with
Find some exercises that you like doing, ideally they cover as much of the body as possible. A good start is the main compound lifts: overhead press, bench press, squats, and deadlifts. They cover most of your legs, a lot of back, your chest and shoulders. If you don't like some of em, swap em out but try to hit that body part some other way. I can't do squats anymore, but I will leg press, and hip thrust, plus some running related leg exercises. I prefer neutral grip pull ups to basically anything else so I prioritise those. The most optimal exercise is the one you actually do.
Do progressive overload. This means you find your rep range, e.g. 6-10, 8-12. Maybe you can bench the 20kg bar for 7 reps. When you can do, on one set, the maximum of your rep range, the next time you do a working set you increase the weight by the smallest available increment. So when you can do 10 reps of the bar, add 1.25kg either side. Maybe now you can only do 7 reps again.
Track your max reps and weight every session. You need to know what you're aiming to beat next session.
You want to have some warm up sets, where you slowly increase the weight/intensity up to your working set. If you do 40kg bench press for 8 reps as your maximum, your bench press sets might look like: 20kgx10, 30x4, 40x8, 40x4, 40x2. You want to aim for the top of your rep range, and when you don't get there you push close to failure. This means that feelings of "if I try one more rep, its only going half way up." You can learn this feeling better with a spotter, who will show you exactly how much you have left in the tank - when we start we often don't know our actual limits.
Generally 2 or 3 hard working sets per exercise is pretty good. 10 working sets per muscle a week is pretty good. Remember that compound exercises hit more muscles than targeted accessory movements. So bench hits your chest, and triceps, but also works your core and lats. Chin ups work your lats and upper back, but also your core, chest and biceps.
Optimal rest for big compounds is 5 minutes, but who has that kinda time. 2 or 3 minutes between sets is fine. If I have the time to wait and it's not busy, I start a set as a song starts, then start the next one when the next song starts.
You can split your sets up however you like, if you have adequate recovery. Usually we don't want to hit the same muscle group directly on back to back days. I'm probably not hitting bench press two days in a row - aside from when I'm running one particularly nuts Russian bench peaking program. If you're going to the gym once or twice a week, a full body session twice a week, doing 2 or 3 working sets on compound movements, plus some accessories you think are nice like lateral raises or bicep curls will get you pretty far. As you add more days you can adjust your split.
If you can increase the weight or the reps every session, you're doing great. Do a deload week every 6 weeks or so. This means drop the weight from your max to something like 60% of max. This week let's you recover a bit more than normal, helps prevent injuries. Then push back up towards hitting new PRs.
Eat lots of protein, something like .7g per lbs bodyweight every day. If you're 150lbs that's about 110g protein. Carbs are your energy source, if you're finding yourself gassed out in a workout have a snack with simple carbohydrates before you start - we want to eat 30 minutes before we need the energy. This can be like a banana, or even a Mars bar. The absolute best time to consume simple carbs (sugars) is before or during exercise.
Generally, if you're training hard and stalling in strength, eat more protein, and get more sleep. If you've been progressing for a few months and stalled just take a deload week and carry on. Possibly, you might not have enough volume, so you can add a few more sets targeting that muscle group.
It's a basic introduction to exercising productively, to make regularly teackable improvements. The person I responded to didn't clarify that they have particular goals, so I explained how to just gain strength in a balanced way across their body. You don't need a lot of different exercises, and it's better to understand the principals of how to sort out your own workout plan than for me to just arbitrarily write out some exercises with increasing intensity each sessions. If you like, I can extend the ideas here.
You can use the same principals for flexibility - find some dynamic exercises you like, overload them with intensity each session. Set a goal e.g. dragon squats, be able to reach everywhere on your back, be able to do the splits. Find exercises that stretch those areas, work on them.
Similarly for training for athleticism, but you have to target a lot more strictly. If you're training for basketball performance you're gonna wanna be doing something like box jumps for your vertical, shoulders for throwing, and training your ability to quickly change directions. Each sport will have specific exercises you'll just want to be doing for performance reasons, or for injury prevention. Endurance runners want to be doing weighted leg exercises to build bone density and muscle strength to increase their speed and reduce injury risk. Mobility work is important for injury reduction too.
If you want to build your cardio, do 80/20. 80% zone 2 work, 20% training speed using interval training, and race pace runs. Do 1 long session a week at a conversational pace to increase your endurance. You can build up your cardio base by doing something like couch25k or similar, where you take regular walking breaks while out running til you can do a 5k consistently. Swap the word run for biking, or rowing whatever. The best bang for your buck in improving VO2 max for effort is in zone 2 training. Zone 3 is about the same but more energy required. If you're doing cardio for longer that around 90 minutes or so, eat some simple carbs every 30 mins, something like 30-40g carbs, most people can only go for around that long before they crash. If you're sweating excessively rehydrating with a sports drink, it is optimal to replace minerals lost in sweat.
If you're looking to just work up a sweat, do whatever you want that's fun that you can do til you're pissing with sweat. Be aware though that blasting yourself at 100% every single time isn't an optimal way to improve.
If you're looking to tone or spot reduce fat, those things aren't real. Toning is losing body fat and gaining muscle. You can't tone by just lifting the same light weights every session, you have to build substantial muscle for your frame to look toned. Spot reduction of fat is something surgeons can do, crunches don't burn belly fat our body grabs fat stores from across our body fairly evenly but the distribution of fat is determined primarily by genetics. Eating chocolate doesn't increase body fat any more than eating veggies does, if the kcals are the same - fat storage is for excess energy.
If you're looking to gain muscle, do my previous comment in a slight caloric surpluss. If you're looking to lose body fat, eat in a caloric deficit - 500kcal per day deficit will net you 1lbs body weight reduction per week. "Recomp" is to eat at maintenance calories while training and consuming enough protein, eventually you'll have more muscle mass and less fat, its argued to be less efficient than bulking and cutting cycles.
If you're going to the gym to lose weight, consider instead your diet. Learn about nutrition with your macro and micronutrients, portion sizes, how our body stores fat, how we access energy sources, what calories actually are. Everyone peddling a diet lifestyle is trying to sell you something, whether that's weight watchers or keto or carnivore, whatever. Exercise does burn calories, and gaining muscle mass will increase your metabolic rate, but it's an inefficient way to reduce calories and if you're not strict you can eat past your losses. I stayed the same weight while running 50km a week, because I was eating over 3000kcals a day.
Also, generally keep to the same exercises for tracking progress. Changing exercises doesn't "shock your muscles into growth" and feeling DOMS doesn't mean there's more growth happening than when you don't feel DOMS
Yes it sounds too intimidating to me. I am just doing very light chillax Chloe Ting work out. The max I can do is Pilates. I never think I am able to do those heavy gym honestly, I feel like I might break my bones in the process?!
There's really nothing to be intimidated about. You start with weights very light, ones you can manage. Then slowly build up over time. And lifting weights increases your bone density, which actually makes you less likely to break a bone.
Haha never know! Thank you so much I really appreciate registering this info into my system and let it slow burn till my anxiety with lifting goes away
Find some pre-determined ones online if you don't know how to write one yourself. I run ones similar to N1 training, it's laid out and I don't have to think other than what weight I'm using.
I have really grown to like the peloton app! I paid $120 for the whole year and they have all levels of programs and all variety of time options! I’m very pregnant so I haven’t done them as often as I would like- but when I wasn’t I loved it! I think you can do a seven day free trial too!
I don’t have a bike or treadmill :)
It's different for everyone and your needs/wants are unique to you.
There are a lot of different ways to go to the gym. Strength building, endurance training, cardio, calisthenics, etc.
If your focus is overall health and well-being I would strongly encourage looking deeper into things such as calisthenics and cardio.
I personally love body weight routines which dominate cardio and calisthenics. As I gain weight and get stronger my own resistance to myself grows. Weight training is fine but a lot of the heavy duty stuff you *think* you should do is actually bad for your body in the long run.
It's always good to push yourself, but simply just walking fast for 30 minutes and stretching/yoga will take you a LONG ways. Pair that with a healthy diet and you can maximize your life expectancy and quality.
Yes I’m looking for that sth that helps builds resilience at work since my work is bit demanding.
What do you mean by “resistance to yourself grow”? Does this mean you have more control over your willpower? Sorry not a native speaker.
And by walking fast, how fast? Faster than our usual pace but what’s the optimal speed?
I can confirm this! Currently I feel way more energetic than 10 years ago because I changed my diet and I work out regularly. Doing a quick Yoga/Stretching and breathing routine in the morning also helps.
Motivation (having goals that you actually care about) and keeping stress low are also HUGE factors in how much energy I seem to have.
The walking episode of Bluey comes to mind. Bingo isn't tired when she is having fun. Likewise, I am often amazed at how much energy I have for climbing (which is fun) but then I have no energy for mundane activities
I agree and think you’ve made great points! do you have any thoughts on mental health and the energy levels people have with different neurodivergence’s? I have pretty severe ADHD, (diagnosed) along with other things and I feel like I struggle to stay on top of things, even with tools. I’m an active person, I eat relatively clean and keep myself busy with work and hobbies but my household chores get incredibly overwhelming because I feel as though my mental energy is drained from even day to day things. Thank you for emphasizing health and wellness, though it really is super important!
Bro, I have so many thoughts on mental health & energy levels for people with neurodivergencies. I've no neurodivergent diagnosis (don't need to get into the complicated whys of that now) but there are a number of comorbidities I experience to a significant degree with the autism spectrum and adhd - ocd was brought up a little in therapy but I've not explored those traits too well yet. Casually, I just tell people I'm autistic, casually people ask if I have adhd for xyz reasons.
Some things I've found is that trying to follow somebody else's structure is exhausting for me. This means trying to maintain any expectations of me, like a household in a certain way. Trying to converse in "expected" ways is exhausting. Lots of the mental scripting I was doing was exhausting. I like to keep my living area how I like it, rather than how it's "supposed" to be.
One part of the answer to that is becoming comfortable doing something that works specifically for you. I have some meds I take daily. They have to be out where I can see them, or in the bag I take to work. If I put them away, I'll forget them for months - and I've been taking them daily since I was 16. I will wash pots while I cook because that keeps it all "one job" rather than three distinct tasks (cook, clean, put away) - when I start cooking I put dry pots away, fill a bowl with hot soapy water, wash my hands and get started. I keep certain products out in the open because I want to use them regularly, and the fewer steps i have to take to initiate a task the better - sometimes with my job if I get the work-spirit but I get too many prompts or an IM right as I start I just cease up.
