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Energy is essential for living a full and satisfying life. However, with the stresses and responsibilities that come with life, many people admit to feeling energyless. A lack of energy can point to issues in your health, many of which can be easily fixed.

If you’ve been experiencing a lack of energy lately and you’re looking for ways to give yourself a boost, you’ve come to the right place. Here are five things you should always do when you feel drained.

Get Enough Sleep and Rest

It may go without saying but sleep is a major key to gaining energy. If you aren’t sleeping enough, it won’t matter what you do to boost your energy. Rest is essential for good health and replenishing energy levels.

If you find yourself losing focus at work or unable to make your social commitments, it could be an indication that you need to sleep more or you need to take time off to recharge. Make sure you get at least seven hours of sleep each night. Those hours before midnight are worth double the ones after midnight as your body does some deep restoration between 11pm - 1am. So challenge yourself to put down that PHONE and switch off that episode, and choose feeling refreshed instead. Also look at different types of rest. Do you need sleep or REST as in permission to be unproductive? Time alone? Creative rest? Outdoor time? Rest in the form of spending time with people who you can be authenticly you with? It's so easy to keep looking ahead at what next needs to be done without stopping to look back and also celebrate how far you've come. You've earned a rest, I'm sure!

Natural Sources of Energy

It’s common for people to head straight to the coffee machine when they’re feeling drained. You may also find yourself reaching for a sugary snack because it's all around us and so convenient. But caffeine and sugar will surely give you a boost but it’s only temporary and are massively inflammatory which lead to other negative health impacts. Whole foods are absolutely wonderful, unimpeded and natural forms of energy.

You’re likely to feel yourself crashing again an hour later. Look for healthy and natural alternatives when you need an energy boost. Virtue Drinks are an ideal alternative to energy drinks and eating a banana or some medjool dates instead of doughnut will give you the boost you need to get to the gym.

Reduce Stress

Stress is a major energy zapper. When you’re feeling stressed about any given situation it will lead you to feeling drained. However, big stress events like the loss of a loved one or a car accident are different matters entirely.

When these events occur, you shouldn’t worry about your energy levels- just focus on boosting your overall health. If you can reduce stress by using meditation and breathing techniques, you may find that your energy levels start to return naturally. Pro-active stress reduction is always better than cure as prolonged exposure to stress can be hard to come back from. The phrase from Jon Kabat-Zin "build your parachute before you need it" refers to daily meditation practise as a great form of stress relief and nervous system regulation. Check out my free stress reduction meditation here or to simply defrag your mind between lots of back to back meetings use this short one here.

Get Active and Get Outside!

Ironically, using energy creates energy. When the last thing you feel like doing is heading to the gym, head to the gym. Giving yourself that little nudge to start getting active is all you need to boost your energy.

Just a simple walk around the block is enough to build your energy levels and start your day off on the right track. Many people choose to be active in the mornings because it can increase levels of focus, concentration, and creativity. It TOTALLY changes your energy. WE NEED AIR!

Limit Smoking and Alcohol

Smoking and alcohol both have a negative effect on health. Smoking especially affects the lungs which can make fitness harder and breathing difficulties more likely. Cutting down on smoking and drinking can have a remarkable effect on overall health and energy levels.

If you’ve enjoyed reading this article, why not take a look at the others?

If you'd like to go deeper and really explore what's draining you and take the power back (think life situations, relationships and your own limiting beliefs) did you know I'm also a professional life coach of 6 years for overstretched millennials who want to stop holding themselves back, let go of what's draining the life out of them and create a life of freedom on their terms? So if you'd like more in-depth 1:1 help with regaining energy you can apply for coaching over on my coaching website here

In an age dominated by screens and sedentary activities, the need for encouraging exercise in schools has never been greater. Physical activity not only promotes physical health but also enhances cognitive development and overall well-being. This article explores the significance of promoting exercise in schools, including the use of outdoor gym equipment and encouraging cycling to school with bike shelters.

1. Nurturing Healthy Bodies: The Role of Exercise in Schools

Physical activity is fundamental to a child's growth and development. Here's why promoting exercise in schools is crucial:

Physical Health: Regular exercise helps combat obesity, reduces the risk of chronic diseases, and enhances cardiovascular health.

Mental Well-Being: Physical activity releases endorphins, improving mood, reducing stress, and boosting mental health.

Cognitive Benefits: Exercise has been linked to improved concentration, memory, and academic performance.

Social Skills: Group activities and sports encourage teamwork, communication, and the development of social skills.

Lifelong Habits: Promoting exercise in schools helps instill a habit of physical activity that can last a lifetime.

2. Outdoor Gym Equipment: Transforming Playgrounds into Fitness Hubs

Outdoor gym equipment in schools is an innovative way to make exercise accessible and enjoyable. Here's how it benefits students:

Accessibility: Outdoor gym equipment makes exercise readily available during school hours, encouraging students to be active and healthy.

Variety: These installations offer a variety of exercise options, catering to different preferences and fitness levels.

Fresh Air and Nature: Exercising outdoors exposes students to fresh air and natural surroundings, contributing to their physical and mental well-being.

Inclusivity: Outdoor gym equipment can be designed for all ages and abilities, ensuring that everyone can participate.

Positive Association: When students associate physical activity with fun and enjoyment, they are more likely to continue exercising outside of school.

3. Promoting Cycling to School: Bike Shelters as a Solution

Cycling is an eco-friendly and healthy mode of transportation, but it's underutilized due to concerns about safety and storage. Encouraging cycling to school and providing bike shelters for schools addresses these concerns:

Eco-Friendly Commuting: Cycling reduces the carbon footprint and contributes to a cleaner environment.

