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10 ways to boost your energy
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10 things you want to avoid, that drain our energy
Michelle Strange: A Tale of Two Hygienists presents this week’s TIPisode: Quick and easy tips to keep you up to date and presented by the experts in the profession. Now, get ready for your unofficial TIPisode.
Uche Odiatu: Energy. What is it? It’s coin. It’s cash. It’s money in the bank, literally. If you want to maximize your energy, these are the things you want to do. these are some things you might want to stay away from, but what basically people need to know is these first ten. So ten ways to boost your energy.
Number one. Spend more time with positive people. Energy and enthusiasm is contagious. So, having meaningful conversations with high energy people, they bring out the best in you. So plot and scheme to spend more time with people who bring out the best in you if you’re feeling a little down because you will leave those conversations a little better off than when you started.
Mahsa Bakhshandeh: Number two. Eat healthy. The food we eat provides the fuel for our trillions of cells. Poor-quality food, less energy for our daily activities.
Uche Odiatu: Number three. Get physically active. Regular physical activity has the ability to epigenetically turn on tired mitochondria. These are the energy factories in every cell. They actually make 140 pounds of ATP every day giving you energy. So, if you’re feeling a little tired, feeling a little unwell, [indiscernible] thing is to get outside. Go for a little walk. It’ll build energy into your day.
Mahsa Bakhshandeh: Number four. Sleep seven to nine hours a night. Neuroscientists have shown that well-rested people are better able to handle the stresses of our modern world. They simply have more energy reserves.
Uche Odiatu: Number five. Read positive books. Listen to biographies on Audible. We spend about an hour a day in our cars. It’s the perfect time for this university on wheels to learn. You could actually leave every car ride a little smarter, a little better, a little higher energy than when you got in.
Mahsa Bakhshandeh: Number six. Breathe deep. We inhale 12 to 15 times a minute or 20,000 times a day. Oxygen is the number one human need. With improved posture and nasal breathing, our brain gets its very crazy demands for oxygen met. Result? Mental clarity and alertness.
Uche Odiatu: Number seven. Spend time with loved ones. We are pack animals at heart. Henry Lodge, Internist, a New York Times bestselling author of Younger Next Year, said we have a deep, driving need to be part of a group, part of a tribe, part of a team, and it builds our energy. It soothes our rough edges and supports vibrant and total optimal health.
Mahsa Bakhshandeh: Number eight. Do work you love. Working at a job or a career that we enjoy challenges us and brings out the best in us. We literally feel more zest for life.
Uche Odiatu: Number nine. Get — giving — getting hugs. Also being pack animals, we have a flood of positive neurotransmitters like serotonin and oxytocin. The [indiscernible] hormone when we hug or get close to people, it brings out the best in us. It can energize us.
Mahsa Bakhshandeh: Number ten. Feeling grateful. University of California studies have shown feeling grateful is incompatible with feeling resentment or angry. Feeling better more of the time literally puts the body into a higher energy state.
Uche Odiatu: Ten things you want to avoid that zap our valuable energy, our currency, our coin, our cash.
Number one. Watching negative news. Sure, you want to stay informed, but did you know that actually watching negative news actually boosts cortisol? It boosts adrenaline. You might want to stay informed. However, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year, 365 days a year, basically, psychologists, neuroscientists have shown that our nervous systems aren’t meant to tolerate a litany of relentless onslaught of bad news in day day out [sic]. So, if you’re feeling tired already, why put on the news? Just does not make sense.
Mahsa Bakhshandeh: Number two. Extended sitting. This drains our body of energy as smaller muscles have to work harder to get oxygen into our lungs, our heart, and our brain. Also, extended sitting disrupts our physiology by making us poor blood sugar managers. End result? We become better at storing fat. So stand and deliver your best self.
Uche Odiatu: Number three. Eating high glycemic foods and junk foods. Sure, they might be called comfort foods, but they never leave you feeling better than what it was before you ate them. See, what that does is it unleashes a huge amount of oxidated stress, free radicals, and these are the background level of chronic inflammation.
So, if you want a little pick-me-up, maybe an apple, maybe an avocado. You know how I feel about avocados. There’s better snacks to eat if you want to build energy into your day.
Mahsa Bakhshandeh: Number four. Arguing. Judging boosts cortisol and adrenalin, and an extended amount of time spent in fight-or-flight mode steals energy from digestion and our hard-working immune system.
Uche Odiatu: Number five. Not getting enough sleep. It sabotages everything we want to do, everything we want out of life.
Matthew Walker, PhD, Neuroscientists, in his book Why We Sleep said that 70 percent of the population does not get enough sleep each night sabotaging their day, sabotaging their enthusiasm and their energy for getting the things they really want out of life.
Mahsa Bakhshandeh: Number six. Working at a job you don’t enjoy, low-level angst, and chronic anxiety from job dissatisfaction stresses us out, slows down digestion, metabolism, and lowers our overall mojo.
Uche Odiatu: Number seven. Spending the entire day inside. Sometimes we think we’re going to stay inside and get busy. However, our ancient brains, we have a thing called a suprachiasmatic nucleus in the center of our brain. The only way it knows it’s the light and dark cycle is when to wake up. What happens is, Shawn Stevenson, author of the book Sleep Smarter, says getting outside between 8:00 and 10:00 a.m. every day can reset our superchiasmatic nucleus. So getting outside for as little as 10 minutes between 8:00 and 10:00 a.m., getting some sun on our skin, on our faces, can actually reset our day and give us the energy we want for the rest of the day.
Mahsa Bakhshandeh: Number eight. Nagging or being nagged. Never-ending battles with team or family also makes us spend more time with our sympathetic nervous system turned on. Over time, it leads to autonomic nervous system dysfunction, and it exhausts us.
Uche Odiatu: Number nine. Spending time with energy vampires. And no judgements here. I’m just saying we all have people in our lives when you’re on the phone or you spend some time with them, you always leave a little more tired than when you were when you started the conversation. So, again, no judgements. However, if you’re tired already, there’s certain people you don’t want to chat with. And you love them, but you know what? Chatting with them when you’re tired, you always leave a little more tired than when you started. So plot and scheme to be around those high energy people that leave you a little better off than what you started.
Mahsa Bakhshandeh: Number ten. Breathing shallow drains us. Mouth breathing due to chronic sinusitis, narrow midface, poor posture starves our brain of oxygen. Without oxygen, we literally have less of this valuable entity to feel this major organ. Result? Lack of mental clarity and lower overall energy and vitality.
Uche Odiatu: So there you have it. Ten things to stay away from. Ten things to move towards to build energy, some coin, some cash into your day and be that busy person. And again, remember, building energy during the day actually is all about self-care. Remember you cannot pour from an empty cup.
Michelle Strange: We hope you enjoyed this week’s TIPisode. Be sure to reach out to our guest experts and let them know how helpful their tips were. Follow A Tale of Two Hygienists on Facebook, Instagram, and head over to ataleoftwohygienists.com and subscribe to our newsletter. You can also email us at ataleoftwohygienists@gmail.com, and keep listening for more awesome content from your unofficial dental hygiene podcast.
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