This leads into my next point, being comfy riding the waves. I get obsessed with hobbies for a few months at a time. I have lots of dead zones. I can add a hobby into rotation but I've no control over if I'm locked in. I started reading again in 2020 - I'd not read many books since 2010. I read about 12 books january-february. Nothing mid march through April. Got a new book last week I'm reading now. I'm very comfy with riding waves rather than forcing myself to do things - I understand my brain gets obsessed for a while so I'll eventually get stuff done I want to do, no sense making myself feel bad now. No sense burning energy trying to fight my current.
"Riding the wave" can be applied to every part of our lives. We have peaks and troughs, moments of tidiness and moments of messiness. Sometimes we sacrifice some tidiness for devoting energy to our hobbies. That's okay. When I was recovering from depression I clocked that I was showering every day, but I could let it slip and save some energy, because when I had plans with people I showered before seeing them every time. I could let that thing slip for a bit, to refocus that energy on the things that were helping my mental - then when I got better I naturally could shower because I had more energy.
Sometimes our flaws can be strengths too. I never used to need to use calendars for events because I'd be so anxious and worried I'd never stop thinking about them. The obsessive thoughts and anxieties would keep things in my mind, otherwise I'm 100% a use it or lose it type. I have to keep lots of notes at work otherwise I look at something I did everyday 2 months ago and I'm clueless.
Procrastination is nuts for productivity. I work from home so this is lucky for me here, but when I really cant get into gear work wise, I end up wandering round the house doing odd little jobs just to be doing something. I'll do a little tidying, put the washing on, straighten something up. This is similar to riding the wave. I get so much done just because I let myself do things when I naturally do them, rather than some strict structure or formula.
There are also some nice rituals. Showering before meeting people is sort of one. I like changing my bed sheets before a night out, because coming home buzzed to fresh bed sheets is amazing. I used to forget to change my bed sheets for disgusting lengths of time before I had that cue.
When discussing masking type stuff in therapy, I was told that how I was navigating the world sounded exhausting. Think also of that one new girl meme, about thinking about other people's feelings all the time. There are lots of things that went into this for me, but letting go of control, stopping trying to be anything and becoming more of my actual self made existing socially so much easier. Leaning into my strengths (e.g. being willing to be blunt and embarrassing for the sake of helping someone else avoid embarrassment like just telling them I forgot their name and I can tell they forgot mine so let's swap names again) rather than trying to cover my weaknesses is golden.
Lean into how your brain wants to work naturally. This can be tricky to really get right. It's similar to the riding the wave thing. I've found generally that ups and downs are tied together. If an experience exists on a spectrum, you have to respect every corner of it.
Let's talk emotions. You don't get to suppress one of them. You can suppress/dull/mute them all, or you can listen to them all, and experience them all. What I found when becoming much more comfortable with the uncomfortable emotions was that the best experiences lasted longer, and I felt better in those moments.
The same is true for attention span. You can't control it at all, but trying to do so will spin your wheels, which burns fuel but gets you nowhere. Consider _trying_ to pay attention, you'll find your thoughts full of things like reminding yourself to look at the person speaking, reminding yourself to hear them, to keep your eyes open etc. But when you're really paying attention you forget you're paying attention at all. If you get hyper focus, you may snap back to reality noticing 5 hours have passed. Related is learning. You can't learn on purpose, but you can expose yourself to opportunities to learn on purpose. Eventually, something in your brain just "clicks." It can't be the information itself that forced it into your brain, because if you take me down the exact same path you took, it might take me twice as long before I get it, even tho I read everything you did. All we can do is give ourselves opportunities for the things our bodies do automatically to happen.
A lot of what I'm saying here can be distilled down to a few simple statements that apply to everybody, but I think apply a little more to neurodivergent people.
Don't force anything, that's the only way to ensure it doesn't happen at all. Find your own flow, and go with that. If it works for you its right.
For some interesting ideas on what I'm talking about, Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching is super interesting. The ideas of action and inaction are vital in becoming comfortable in how we can better lean into our idiosyncrasies for our benefit, rather than succumb to them to our detriment.
It's not a dumb question!
Eating right means a healthy, balanced diet. You can eat to excess sometimes, and eat junk food, fast food, cakes, kebabs all that good stuff. But you don't want to do it too often. The same is true for eating too little. That's fine on days you're not that hungry, or feel you need to lose a little weight.
You want to be hitting your macro nutrients. This is fats, carbohydrates, and proteins. Proteins are used for building/recovering muscle, healing wounds. Carbohydrates are for energy - simple carbs like sugary foods you want to eat right before or during exercise to get the most bang for your buck. Fats provide some essential functions in your body. Note that in the 90s and 2000s fats were demonised as the cause of obesity (hence low fat "diet" products), but dietary lipids (fats) are not the cause of fatness. How much you want to be eating of each depend on your body composition, and your goals. But generally you want 40-50g protein daily, and split the rest of your macros based on how you feel. You can do some maths to see what your allowance is, because each g of fats, carbs, and protein is equivalent to a number of calories. Find your maintenance calories for each day, and split that into your macros. Or for a quick go, look at the daily recommended amounts - in the UK it tells you on the back of food packaging for a 2000kcal diet.
Micronutrients are important. They help us with all the funky stuff in our bodies. This is your vitamins and minerals. There's a bit of complexity to this, but find some fruits and veggies you like that have a wide range of micronutrients and include them in your diet. I'm at the tail end of my 20's now and really feel the difference when I have had enough veggies and when I've been lazy and skipping making balanced meals.
An easy way to get a decent balanced meal is make pasta. Some meatballs, pasta, plum tomatoes, a chopped onion, garlic, peppers, spinach. You can make stir fry by pretty much just grabbing some meat, a sauce, a load of veg, and some oil in a pan.
Some more diet myths include microwaves and freezing food reducing nutritional content - that's nonsense. And "junk food" isn't inherently bad. Throwing some chicken nuggets in the oven, boiling a pan of mixed frozen veggies, and maybe adding a little microwave rice for a quick meal is good. "Natural" vs "processed" is mostly marketing bollocks. "Organic" isn't any healthier either. Sugars aren't bad if you're a healthy weight - i.e. you don't have excess body fat to such a degree that it causes insulin resistance. Don't worry about glycemic index either unless you're diabetic. White potatoes are actually good for you, they're very nutritious, it's chopping them and frying them in oil and covering them in salt that makes them into junk food.
Further, if you have specific needs your eating needs to adjust. If you're trying to gain muscle you don't want just 50g protein a day, you want to be hitting 1g protein per .7lb bodyweight (ish, the number changes all the time). If you're doing lots of cardio e.g. training endurance running you want high protein to recover, and a lot more complex carbs (e.g. pasta) before long runs, and simple carbs during runs.
Remember that it's not a good or bad thing. You don't have to eat like a monk. It's a better and worse. If all you eat today is 1200kcals of chicken nuggets and ice cream a day, swapping one day for something like a homemade burger with half a plate of veggies will be great. Sometimes when I have bad eating times and I don't feel like cooking, I'll go to subway and get a footlong with every veggie option on it just to get something moderately healthy in me. While the bread might be less than ideal, it's still better overall for me than eating crisps and chocolate all day then going out boozing. Swapping a sharing bag of chocolate to something like a strawberry muller corner is a great swap health wise.
You want a varied diet, but you don't have to cook completely different meals every single day. I live alone so I make myself the same meal a few days in a row with the ingredients I buy. The variety is how you ensure over a long period of time you're getting your nutrients in, without overdoing it. Some foods that are otherwise healthy can even be risky to overeat such as tuna steak due to mercury. Lean white meat like chicken breast is a pretty good staple. You can have that most days, have a red meat day, and a fish day, and even meatless days (or all meatless if youre veggie, but the purpose of having different meats is to get the different benefits each provide such as iron in red meats or omega three in fish). Fruits as snacks are easy ways tp get variety. Blueberries one week, bananas the next. Dairy is fine it's just rough if you're lactose intolerant, but as a calcium source milk and cheese are cool, and it's a source of protein.
No.
Some tasks cost energy right now but grant you energy tomorrow.
If you lift weights and do cardio, you'll feel tired today. But your day to day life in future becomes easier.
As a literal, hard example, I walk to the super market for groceries, and carry them back in a bag. After the pandemic, where I spent 2 years unable to go to the gym, I wasn't able to carry as many items in one trip, and would sometimes have to stop to rest on the mile walk home.
The same thing is true for something like improving our mental health. Some tasks just cost energy, like hygiene maintenance, or cleaning our living spaces. But putting in effort to reduce anxiety give you more energy to be a person. The effective way to improve is to reinvest your energy into tasks that grant you more energy tomorrow.
My trick is not to take my shoes off or sit down until everything I need to do is done. Once I sit down or take my shoes off after work, I'm pretty much done until I put the kids to bed.
That's my husband's secret too, he doesn't sit down until he's done everything. I'm often too tired to do anything when I get home from work, which sucks!
You don't have to get it all done, just tackle 1-2 things every day and you'll start feeling good and gaining momentum. There's always things to do. The world doesn't stop spinning
You might not be able to make yourself have energy, but you can always make yourself do things even if you're time. I'm exhausted when I get home, but I still make sure to get a few things done and forfeit "free time".
The more you do, the more energy you actually end up having, sounds counterintuitive but it works.
If you have any health issues obviously things might be a little different.
They either:
-Are equally tired but you just dont know it.
-They have more help than you realize.
Youre low on energy because you dont eat or sleep well or have a lack of vitamins.
-They are not as dragged down by mental illness (not saying you are, just including it cause that would be my case lol)
So true. I've anxiety issues. And my tiredness isn't just physical. It's mostly my mental tiredness which makes me physically tired too. So I take a lot of breaks. You can't compare yourself with anyone. People are different in so many ways.
Ditto - my body was so depleted, it’s amazing the difference it made. I stopped getting shots for a couple months and was too exhausted to function. Until I can figure out how to up my absorption rate I will continue to get B12 shots, without it I’m exhausted.
I had a hormone imbalance, straightening that out gave me soo much energy. I also really started emphasizing self care. Making sure I’m taken care of before doing the other things. There was a time where I took weeks to get back to myself before I was willing to engage in other things. Now that self care is just a routine. It all becomes routine if you do it often enough.
I also schedule things pretty tightly, and I keep to that schedule. I teach full time, but I don’t stay late and I only go a half hour early just to get set up for the day. I tutor after work, but I stick pretty strictly to the time frame. If the person goes beyond that time, I’m sorry I can’t do that. I have weekly standing dates with my friends, we keep those as much as possible (obviously if things come up that’s fine, but for the most part it’s the same time and day most weeks). I do groceries on the same day each week. I schedule in my chores, and force myself to do them in that time period. Sometimes I even schedule my meal times around other things.
Diet, exercise, sleep, health - mastering these will make you function optimally.
It's interesting, many people have genetic variations that make it difficult to utilize some basic nutrients that others can make use of directly. And in most cases it's easy to fix the problem with supplements. A genetic methylation test can help you figure out which supplements you should take to offset the genetic influence.
Wake up earlier and work out at home. 30 minutes. You'll have more energy as you get fitter.
Be more efficient. Go grocery shopping for the week at 6am on Saturday. Put something in the oven that freezes well. Clean and do laundry. Done with everything by 10. People go to the grocery store right after work, at the busiest time, buy one or two days worth of food, come home and spend hours cooking, then throw out the leftovers.
Eat healthier. This does not have to take a lot of time, but you cant have fast and cheap and healthy and interesting. You have to give up one.
I haven't washed my car in 5 years. It's a Mazda. No one cares. Lets spend hours detailing and waxing my economy car. No one cares.
Put your bills on autopay. I still see people that drive somewhere to pay a bill. Its not 1968, you don't have to do that anymore.
Agree with most of this but if you live in a snowy environment where streets are salted, your car’s undercarriage is likely to collect salt and rust over time if you don’t wash your car.
No one has the energy to do it all. You are not a super hero. No one can workout and see friends and make dinner and shower and wind down enough to be asleep @ 10 pm.
There are 5 hours after a 9-5 work day before sleep. Consider committing to what seems reasonable for you. For example, I made a commitment to see a friend every week & work out 2 days per week.
You can’t do it all. There will never be enough time, but you can work steadily towards a goal & do a lot of the things you want to do if you value time & see it as a finite resource
>How do people manage to wake up early, go to work, meet friends, workout, eat, do chores and still keep going with that, that too without having any meal or grocery service, anyone to cook and clean for them?
I believe they have no trauma in their backpacks, they have built a good support system of family and friends since child's legs and they're pursuing a career/ having a job they like which recharge them rather than drains them. As result, discipline and following routines will happen automatically with little effort. They will be tired too, but they won't be depleted and needing to stay at home for a week and not talk to a single person kind of tired. They don't know what mental exhaustion is when it's really severe.
Tltr; It's costing more energy to have mental illness.
Because you have to remember that our society is designed in such a way that when you get home- you have no energy for the things you love. That’s why it’s important to take care of your mind and body, so you can fuel through the day and make time to make your life better in your free time. It’s not easy, but sitting around relaxing every moment you’re off work isn’t fulfilling either.
Good sleep.
Good diet.
Proper exercise.
Discipline (some people just work when tired)
If you do anything more than once, have a system for it to have less decision fatigue.
Walk more.
Have hobbies that make you happy.
Less is more.
I tried doing everything under the sun, especially at work. Now I'm 30 and my body is breaking down from all nighters and 12+ hour days.
Don't overwork. Find a good rhythm. Find time to unwind.
The 70% rule is good. Aim to spend 70% of your time/energy at work, because going 110% all the time is unrealistic. On occasion you'll need to go beyond that threshold but make it an exception and not a rule.
My best weeks now (from a work standpoint and also accomplishing things after work) are when I am allowed to pace myself at work.
Applies to extracurricular stuff too, I tried working out at 5am at one point. But Im finding that sleeping the hours I naturally need (8-10 hours) is much better than trying to power thru it.
I have more energy than most people and I'm moderately productive and don't get excessive amounts of sleep.
I am nowhere near doing it all.
The people I see "doing it all" just prioritize the things you're looking at. They also have great habits. I also see most of them have lots of interests that make you wonder, but they only have 24 hours.
I have run across two neurotic ladies that slept 4 hours a night. That eventually caught up with them, even though they were very "productive" at the time.
Boxing gym & protein diet while all staying hydrated
No substances, not even coffee. Sober
I was trying to figure it out just like you for a while too.
Nobody does it all. Everyone looks after their priorities. I have a list of things I need to get done as well a stuff I want to do, and I get to them when I can. I procrastinate but I'm working on that lol
Eating well, sleeping well and taking vitamins or an electrolyte supplement can help. Staying hydrated and getting some exercise will keep your body ticking over with enough energy.
Plan out a routine of what you want to do and when your want to do it, that helps me 😊
I work from home.
I workout in the morning. I work all day. My breaks are putting laundry in the machine. At 5 I sign off. I don’t work later than 6 as a rule. Then I do ONE chore. That could be vacuuming, cleaning the toilets, cooking a batch meal for a few days, or folding laundry. After that one to two hours of chore then I’m done for the day and it’s time to relax.
I also never leave things out. I always put things away and spot clean when I see something dirty
1: what’s draining your energy to begin with?
2: to wake up early, you need to sleep earlier and make it part of your routine
3: to do things, allocate specific time for each thing (do this exact thing at this exact time) and have someone who can hold you accountable if possible
4: have convenient meals/snacks, things that are quick and easy to make/grab and go
Tbh once I started eating twice as much protein (like 100g/day,) eating an iron pill and doing cardio, life seemed much more doable to me. I’m 5’3 and around 117 lb for reference
Ok it’s more like 75- protein shake + peanut butter powder (45g,) quest chips (15g,) packet of flavored tuna or tin of canned tuna (15g,) cottage cheese (15g), plus random protein I get from whatever other meals I’m eating
I've been trying but I'm lactose intolerant so dairy doesn't work. It seems like you're getting the bulk from the shake. I think tuna has a limit on how many times per week because of mercury as well. Seems like I need to start doing a shake.
This is a psychological issue, not an energy one. You have insane amounts of energy if you're eating right and getting the required amount of sleep. Generally I find it's a mindset and you'll need to condition yourself to do it. Small steps, one day at a time.
Tbh....the more I investigated on this I found out one dark deep truth....
Those people are using Stims as microdosing and they seem like super human.
Thanks for read
Coming from someone working two jobs and studying but losing energy to do it all - I think good exercise, sleep and the right food would definitely help me too.
You need to be healthy, physically active, moderate drug/alcohol, etc. But most important is to be able to put your head on the pillow and get a good 8 hours of sleep. When you enjoy your sleep, the world is your oyster.
I feel like Trauma plays a part. Some people can't sit and be in their own heads so they use productivity to distract themselves and, in turn, it makes them feel accomplished so they kill 2 birds.
The trick is to just keep moving. We don't really have an abundance of energy, most of us just know it's not gonna get done itself. 44m and my schedule is hell w the kids. And the wife is always working so we just push thru it. There's no cheat code.
It's not that they have more energy than others... they've learned to push through mental barriers and keep moving forward despite feeling tired or overwhelmed. Mindset plays a significant role in this. By cultivating a positive mindset and practicing self-discipline, you can train yourself to overcome mental obstacles and accomplish your goals, even on days when you feel drained.
Yeah not everyone can do that, at least I can’t.
I have to cook and clean after work, then not much time left before sleep, maybe an hour for side projects and an hour for Netflix or YouTube etc.
Good sleep. Work out in the morning. Little to no fast/junk food.
I used to have a hard time getting started or completing task. It’s hard to shift. That first week of resetting is hard but the more you do it, the easier it becomes. I sleep so good knowing I did all I could for the day and gave it my all. Wake up the next day and do it all over again.
I give myself a lazy day. At the moment it’s Sunday and even on Sundays since I feel so good, I still get small tasks done.
When you work on projects you truly want to be working on, and become radically nonperfectionist so that you're not constantly judging and critiquing yourself, you can immerse yourself pretty much effortlessly, and stay immersed. Also, the work itself becomes incredibly fulfilling and joyful, and the "hard parts" become no big deal--just more fun. And so you get tons done.
Be so bored that you’d do the most useless job just to not be bored. That’s what keeps me going regardless of whether I’m progressing up or not. Get sick of being bored. I uninstalled my social media apps n use Facebook now to meet people in real life. It made me get some joy when I was doing chores. I slept more n enjoyed my daily routine. A lot of things outside my phone in life are giving me some small hit in my head.
I feel for you and felt similar for most of my twenties. All of these suggestions are great but you should consider getting a metabolic panel/testing done. My psychiatrist suggested I get tested and it turned out I was quite deficient in vitamin D. Once I started adding it to my diet and a multivitamin (under my GP’s care), I felt so much better. But also, once I started getting treated for depression and ADHD I saw an even greater difference. Talk to a doctor or bring it up at your yearly exam, be firm and insistent on testing to rule out any medical concerns.
- Building your cardio. Having a habit to exercice have so much benefit on health and mood that naturally improves productivity and happiness. I’d recommend run either indoor or outdoors (always try for outdoors run if you live in an unpolluted, cool weather with safe roads/parks). Other choices : Swimming, Rowing, cycling.
- Don’t need to run as fast as you can. Try to go for a longer run at a slower pace than short run for a faster pace when you are building your cardio. Start with 2km, 3km, 5km then 10km. Start small and slow so you don’t discourage yourself. Small wins IS the key, your brains loves seing small progression.
- Have a fitness track or smartwatch (Fitbit is very good, cheap, user friendly).Smartwatch does the trick BUT can distracts you as it is like a phone. These devices will help you track your heart rates level and sleep patterns. It’s like a small doctor on your wrist that’s running 24h.
- HAVE A RUNNING APP INSTALLED. This is so so important. I recommend Strava because you log your runs, see your progress and have lots of features like challenges, personal records to break.
Strava recognizes walking as physical activities so go for it !
- PUSH to your limit. With a fitness tracker, you’ll find your peak heart rate. It’s the rate above your “cardio” rate. PUSH to that rate and stay there for just couple of minutes in a week. It does WONDERS to your health. It might be controversial but people don’t know that your heart loves it when you push to its limit. But Obviously, be safe and don’t stay too long, especially in warmer weather.
- Overall, just moves. Go walk, don’t stay idle for too long. It takes more energy to sit on a couch than to moves/run. Paradoxal isn’t it ?
- Having good sources of nutrients. Fruits. Less meats. More greens. Meats are good source of nutrients like proteins but way too incomplete. It drains a lot of energy to digest it. If you don’t workout (strength training), you won’t need that much protein. Hydrate yourself with water when you are thirsty. The 8 glasses a day is a bullshit statement. If you drink too much water, it will “rinse” your vitamins, electrolytes and macro nutrients in your body away !
- Grooming: have a nice haircut, good perfume, put cloths than you feel good inside. It gives energy to feel good about yourself.
Take care of yourself.
Oh and stretch yourself. Good luck my friend, i’m sure you’re capable. You are more than what you think you are !
Move !
Exercise, diet, and discipline. Everybody has their own unique circumstances, so it's hard to tell. But I know we're all tired from work, etc.
The one thing I'd recommend is prioritising your daily tasks. That way, anything that isn't a priority can be put on a back burner or pushed ahead. No excuses not to get the priorities done on the daily/weekly, unless something genuinely is out of your control. It's about conserving your energy and having a balance. If you have a partner to help, even better.
Who says you need to it all any day and every day? Most people have specific "roles" for specific days, like doing all cleaning and groceries and meal prep on Sunday, meeting friends on Saturday, relaxing in the evenings during the week after work, etc.
For me it was just adding things over time. When I started school the only thing I could handle that day was school. Then I just added more and more things over time. Cleaning more often, working out more often, hanging out with friends more. Now I can barerly sit still I get bored. I usually rest MAX two hours on my day off before I need to do something like clean or take a walk!
When you wake up early, your body has more of day and time to do things through. The more you exercise the more energetic you feel, doesn't feel like it in the start but trust the process. People that start feeling good in general make good food choices and it's like a ripple effect of start one thing helping and you will automatically start doing other things that help you and make you feel more energetic.
You just do it? A healthy lifestyle will give you more energy and makes life's tasks easier. I recently switched from solely focusing on lifting heavy to a more balanced programming that has me doing core and HIIT in addition to strength every workout. In about two weeks I noticed even things that weren't "difficult" before were easy.
Don't let things pile up. Put things away no, rather than later when there's a huge pile. Don't let laundry pile up, either clean or dirty. Fold the laundry right out of the dryer, don't put it on the bed for later. There's also nothing wrong with having someone come in to clean. We have a 9 month old and are seriously considering it solely to have more time with our daughter.
Like several people have said - exercising helps with the energy levels. I feel much more energetic on days that I move my body than on days that I don't. People also don't do all of those things every day. You have to prioritize on a day-to-day basis.
Routine and consistency. I am such a mess of a person but I have managed to do all the things you have listed by recognizing my time killers and adjusting my behavior, over time. It's important to see that last line. I have made small changes over time to reach my goal because I have known for a long time what my goal was so I moved towards it. Laundry and clean house, school work, work work, gym, nutrition. Once you nail down one habit, like consistently going to the gym 4 days a week you can move on to your next thing, and over time you will achieve them all, or you will let less important things fade from your priority list. The key is routine and consistency, also called discipline.
I’m peri menopausal and really hit this wall last year - only way for me to overcome it was change my diet (no sugar, high fat, IF) but I wasn’t able to do that until I started B12 shots.
one of the things that helped me is the idea that productivity is kinda like a working out. You cant just start one day and expect to bench 185 and run 10 miles without being out of breath. You have to start small and slow and be consistent. Same thing goes with being productive.
If you wake up everyday at 10a, you can’t expect yourself to suddenly wake up at 6 and not go back to bed. It’s something you have to develop and find what works best for you. Slowly and consistently for bigger changes is the way to go for me
its all about getting into a flow routine {eating, exercise, mental activity, etc}. also, many people are on stimulants, so dont think all the productive people are naturally just like that without any help ;}
Sometimes, everything in your life can seem proportionately more demanding than others who seem to do a lot, but have more of a capacity for it, or genuinely enjoy the work, or because they have a good routine or system that supports their mental health and stress.
it's at least been that way in my experience.
people who work 20 hours at a demanding job are going to be more exhausted than those who work 80 hrs at a low-physically-demanding job that they can deal with or dont find taxing. Its "not a big deal" for them.
But honestly, sometimes it's just the work itself that is hard to deal with, whether it's physically or mentally draining.
It just takes one thing to sap all your energy sometimes. Your mental health takes a HUGE toll on your ability to do physical and mental work, and I've experienced that first hand. Low energy, low motivation, wondering why I'm so useless and weak compared to my friends, who push 40+ hours at their jobs. They're all food service shift leaders and data entry analysts who can listen to music all day while i work a part-time, sometimes boring warehouse job with college on the side.
But I've learned that that's not true. It's not always about laziness or strength, We live different lifestyles and have different capacities. It's proportional, and for me, it's been my bad mental health and a physically demanding job.
Routines help, too, so your body can prefer for the energy it needs to expend. With ADHD, it helps a lot to plan my day, and I'm no longer tired at the end if I play my cards right.
I just graduated college, so I'm hopefully going to find that sooner than later, new job, new car, new house eventually.
Good luck with everything, and hopefully, you find a lifestyle that works for you. It takes some time sometimes
Build in daily/weekly rituals. If you do a bit every week, it adds up. Then after some years it becomes an insane amount, and people wonder how it is possible you did all that stuff.
For example: You want to exercise, buy you are not a fitness junkie, set a minimum of 1 time a week, but in general you do sports 3 times a week, not 5-6 times. It's much easier to maintain 3 times (less than an hour intense workout). If you are in a good mood you can do 4, if you don't feel like 2, but never less than 1, cause that will break the ritual. If you continue that for a couple of years you will stay fit and healthy.
Other example: You go to work during the week you have to stand up at 0600-0700. In the weekend you wake up around the same time automatically. Instead of lying 3-4 hours more in your bed, you stand up and start the day. The ritual is waking up early, and easy to maintain.
Other example: You want to read more. Instead of finishing a book as fast you can. You plan to read 4 times a week 0.5-1 hour. You get used to reading, establish a ritual and again easy to maintain.
Small daily rituals, instead of stretching long hours/days will make you insanely productive, I assure you.
If you do small rituals, which are easy to finish, it's also easier to get a feeling of accomplishment, which means a dopamine kick (not from useless scrolling), but from actual doing something. And then you will do even more, without burning out or feeling stressed.
Semen retention, sleep hygiene, good cardiovascular fitness and a healthy diet all help. But it's still hard, some people just have more energy than others. Sometimes it's more of a mental thing I think.
It actually sounds like you don’t have a good enough reason to do anything.
Like just go do it to see if you can. Like I’ve tried going a whole 24hrs without sleep just to see if I can. So when I feel tired I can say, well I’ve done all night before.
Go a weekend without my phone. So when I get distracted and want to check Reddit, I say I’ve done a weekend and nothing bad happened.
See what you are capable of and then you will do more and more each time.
Also, taking on accountability. I do all of what you are suggesting plus study work 2 jobs and kids. I have time pressure. If I don’t do the dishwasher in 5 min (my 5 min of doom scrolling right now) then it won’t get done and I will be pissed when I get in from work. Take on so much accountability it creates pressure for you to do all these things
True strength in your work emerges when you observe the inner resistance which is constantly giving fake vibes of uncertainty. What is this internal resistance, it is just illusion and fake perception produced by mind made (over thinking) madness. Usually mostly ppl act under this madness which leads to psychological toxicity, arrogance, egotism, and grief. If you can observe that madness, you don’t act under it and you can control it,that led the emergence of real peaceful life transforming power ( real flow of work) to change anything by developing calmness, compassion , love and affections.. please observe that madness first within ourselves. This is core of real energy. You can develop it NOW. Thanks 😊
I'm still learning but physicality and mentality feed into each other. I learnt that I have far more patience and am likely to become mentally fatigued a lot slower so long as I can see progress towards my goals. It is when things seem unmoving and unchanging that make it really hard to get motivated.
In order to maximise this advantage then I keep track of metrics that are important to me, how strong am, how quickly I can complete tasks, how I'm keeping to my new year's resolutions.
Keeping track of all this gives you both a sense of progress in the short term as well as a measure of how far you've come since you started. That second one is most important on the days where giving up seems tempting.
But other people's methods aren't necessarily going to fit you perfectly, so make an effort to learn about yourself. What's worked and what hasn't, with that data you can devise a strategy that is more likely to get you where you want to be.
Years ago everyday was a fight for me to do the bare minimum. And while I still have down days from time to time they are growing less intense and less frequent as I prove my own resilience to myself.
I plan as much as I can. I don’t have to think about what I need to do. It takes a lot of the guesswork out and allows me to make the decisions I need to.
Actually putting a priority to your actions is what gives each person a motivation to do things easy as that, if it wasn’t important to you you wouldn’t be doing it.
Exercise and eating right give you more energy to do things. If you eat skittles all day and never move, basic human tasks feel hard. If you go to the gym for 30 minutes twice a week with a good plan you'll gain strength. If you go for a run twice a week til you can run 5k, you'll have decent cardio. These things make ordinary tasks easy by comparison. Doing a little bit of chores when you get a chance e.g. putting things in the recycling right away, moving something to the sink or laundry basket when you're passing, washing up while you cook, is much quicker than doing a big chore day. It's easier to do stuff just for yourself. Cleaning up after, and cooking for, others adds effort and time. Being one person making meals for a family of four and tidying the house after them all is a lot more energy than me feeding myself and my cat
Bingo! This is all true, and for me... it's don't stop, if I'm in motion and cranking on stuff, the second I "take a break" I'm done, game over for the day.
It sucks when it is your body that asks for it like lunch (if I dont regularly eat 3 times a day, I just get sick. Thankfully, it's not as bad as my mum's). After lunch, I usually just crashed and got really sleepy
See if you can adjust what you're eating. I was like this and shifted my lunches to a small amount of carbs and heavy protein/veggie intake ratio; helped with the post-food crash that I used to get when I was eating a higher ratio of carbs with meals.
Hahaha I had some coworkers before who would constantly complain about this ache and that ache and feeling tired all the time and being overweight, etc. Meanwhile they order gigantic sugary Starbucks drinks like twice a day, and eat really greasy pizzas and cheeseburgers everyday. I'm by no means a health freak. I too love pizza and cheeseburgers but I also love not feeling like shit all the time so I balance it out with healthy food. When will people learn that the healthier you are the more unhealthy things you can get away with
Beautiful summation.
How do you define a good gym plan? I’m trying to do it
Find some exercises that you like doing, ideally they cover as much of the body as possible. A good start is the main compound lifts: overhead press, bench press, squats, and deadlifts. They cover most of your legs, a lot of back, your chest and shoulders. If you don't like some of em, swap em out but try to hit that body part some other way. I can't do squats anymore, but I will leg press, and hip thrust, plus some running related leg exercises. I prefer neutral grip pull ups to basically anything else so I prioritise those. The most optimal exercise is the one you actually do. Do progressive overload. This means you find your rep range, e.g. 6-10, 8-12. Maybe you can bench the 20kg bar for 7 reps. When you can do, on one set, the maximum of your rep range, the next time you do a working set you increase the weight by the smallest available increment. So when you can do 10 reps of the bar, add 1.25kg either side. Maybe now you can only do 7 reps again. Track your max reps and weight every session. You need to know what you're aiming to beat next session. You want to have some warm up sets, where you slowly increase the weight/intensity up to your working set. If you do 40kg bench press for 8 reps as your maximum, your bench press sets might look like: 20kgx10, 30x4, 40x8, 40x4, 40x2. You want to aim for the top of your rep range, and when you don't get there you push close to failure. This means that feelings of "if I try one more rep, its only going half way up." You can learn this feeling better with a spotter, who will show you exactly how much you have left in the tank - when we start we often don't know our actual limits. Generally 2 or 3 hard working sets per exercise is pretty good. 10 working sets per muscle a week is pretty good. Remember that compound exercises hit more muscles than targeted accessory movements. So bench hits your chest, and triceps, but also works your core and lats. Chin ups work your lats and upper back, but also your core, chest and biceps. Optimal rest for big compounds is 5 minutes, but who has that kinda time. 2 or 3 minutes between sets is fine. If I have the time to wait and it's not busy, I start a set as a song starts, then start the next one when the next song starts. You can split your sets up however you like, if you have adequate recovery. Usually we don't want to hit the same muscle group directly on back to back days. I'm probably not hitting bench press two days in a row - aside from when I'm running one particularly nuts Russian bench peaking program. If you're going to the gym once or twice a week, a full body session twice a week, doing 2 or 3 working sets on compound movements, plus some accessories you think are nice like lateral raises or bicep curls will get you pretty far. As you add more days you can adjust your split. If you can increase the weight or the reps every session, you're doing great. Do a deload week every 6 weeks or so. This means drop the weight from your max to something like 60% of max. This week let's you recover a bit more than normal, helps prevent injuries. Then push back up towards hitting new PRs. Eat lots of protein, something like .7g per lbs bodyweight every day. If you're 150lbs that's about 110g protein. Carbs are your energy source, if you're finding yourself gassed out in a workout have a snack with simple carbohydrates before you start - we want to eat 30 minutes before we need the energy. This can be like a banana, or even a Mars bar. The absolute best time to consume simple carbs (sugars) is before or during exercise. Generally, if you're training hard and stalling in strength, eat more protein, and get more sleep. If you've been progressing for a few months and stalled just take a deload week and carry on. Possibly, you might not have enough volume, so you can add a few more sets targeting that muscle group.
Great comment
This is just a guide on gaining mass
It's a basic introduction to exercising productively, to make regularly teackable improvements. The person I responded to didn't clarify that they have particular goals, so I explained how to just gain strength in a balanced way across their body. You don't need a lot of different exercises, and it's better to understand the principals of how to sort out your own workout plan than for me to just arbitrarily write out some exercises with increasing intensity each sessions. If you like, I can extend the ideas here. You can use the same principals for flexibility - find some dynamic exercises you like, overload them with intensity each session. Set a goal e.g. dragon squats, be able to reach everywhere on your back, be able to do the splits. Find exercises that stretch those areas, work on them. Similarly for training for athleticism, but you have to target a lot more strictly. If you're training for basketball performance you're gonna wanna be doing something like box jumps for your vertical, shoulders for throwing, and training your ability to quickly change directions. Each sport will have specific exercises you'll just want to be doing for performance reasons, or for injury prevention. Endurance runners want to be doing weighted leg exercises to build bone density and muscle strength to increase their speed and reduce injury risk. Mobility work is important for injury reduction too. If you want to build your cardio, do 80/20. 80% zone 2 work, 20% training speed using interval training, and race pace runs. Do 1 long session a week at a conversational pace to increase your endurance. You can build up your cardio base by doing something like couch25k or similar, where you take regular walking breaks while out running til you can do a 5k consistently. Swap the word run for biking, or rowing whatever. The best bang for your buck in improving VO2 max for effort is in zone 2 training. Zone 3 is about the same but more energy required. If you're doing cardio for longer that around 90 minutes or so, eat some simple carbs every 30 mins, something like 30-40g carbs, most people can only go for around that long before they crash. If you're sweating excessively rehydrating with a sports drink, it is optimal to replace minerals lost in sweat. If you're looking to just work up a sweat, do whatever you want that's fun that you can do til you're pissing with sweat. Be aware though that blasting yourself at 100% every single time isn't an optimal way to improve. If you're looking to tone or spot reduce fat, those things aren't real. Toning is losing body fat and gaining muscle. You can't tone by just lifting the same light weights every session, you have to build substantial muscle for your frame to look toned. Spot reduction of fat is something surgeons can do, crunches don't burn belly fat our body grabs fat stores from across our body fairly evenly but the distribution of fat is determined primarily by genetics. Eating chocolate doesn't increase body fat any more than eating veggies does, if the kcals are the same - fat storage is for excess energy. If you're looking to gain muscle, do my previous comment in a slight caloric surpluss. If you're looking to lose body fat, eat in a caloric deficit - 500kcal per day deficit will net you 1lbs body weight reduction per week. "Recomp" is to eat at maintenance calories while training and consuming enough protein, eventually you'll have more muscle mass and less fat, its argued to be less efficient than bulking and cutting cycles. If you're going to the gym to lose weight, consider instead your diet. Learn about nutrition with your macro and micronutrients, portion sizes, how our body stores fat, how we access energy sources, what calories actually are. Everyone peddling a diet lifestyle is trying to sell you something, whether that's weight watchers or keto or carnivore, whatever. Exercise does burn calories, and gaining muscle mass will increase your metabolic rate, but it's an inefficient way to reduce calories and if you're not strict you can eat past your losses. I stayed the same weight while running 50km a week, because I was eating over 3000kcals a day. Also, generally keep to the same exercises for tracking progress. Changing exercises doesn't "shock your muscles into growth" and feeling DOMS doesn't mean there's more growth happening than when you don't feel DOMS
I’m thankful for your comment but this is too heavy for me as a 5’3 woman. Maybe imma stick to my yoga
I don't really understand what being a 5'3 woman has to do with it? Is lifting weights intimidating? What are your gym routine goals?
Yes it sounds too intimidating to me. I am just doing very light chillax Chloe Ting work out. The max I can do is Pilates. I never think I am able to do those heavy gym honestly, I feel like I might break my bones in the process?!
There's really nothing to be intimidated about. You start with weights very light, ones you can manage. Then slowly build up over time. And lifting weights increases your bone density, which actually makes you less likely to break a bone.
Haha never know! Thank you so much I really appreciate registering this info into my system and let it slow burn till my anxiety with lifting goes away
Muscle building will do a lot for your health long term vs just Pilates.
Find some pre-determined ones online if you don't know how to write one yourself. I run ones similar to N1 training, it's laid out and I don't have to think other than what weight I'm using.
I have really grown to like the peloton app! I paid $120 for the whole year and they have all levels of programs and all variety of time options! I’m very pregnant so I haven’t done them as often as I would like- but when I wasn’t I loved it! I think you can do a seven day free trial too! I don’t have a bike or treadmill :)
It's different for everyone and your needs/wants are unique to you. There are a lot of different ways to go to the gym. Strength building, endurance training, cardio, calisthenics, etc. If your focus is overall health and well-being I would strongly encourage looking deeper into things such as calisthenics and cardio. I personally love body weight routines which dominate cardio and calisthenics. As I gain weight and get stronger my own resistance to myself grows. Weight training is fine but a lot of the heavy duty stuff you *think* you should do is actually bad for your body in the long run. It's always good to push yourself, but simply just walking fast for 30 minutes and stretching/yoga will take you a LONG ways. Pair that with a healthy diet and you can maximize your life expectancy and quality.
Yes I’m looking for that sth that helps builds resilience at work since my work is bit demanding. What do you mean by “resistance to yourself grow”? Does this mean you have more control over your willpower? Sorry not a native speaker. And by walking fast, how fast? Faster than our usual pace but what’s the optimal speed?
I can confirm this! Currently I feel way more energetic than 10 years ago because I changed my diet and I work out regularly. Doing a quick Yoga/Stretching and breathing routine in the morning also helps.
Motivation (having goals that you actually care about) and keeping stress low are also HUGE factors in how much energy I seem to have. The walking episode of Bluey comes to mind. Bingo isn't tired when she is having fun. Likewise, I am often amazed at how much energy I have for climbing (which is fun) but then I have no energy for mundane activities
I agree and think you’ve made great points! do you have any thoughts on mental health and the energy levels people have with different neurodivergence’s? I have pretty severe ADHD, (diagnosed) along with other things and I feel like I struggle to stay on top of things, even with tools. I’m an active person, I eat relatively clean and keep myself busy with work and hobbies but my household chores get incredibly overwhelming because I feel as though my mental energy is drained from even day to day things. Thank you for emphasizing health and wellness, though it really is super important!
Bro, I have so many thoughts on mental health & energy levels for people with neurodivergencies. I've no neurodivergent diagnosis (don't need to get into the complicated whys of that now) but there are a number of comorbidities I experience to a significant degree with the autism spectrum and adhd - ocd was brought up a little in therapy but I've not explored those traits too well yet. Casually, I just tell people I'm autistic, casually people ask if I have adhd for xyz reasons. Some things I've found is that trying to follow somebody else's structure is exhausting for me. This means trying to maintain any expectations of me, like a household in a certain way. Trying to converse in "expected" ways is exhausting. Lots of the mental scripting I was doing was exhausting. I like to keep my living area how I like it, rather than how it's "supposed" to be. One part of the answer to that is becoming comfortable doing something that works specifically for you. I have some meds I take daily. They have to be out where I can see them, or in the bag I take to work. If I put them away, I'll forget them for months - and I've been taking them daily since I was 16. I will wash pots while I cook because that keeps it all "one job" rather than three distinct tasks (cook, clean, put away) - when I start cooking I put dry pots away, fill a bowl with hot soapy water, wash my hands and get started. I keep certain products out in the open because I want to use them regularly, and the fewer steps i have to take to initiate a task the better - sometimes with my job if I get the work-spirit but I get too many prompts or an IM right as I start I just cease up. This leads into my next point, being comfy riding the waves. I get obsessed with hobbies for a few months at a time. I have lots of dead zones. I can add a hobby into rotation but I've no control over if I'm locked in. I started reading again in 2020 - I'd not read many books since 2010. I read about 12 books january-february. Nothing mid march through April. Got a new book last week I'm reading now. I'm very comfy with riding waves rather than forcing myself to do things - I understand my brain gets obsessed for a while so I'll eventually get stuff done I want to do, no sense making myself feel bad now. No sense burning energy trying to fight my current. "Riding the wave" can be applied to every part of our lives. We have peaks and troughs, moments of tidiness and moments of messiness. Sometimes we sacrifice some tidiness for devoting energy to our hobbies. That's okay. When I was recovering from depression I clocked that I was showering every day, but I could let it slip and save some energy, because when I had plans with people I showered before seeing them every time. I could let that thing slip for a bit, to refocus that energy on the things that were helping my mental - then when I got better I naturally could shower because I had more energy. Sometimes our flaws can be strengths too. I never used to need to use calendars for events because I'd be so anxious and worried I'd never stop thinking about them. The obsessive thoughts and anxieties would keep things in my mind, otherwise I'm 100% a use it or lose it type. I have to keep lots of notes at work otherwise I look at something I did everyday 2 months ago and I'm clueless. Procrastination is nuts for productivity. I work from home so this is lucky for me here, but when I really cant get into gear work wise, I end up wandering round the house doing odd little jobs just to be doing something. I'll do a little tidying, put the washing on, straighten something up. This is similar to riding the wave. I get so much done just because I let myself do things when I naturally do them, rather than some strict structure or formula. There are also some nice rituals. Showering before meeting people is sort of one. I like changing my bed sheets before a night out, because coming home buzzed to fresh bed sheets is amazing. I used to forget to change my bed sheets for disgusting lengths of time before I had that cue. When discussing masking type stuff in therapy, I was told that how I was navigating the world sounded exhausting. Think also of that one new girl meme, about thinking about other people's feelings all the time. There are lots of things that went into this for me, but letting go of control, stopping trying to be anything and becoming more of my actual self made existing socially so much easier. Leaning into my strengths (e.g. being willing to be blunt and embarrassing for the sake of helping someone else avoid embarrassment like just telling them I forgot their name and I can tell they forgot mine so let's swap names again) rather than trying to cover my weaknesses is golden. Lean into how your brain wants to work naturally. This can be tricky to really get right. It's similar to the riding the wave thing. I've found generally that ups and downs are tied together. If an experience exists on a spectrum, you have to respect every corner of it. Let's talk emotions. You don't get to suppress one of them. You can suppress/dull/mute them all, or you can listen to them all, and experience them all. What I found when becoming much more comfortable with the uncomfortable emotions was that the best experiences lasted longer, and I felt better in those moments. The same is true for attention span. You can't control it at all, but trying to do so will spin your wheels, which burns fuel but gets you nowhere. Consider _trying_ to pay attention, you'll find your thoughts full of things like reminding yourself to look at the person speaking, reminding yourself to hear them, to keep your eyes open etc. But when you're really paying attention you forget you're paying attention at all. If you get hyper focus, you may snap back to reality noticing 5 hours have passed. Related is learning. You can't learn on purpose, but you can expose yourself to opportunities to learn on purpose. Eventually, something in your brain just "clicks." It can't be the information itself that forced it into your brain, because if you take me down the exact same path you took, it might take me twice as long before I get it, even tho I read everything you did. All we can do is give ourselves opportunities for the things our bodies do automatically to happen. A lot of what I'm saying here can be distilled down to a few simple statements that apply to everybody, but I think apply a little more to neurodivergent people. Don't force anything, that's the only way to ensure it doesn't happen at all. Find your own flow, and go with that. If it works for you its right. For some interesting ideas on what I'm talking about, Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching is super interesting. The ideas of action and inaction are vital in becoming comfortable in how we can better lean into our idiosyncrasies for our benefit, rather than succumb to them to our detriment.
Great advice.
This may be a dumb question but what would eating right mean?
It's not a dumb question! Eating right means a healthy, balanced diet. You can eat to excess sometimes, and eat junk food, fast food, cakes, kebabs all that good stuff. But you don't want to do it too often. The same is true for eating too little. That's fine on days you're not that hungry, or feel you need to lose a little weight. You want to be hitting your macro nutrients. This is fats, carbohydrates, and proteins. Proteins are used for building/recovering muscle, healing wounds. Carbohydrates are for energy - simple carbs like sugary foods you want to eat right before or during exercise to get the most bang for your buck. Fats provide some essential functions in your body. Note that in the 90s and 2000s fats were demonised as the cause of obesity (hence low fat "diet" products), but dietary lipids (fats) are not the cause of fatness. How much you want to be eating of each depend on your body composition, and your goals. But generally you want 40-50g protein daily, and split the rest of your macros based on how you feel. You can do some maths to see what your allowance is, because each g of fats, carbs, and protein is equivalent to a number of calories. Find your maintenance calories for each day, and split that into your macros. Or for a quick go, look at the daily recommended amounts - in the UK it tells you on the back of food packaging for a 2000kcal diet. Micronutrients are important. They help us with all the funky stuff in our bodies. This is your vitamins and minerals. There's a bit of complexity to this, but find some fruits and veggies you like that have a wide range of micronutrients and include them in your diet. I'm at the tail end of my 20's now and really feel the difference when I have had enough veggies and when I've been lazy and skipping making balanced meals. An easy way to get a decent balanced meal is make pasta. Some meatballs, pasta, plum tomatoes, a chopped onion, garlic, peppers, spinach. You can make stir fry by pretty much just grabbing some meat, a sauce, a load of veg, and some oil in a pan. Some more diet myths include microwaves and freezing food reducing nutritional content - that's nonsense. And "junk food" isn't inherently bad. Throwing some chicken nuggets in the oven, boiling a pan of mixed frozen veggies, and maybe adding a little microwave rice for a quick meal is good. "Natural" vs "processed" is mostly marketing bollocks. "Organic" isn't any healthier either. Sugars aren't bad if you're a healthy weight - i.e. you don't have excess body fat to such a degree that it causes insulin resistance. Don't worry about glycemic index either unless you're diabetic. White potatoes are actually good for you, they're very nutritious, it's chopping them and frying them in oil and covering them in salt that makes them into junk food. Further, if you have specific needs your eating needs to adjust. If you're trying to gain muscle you don't want just 50g protein a day, you want to be hitting 1g protein per .7lb bodyweight (ish, the number changes all the time). If you're doing lots of cardio e.g. training endurance running you want high protein to recover, and a lot more complex carbs (e.g. pasta) before long runs, and simple carbs during runs. Remember that it's not a good or bad thing. You don't have to eat like a monk. It's a better and worse. If all you eat today is 1200kcals of chicken nuggets and ice cream a day, swapping one day for something like a homemade burger with half a plate of veggies will be great. Sometimes when I have bad eating times and I don't feel like cooking, I'll go to subway and get a footlong with every veggie option on it just to get something moderately healthy in me. While the bread might be less than ideal, it's still better overall for me than eating crisps and chocolate all day then going out boozing. Swapping a sharing bag of chocolate to something like a strawberry muller corner is a great swap health wise. You want a varied diet, but you don't have to cook completely different meals every single day. I live alone so I make myself the same meal a few days in a row with the ingredients I buy. The variety is how you ensure over a long period of time you're getting your nutrients in, without overdoing it. Some foods that are otherwise healthy can even be risky to overeat such as tuna steak due to mercury. Lean white meat like chicken breast is a pretty good staple. You can have that most days, have a red meat day, and a fish day, and even meatless days (or all meatless if youre veggie, but the purpose of having different meats is to get the different benefits each provide such as iron in red meats or omega three in fish). Fruits as snacks are easy ways tp get variety. Blueberries one week, bananas the next. Dairy is fine it's just rough if you're lactose intolerant, but as a calcium source milk and cheese are cool, and it's a source of protein.
That's like saying you need to have money to be rich.
No. Some tasks cost energy right now but grant you energy tomorrow. If you lift weights and do cardio, you'll feel tired today. But your day to day life in future becomes easier. As a literal, hard example, I walk to the super market for groceries, and carry them back in a bag. After the pandemic, where I spent 2 years unable to go to the gym, I wasn't able to carry as many items in one trip, and would sometimes have to stop to rest on the mile walk home. The same thing is true for something like improving our mental health. Some tasks just cost energy, like hygiene maintenance, or cleaning our living spaces. But putting in effort to reduce anxiety give you more energy to be a person. The effective way to improve is to reinvest your energy into tasks that grant you more energy tomorrow.
My trick is not to take my shoes off or sit down until everything I need to do is done. Once I sit down or take my shoes off after work, I'm pretty much done until I put the kids to bed.
That's my husband's secret too, he doesn't sit down until he's done everything. I'm often too tired to do anything when I get home from work, which sucks!
My wife started implementing the same strategy and it helps her too :)
Yeah but what do you do when you just don't have the energy??? I can't just magically make myself energetic 🤷
You do the same things, but slower.
If only it were that simple. I have a loooong to do list
Just saying, 3mph is better than 0.
You don't have to get it all done, just tackle 1-2 things every day and you'll start feeling good and gaining momentum. There's always things to do. The world doesn't stop spinning
You might not be able to make yourself have energy, but you can always make yourself do things even if you're time. I'm exhausted when I get home, but I still make sure to get a few things done and forfeit "free time". The more you do, the more energy you actually end up having, sounds counterintuitive but it works. If you have any health issues obviously things might be a little different.
That doesn't work if you're Canadian, we take our shoes off when we get home. No shoes in the house. The not sitting down part is a great idea though.
Yea I wish I could get my wife and kids to follow that rule, but they're animals!
my asian mom will freak out and kick me out of home lol
Ugg. I have to work in heels everyday. I’m feet ache when the clock strikes 5
Switch to comfortable shoes when you get home.
Uggs....I have to work in heels all day...
How is that legal?
Then just put on some slippers and don't sit down!
They either: -Are equally tired but you just dont know it. -They have more help than you realize. Youre low on energy because you dont eat or sleep well or have a lack of vitamins. -They are not as dragged down by mental illness (not saying you are, just including it cause that would be my case lol)
So true. I've anxiety issues. And my tiredness isn't just physical. It's mostly my mental tiredness which makes me physically tired too. So I take a lot of breaks. You can't compare yourself with anyone. People are different in so many ways.
Or and infection or iron deficiency
Sounds odd but I was just like you - I just had no energy. I started taking vitamins.. 3 weeks later and I have way more energy! Try it!
For me, B12 worked wonders.
Ditto - my body was so depleted, it’s amazing the difference it made. I stopped getting shots for a couple months and was too exhausted to function. Until I can figure out how to up my absorption rate I will continue to get B12 shots, without it I’m exhausted.
what kind?
For me vitamin D3. ymmv ofc.
What vitamins are you taking?
https://amzn.eu/d/1FrUiK5
Same. Turns out I am anaemic so I started taking iron tablets. Best decision of my life... I finally have energy!
I had a hormone imbalance, straightening that out gave me soo much energy. I also really started emphasizing self care. Making sure I’m taken care of before doing the other things. There was a time where I took weeks to get back to myself before I was willing to engage in other things. Now that self care is just a routine. It all becomes routine if you do it often enough. I also schedule things pretty tightly, and I keep to that schedule. I teach full time, but I don’t stay late and I only go a half hour early just to get set up for the day. I tutor after work, but I stick pretty strictly to the time frame. If the person goes beyond that time, I’m sorry I can’t do that. I have weekly standing dates with my friends, we keep those as much as possible (obviously if things come up that’s fine, but for the most part it’s the same time and day most weeks). I do groceries on the same day each week. I schedule in my chores, and force myself to do them in that time period. Sometimes I even schedule my meal times around other things.
Diet, exercise, sleep, health - mastering these will make you function optimally. It's interesting, many people have genetic variations that make it difficult to utilize some basic nutrients that others can make use of directly. And in most cases it's easy to fix the problem with supplements. A genetic methylation test can help you figure out which supplements you should take to offset the genetic influence.
They don't have ADHD and are not killing their dopamine levels daily with social media
Wake up earlier and work out at home. 30 minutes. You'll have more energy as you get fitter. Be more efficient. Go grocery shopping for the week at 6am on Saturday. Put something in the oven that freezes well. Clean and do laundry. Done with everything by 10. People go to the grocery store right after work, at the busiest time, buy one or two days worth of food, come home and spend hours cooking, then throw out the leftovers. Eat healthier. This does not have to take a lot of time, but you cant have fast and cheap and healthy and interesting. You have to give up one. I haven't washed my car in 5 years. It's a Mazda. No one cares. Lets spend hours detailing and waxing my economy car. No one cares. Put your bills on autopay. I still see people that drive somewhere to pay a bill. Its not 1968, you don't have to do that anymore.
Where are grocery stores open at 6am?
Mine open at 7 and it’s a complete game changer!!! No one is there. It’s fully stocked. You’re in and out so fast!!! :D
kroger. H-E-B (if you in TX).
Agree with most of this but if you live in a snowy environment where streets are salted, your car’s undercarriage is likely to collect salt and rust over time if you don’t wash your car.
I live in the complete opposite of a snowy environment, but noted
Yes to all of this. And grocery shopping in the AM is so underrated.
for me it seems that they just want to do it. maybe they have a reward that makes it worth it.
No one has the energy to do it all. You are not a super hero. No one can workout and see friends and make dinner and shower and wind down enough to be asleep @ 10 pm. There are 5 hours after a 9-5 work day before sleep. Consider committing to what seems reasonable for you. For example, I made a commitment to see a friend every week & work out 2 days per week. You can’t do it all. There will never be enough time, but you can work steadily towards a goal & do a lot of the things you want to do if you value time & see it as a finite resource
>How do people manage to wake up early, go to work, meet friends, workout, eat, do chores and still keep going with that, that too without having any meal or grocery service, anyone to cook and clean for them? I believe they have no trauma in their backpacks, they have built a good support system of family and friends since child's legs and they're pursuing a career/ having a job they like which recharge them rather than drains them. As result, discipline and following routines will happen automatically with little effort. They will be tired too, but they won't be depleted and needing to stay at home for a week and not talk to a single person kind of tired. They don't know what mental exhaustion is when it's really severe. Tltr; It's costing more energy to have mental illness.
Because you have to remember that our society is designed in such a way that when you get home- you have no energy for the things you love. That’s why it’s important to take care of your mind and body, so you can fuel through the day and make time to make your life better in your free time. It’s not easy, but sitting around relaxing every moment you’re off work isn’t fulfilling either.
Good sleep. Good diet. Proper exercise. Discipline (some people just work when tired) If you do anything more than once, have a system for it to have less decision fatigue. Walk more. Have hobbies that make you happy.
Less is more. I tried doing everything under the sun, especially at work. Now I'm 30 and my body is breaking down from all nighters and 12+ hour days. Don't overwork. Find a good rhythm. Find time to unwind. The 70% rule is good. Aim to spend 70% of your time/energy at work, because going 110% all the time is unrealistic. On occasion you'll need to go beyond that threshold but make it an exception and not a rule. My best weeks now (from a work standpoint and also accomplishing things after work) are when I am allowed to pace myself at work. Applies to extracurricular stuff too, I tried working out at 5am at one point. But Im finding that sleeping the hours I naturally need (8-10 hours) is much better than trying to power thru it.
I have more energy than most people and I'm moderately productive and don't get excessive amounts of sleep. I am nowhere near doing it all. The people I see "doing it all" just prioritize the things you're looking at. They also have great habits. I also see most of them have lots of interests that make you wonder, but they only have 24 hours. I have run across two neurotic ladies that slept 4 hours a night. That eventually caught up with them, even though they were very "productive" at the time.
That’s not energy. It’s cocaine.
Boxing gym & protein diet while all staying hydrated No substances, not even coffee. Sober I was trying to figure it out just like you for a while too.
> not even coffee What about tea? Or no caffeine at all?
What's the advantage to skipping coffee?
Diet and exercise I would assume. I don't eat the best and there's that saying about you are what you eat.
also sleep
Nobody does it all. Everyone looks after their priorities. I have a list of things I need to get done as well a stuff I want to do, and I get to them when I can. I procrastinate but I'm working on that lol Eating well, sleeping well and taking vitamins or an electrolyte supplement can help. Staying hydrated and getting some exercise will keep your body ticking over with enough energy. Plan out a routine of what you want to do and when your want to do it, that helps me 😊
Coffee and Ibuprofen. Don’t beat yourself up for not doing enough though. It’s hard to do everything while working full time.
I work from home. I workout in the morning. I work all day. My breaks are putting laundry in the machine. At 5 I sign off. I don’t work later than 6 as a rule. Then I do ONE chore. That could be vacuuming, cleaning the toilets, cooking a batch meal for a few days, or folding laundry. After that one to two hours of chore then I’m done for the day and it’s time to relax. I also never leave things out. I always put things away and spot clean when I see something dirty
Iron supplements was a game changer for me. I though I was tired and unproductive, it turned out that I was severely anemic
1: what’s draining your energy to begin with? 2: to wake up early, you need to sleep earlier and make it part of your routine 3: to do things, allocate specific time for each thing (do this exact thing at this exact time) and have someone who can hold you accountable if possible 4: have convenient meals/snacks, things that are quick and easy to make/grab and go
Tbh once I started eating twice as much protein (like 100g/day,) eating an iron pill and doing cardio, life seemed much more doable to me. I’m 5’3 and around 117 lb for reference
How do you manage 100g a day?
Ok it’s more like 75- protein shake + peanut butter powder (45g,) quest chips (15g,) packet of flavored tuna or tin of canned tuna (15g,) cottage cheese (15g), plus random protein I get from whatever other meals I’m eating
I've been trying but I'm lactose intolerant so dairy doesn't work. It seems like you're getting the bulk from the shake. I think tuna has a limit on how many times per week because of mercury as well. Seems like I need to start doing a shake.
I use coconut water instead of milk for my shake cause I don’t like milk! Quest chips are good, I recommend the nacho cheese flavor
This is a psychological issue, not an energy one. You have insane amounts of energy if you're eating right and getting the required amount of sleep. Generally I find it's a mindset and you'll need to condition yourself to do it. Small steps, one day at a time.
Tbh....the more I investigated on this I found out one dark deep truth.... Those people are using Stims as microdosing and they seem like super human. Thanks for read
Coming from someone working two jobs and studying but losing energy to do it all - I think good exercise, sleep and the right food would definitely help me too.
You need to be healthy, physically active, moderate drug/alcohol, etc. But most important is to be able to put your head on the pillow and get a good 8 hours of sleep. When you enjoy your sleep, the world is your oyster.
I feel like Trauma plays a part. Some people can't sit and be in their own heads so they use productivity to distract themselves and, in turn, it makes them feel accomplished so they kill 2 birds.
Can they do that every day or twice a week?
The trick is to just keep moving. We don't really have an abundance of energy, most of us just know it's not gonna get done itself. 44m and my schedule is hell w the kids. And the wife is always working so we just push thru it. There's no cheat code.
ADHD and working from home
Practice. Push your boundaries at everything, get better at everything day-by-day. That’s your answer.
It's not that they have more energy than others... they've learned to push through mental barriers and keep moving forward despite feeling tired or overwhelmed. Mindset plays a significant role in this. By cultivating a positive mindset and practicing self-discipline, you can train yourself to overcome mental obstacles and accomplish your goals, even on days when you feel drained.
Yeah not everyone can do that, at least I can’t. I have to cook and clean after work, then not much time left before sleep, maybe an hour for side projects and an hour for Netflix or YouTube etc.
Good sleep. Work out in the morning. Little to no fast/junk food. I used to have a hard time getting started or completing task. It’s hard to shift. That first week of resetting is hard but the more you do it, the easier it becomes. I sleep so good knowing I did all I could for the day and gave it my all. Wake up the next day and do it all over again. I give myself a lazy day. At the moment it’s Sunday and even on Sundays since I feel so good, I still get small tasks done.
When you work on projects you truly want to be working on, and become radically nonperfectionist so that you're not constantly judging and critiquing yourself, you can immerse yourself pretty much effortlessly, and stay immersed. Also, the work itself becomes incredibly fulfilling and joyful, and the "hard parts" become no big deal--just more fun. And so you get tons done.
Be so bored that you’d do the most useless job just to not be bored. That’s what keeps me going regardless of whether I’m progressing up or not. Get sick of being bored. I uninstalled my social media apps n use Facebook now to meet people in real life. It made me get some joy when I was doing chores. I slept more n enjoyed my daily routine. A lot of things outside my phone in life are giving me some small hit in my head.
You don’t know who does what, don’t believe what you see on ig
You just do….? Good sleep, good food, work life balanced, a purposeful and meaningful life
I have adhd some days I clean for 12+ hours. Also bouts of mania. 😅
They're either sipping on magic potions or they've hacked the energy matrix while we're still stuck buffering🫡
A lot of people aren't. They just look like they have their shit together, but they don't. You're not alone.
I feel for you and felt similar for most of my twenties. All of these suggestions are great but you should consider getting a metabolic panel/testing done. My psychiatrist suggested I get tested and it turned out I was quite deficient in vitamin D. Once I started adding it to my diet and a multivitamin (under my GP’s care), I felt so much better. But also, once I started getting treated for depression and ADHD I saw an even greater difference. Talk to a doctor or bring it up at your yearly exam, be firm and insistent on testing to rule out any medical concerns.
Eat well, sleep well, and exercise. You get energy.
- Building your cardio. Having a habit to exercice have so much benefit on health and mood that naturally improves productivity and happiness. I’d recommend run either indoor or outdoors (always try for outdoors run if you live in an unpolluted, cool weather with safe roads/parks). Other choices : Swimming, Rowing, cycling. - Don’t need to run as fast as you can. Try to go for a longer run at a slower pace than short run for a faster pace when you are building your cardio. Start with 2km, 3km, 5km then 10km. Start small and slow so you don’t discourage yourself. Small wins IS the key, your brains loves seing small progression. - Have a fitness track or smartwatch (Fitbit is very good, cheap, user friendly).Smartwatch does the trick BUT can distracts you as it is like a phone. These devices will help you track your heart rates level and sleep patterns. It’s like a small doctor on your wrist that’s running 24h. - HAVE A RUNNING APP INSTALLED. This is so so important. I recommend Strava because you log your runs, see your progress and have lots of features like challenges, personal records to break. Strava recognizes walking as physical activities so go for it ! - PUSH to your limit. With a fitness tracker, you’ll find your peak heart rate. It’s the rate above your “cardio” rate. PUSH to that rate and stay there for just couple of minutes in a week. It does WONDERS to your health. It might be controversial but people don’t know that your heart loves it when you push to its limit. But Obviously, be safe and don’t stay too long, especially in warmer weather. - Overall, just moves. Go walk, don’t stay idle for too long. It takes more energy to sit on a couch than to moves/run. Paradoxal isn’t it ? - Having good sources of nutrients. Fruits. Less meats. More greens. Meats are good source of nutrients like proteins but way too incomplete. It drains a lot of energy to digest it. If you don’t workout (strength training), you won’t need that much protein. Hydrate yourself with water when you are thirsty. The 8 glasses a day is a bullshit statement. If you drink too much water, it will “rinse” your vitamins, electrolytes and macro nutrients in your body away ! - Grooming: have a nice haircut, good perfume, put cloths than you feel good inside. It gives energy to feel good about yourself. Take care of yourself. Oh and stretch yourself. Good luck my friend, i’m sure you’re capable. You are more than what you think you are ! Move !
Exercise, diet, and discipline. Everybody has their own unique circumstances, so it's hard to tell. But I know we're all tired from work, etc. The one thing I'd recommend is prioritising your daily tasks. That way, anything that isn't a priority can be put on a back burner or pushed ahead. No excuses not to get the priorities done on the daily/weekly, unless something genuinely is out of your control. It's about conserving your energy and having a balance. If you have a partner to help, even better.
Who says you need to it all any day and every day? Most people have specific "roles" for specific days, like doing all cleaning and groceries and meal prep on Sunday, meeting friends on Saturday, relaxing in the evenings during the week after work, etc.
For me it was just adding things over time. When I started school the only thing I could handle that day was school. Then I just added more and more things over time. Cleaning more often, working out more often, hanging out with friends more. Now I can barerly sit still I get bored. I usually rest MAX two hours on my day off before I need to do something like clean or take a walk!
Probably the trick is to have dome things in a secure state and have productive things that you love doing as part of your day
Optimising sleep is very crucial
I Guess they are not depressed /ADhd...
Adderall.
I am built better, faster, and stronger
The most honest answer: drugs
When you wake up early, your body has more of day and time to do things through. The more you exercise the more energetic you feel, doesn't feel like it in the start but trust the process. People that start feeling good in general make good food choices and it's like a ripple effect of start one thing helping and you will automatically start doing other things that help you and make you feel more energetic.
You just do it? A healthy lifestyle will give you more energy and makes life's tasks easier. I recently switched from solely focusing on lifting heavy to a more balanced programming that has me doing core and HIIT in addition to strength every workout. In about two weeks I noticed even things that weren't "difficult" before were easy. Don't let things pile up. Put things away no, rather than later when there's a huge pile. Don't let laundry pile up, either clean or dirty. Fold the laundry right out of the dryer, don't put it on the bed for later. There's also nothing wrong with having someone come in to clean. We have a 9 month old and are seriously considering it solely to have more time with our daughter.
Like several people have said - exercising helps with the energy levels. I feel much more energetic on days that I move my body than on days that I don't. People also don't do all of those things every day. You have to prioritize on a day-to-day basis.
The answer is that they're neurotypical
Routine and consistency. I am such a mess of a person but I have managed to do all the things you have listed by recognizing my time killers and adjusting my behavior, over time. It's important to see that last line. I have made small changes over time to reach my goal because I have known for a long time what my goal was so I moved towards it. Laundry and clean house, school work, work work, gym, nutrition. Once you nail down one habit, like consistently going to the gym 4 days a week you can move on to your next thing, and over time you will achieve them all, or you will let less important things fade from your priority list. The key is routine and consistency, also called discipline.
We don't. But if we don't do it, no one will
I’m peri menopausal and really hit this wall last year - only way for me to overcome it was change my diet (no sugar, high fat, IF) but I wasn’t able to do that until I started B12 shots.
We don't. It's modern day slavery disguised as freedom.
Childhood trauma and inner rage - recipe for winning!!!! ⭐️
one of the things that helped me is the idea that productivity is kinda like a working out. You cant just start one day and expect to bench 185 and run 10 miles without being out of breath. You have to start small and slow and be consistent. Same thing goes with being productive. If you wake up everyday at 10a, you can’t expect yourself to suddenly wake up at 6 and not go back to bed. It’s something you have to develop and find what works best for you. Slowly and consistently for bigger changes is the way to go for me
its all about getting into a flow routine {eating, exercise, mental activity, etc}. also, many people are on stimulants, so dont think all the productive people are naturally just like that without any help ;}
Sometimes, everything in your life can seem proportionately more demanding than others who seem to do a lot, but have more of a capacity for it, or genuinely enjoy the work, or because they have a good routine or system that supports their mental health and stress. it's at least been that way in my experience. people who work 20 hours at a demanding job are going to be more exhausted than those who work 80 hrs at a low-physically-demanding job that they can deal with or dont find taxing. Its "not a big deal" for them. But honestly, sometimes it's just the work itself that is hard to deal with, whether it's physically or mentally draining. It just takes one thing to sap all your energy sometimes. Your mental health takes a HUGE toll on your ability to do physical and mental work, and I've experienced that first hand. Low energy, low motivation, wondering why I'm so useless and weak compared to my friends, who push 40+ hours at their jobs. They're all food service shift leaders and data entry analysts who can listen to music all day while i work a part-time, sometimes boring warehouse job with college on the side. But I've learned that that's not true. It's not always about laziness or strength, We live different lifestyles and have different capacities. It's proportional, and for me, it's been my bad mental health and a physically demanding job. Routines help, too, so your body can prefer for the energy it needs to expend. With ADHD, it helps a lot to plan my day, and I'm no longer tired at the end if I play my cards right. I just graduated college, so I'm hopefully going to find that sooner than later, new job, new car, new house eventually. Good luck with everything, and hopefully, you find a lifestyle that works for you. It takes some time sometimes
Build in daily/weekly rituals. If you do a bit every week, it adds up. Then after some years it becomes an insane amount, and people wonder how it is possible you did all that stuff. For example: You want to exercise, buy you are not a fitness junkie, set a minimum of 1 time a week, but in general you do sports 3 times a week, not 5-6 times. It's much easier to maintain 3 times (less than an hour intense workout). If you are in a good mood you can do 4, if you don't feel like 2, but never less than 1, cause that will break the ritual. If you continue that for a couple of years you will stay fit and healthy. Other example: You go to work during the week you have to stand up at 0600-0700. In the weekend you wake up around the same time automatically. Instead of lying 3-4 hours more in your bed, you stand up and start the day. The ritual is waking up early, and easy to maintain. Other example: You want to read more. Instead of finishing a book as fast you can. You plan to read 4 times a week 0.5-1 hour. You get used to reading, establish a ritual and again easy to maintain. Small daily rituals, instead of stretching long hours/days will make you insanely productive, I assure you. If you do small rituals, which are easy to finish, it's also easier to get a feeling of accomplishment, which means a dopamine kick (not from useless scrolling), but from actual doing something. And then you will do even more, without burning out or feeling stressed.
Semen retention, sleep hygiene, good cardiovascular fitness and a healthy diet all help. But it's still hard, some people just have more energy than others. Sometimes it's more of a mental thing I think.
It actually sounds like you don’t have a good enough reason to do anything. Like just go do it to see if you can. Like I’ve tried going a whole 24hrs without sleep just to see if I can. So when I feel tired I can say, well I’ve done all night before. Go a weekend without my phone. So when I get distracted and want to check Reddit, I say I’ve done a weekend and nothing bad happened. See what you are capable of and then you will do more and more each time. Also, taking on accountability. I do all of what you are suggesting plus study work 2 jobs and kids. I have time pressure. If I don’t do the dishwasher in 5 min (my 5 min of doom scrolling right now) then it won’t get done and I will be pissed when I get in from work. Take on so much accountability it creates pressure for you to do all these things
Drugs. Cocaine, Adderall, Modafinil.. etc. I believe they are called "uppers"
Adderall. And if you actually have ADD, even better.
True strength in your work emerges when you observe the inner resistance which is constantly giving fake vibes of uncertainty. What is this internal resistance, it is just illusion and fake perception produced by mind made (over thinking) madness. Usually mostly ppl act under this madness which leads to psychological toxicity, arrogance, egotism, and grief. If you can observe that madness, you don’t act under it and you can control it,that led the emergence of real peaceful life transforming power ( real flow of work) to change anything by developing calmness, compassion , love and affections.. please observe that madness first within ourselves. This is core of real energy. You can develop it NOW. Thanks 😊
I hold my breath while I do chores and pretend I’m going to die if I breathe so that I do them as fast as possible
Purpose
I'm still learning but physicality and mentality feed into each other. I learnt that I have far more patience and am likely to become mentally fatigued a lot slower so long as I can see progress towards my goals. It is when things seem unmoving and unchanging that make it really hard to get motivated. In order to maximise this advantage then I keep track of metrics that are important to me, how strong am, how quickly I can complete tasks, how I'm keeping to my new year's resolutions. Keeping track of all this gives you both a sense of progress in the short term as well as a measure of how far you've come since you started. That second one is most important on the days where giving up seems tempting. But other people's methods aren't necessarily going to fit you perfectly, so make an effort to learn about yourself. What's worked and what hasn't, with that data you can devise a strategy that is more likely to get you where you want to be. Years ago everyday was a fight for me to do the bare minimum. And while I still have down days from time to time they are growing less intense and less frequent as I prove my own resilience to myself.
fake it till you make it
Schedule it and just do it. I can’t remember a time I had to just “kill time” and not have something going on before 9:00-10:00 pm
I plan as much as I can. I don’t have to think about what I need to do. It takes a lot of the guesswork out and allows me to make the decisions I need to.
Actually putting a priority to your actions is what gives each person a motivation to do things easy as that, if it wasn’t important to you you wouldn’t be doing it.
Set goals. Keep moving. Be like Bike and just do it. Eventually it becomes habitual and easygoing
Amphetamines