Physical Activity: Riding a bike to school ensures students get exercise and fresh air on their daily commute.

Traffic Reduction: Encouraging cycling helps reduce congestion and traffic around schools, making it safer for everyone.

Safe Storage: Bike shelters provide secure storage for bicycles, alleviating concerns about theft or damage.

Community Building: Cycling initiatives foster a sense of community and can involve parents, teachers, and students alike.

The Synergy of Exercise Promotion in Schools

By combining exercise promotion with outdoor gym equipment and encouraging cycling with bike shelters, schools create a holistic approach to health and well-being:

Students engage in physical activity through various avenues, both during school hours and on their way to and from school.

Healthy habits are nurtured, contributing to improved physical and mental health, academic performance, and community well-being.

Jenna x

Calcium gets enough hype as an important mineral your body needs. And why not? This substance is needed in moderate amounts to give your bones the strength to support your weight without snapping. Your blood and muscles are also safe, as it prevents clotting and encourages muscle contraction. Your regular heart rhythm and nerve function also owes its thanks to calcium. Therefore, one can stand to argue that a lack of this vital substance can throw your body off balance. If you aren’t sure how this is possible, here are some hard-to-miss signs that your body has calcium deficiency. 

1. You’re weak and lethargic for no reason 

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You go to bed early and sleep uninterrupted but still wake up lethargic. There is no recollection that you hadn’t done any particularly stressful activity. This may be your body crying out of calcium deficiency. But the tricky thing is that you may never consider this nutrition issue as fatigue sneaks up gradually until you can’t perform daily tasks without feeling drained, confused, and dizzy. In this case, booking an immediate appointment with your healthcare provider will be advisable. They can rule out other possible causes and rightly diagnose this condition. 

2. Your teeth and gums start acting funny 

If you were once proud of your dentition but now notice some unpleasant changes, your calcium level may be dangerously low. Your body can transport this mineral from your teeth to supply other body parts, ultimately causing tooth decay, irritated gums, weak roots, and brittle teeth. Before long, your teeth will start to fall out, leaving unattractive gaps and a reduced desire to smile. Therefore, consult your dentist immediately after noticing these differences in your mouth. And if you already have missing teeth, opt for dental implants to restore your smile. 

3. Your skin ain’t looking good 

You may be new to this, but calcium is essential for skin health. It stimulates the epidermis to produce enough sebum to maintain moisture and prevent dryness. Moreover, the right amount of calcium can help renew your skin and produce antioxidants that protect its texture. You may lack enough calcium if your skin looks wrinkled and ashy despite your efforts. Your risk of developing more severe conditions like eczema also increases. Again, don’t self-diagnose because you may be wrong. Instead, make a date with your dermatologist for more information. 

4. Your bones can’t support you anymore 

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Osteoporosis is often considered a calcium deficiency disorder, and rightly so. When you don’t consume this mineral enough, your body will leech it out of your skeletal system. Over time, your bones will complain, too, although you may not notice it until it has developed. This is when you start noticing the ease at which you fracture after a fall. If you are significantly shorter than normal, experience chronic back pain, or you’re stooping, osteoporosis may be the culprit. 

While these signs may seem scary, you are still in control; you only need to do the needful. Dump all meals with little to no nutritional value, as they are your enemy now. Replace them with calcium-rich options. 

Choose A Sport

First of all, you will obviously need to choose a sport that you are going to play. It can be anything you like, the main thing is to just choose one that you are personally going to enjoy, and which can help you to effectively make the most of it. Of course, in reality you might have already spoken to a few potential people who want to join, and there might already be a sport that you all have in common. In any case, make sure that you have chosen a sport you really think you will personally enjoy.

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Get A Kit

It doesn’t feel like a real team until you have a kit of your own, so this should ideally be something that you look into fairly early on. Once you have a kit to wear, you are going to feel more unified and much more like an actual team. The process for this can be quite simple. You just need to find a sport kits designer online with a general idea of what you hope to achieve with the look, basic ideas about colours and so on, and then you can start designing them and order them in.

Set A Date

Next you will probably want to schedule a date that you can meet to play. At first this might be ad-hoc, but before long you will probably want to think about setting a regular date in the calendar. This makes it a lot more likely you will actually manage to meet regularly, and that of course makes it a real bona fide sports club. Try to liaise with everyone so you can choose a date that is really going to work for all. If you can do that, you’ll have a club in place in no time.

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Start Playing

Now comes the important - and fun - part: actually playing! Ideally you will both practice and play against other teams, and once you are doing that in any kind of competitive way, that is when it really starts feeling like a real club.

Doing more of what you love increases positive emotions, benefits your relationships and overall makes you healthier! What better way than combining movement and social :)

What club would you start?

Using this guide, you can ensure to carry around all of the best calming essentials in your bag no matter where you go.

Photo by Lum3n: https://www.pexels.com/photo/brown-leather-crossbody-bag-with-white-framed-sunglasses-167703/

Use a CBD vape

A CBD vape is the most effective way of using CBD while out and about. The ingredients will ensure keep you feel relaxed at home or when you go out. 

If you enjoy using CBD to feel calm and relaxed, a vape is a great belonging to keep in your bag so you can remain calm throughout the day, no matter where you are going.

Calming oils

There are a variety of calming oils that you can use to rub on your skin that will help you feel calm and restful. Carrying a calming oil around in your bag will guarantee that you can feel safe and secure, and understand that you can always maintain a sense of calm when you use it.

Plus, using calming oils on your hands and forehead is a great way to take care of your health in a crisis. 

If you are out and something stressful occurs, you can guarantee that your favourite calming oil will help bring you down and feel more relaxed. 

Pain medication

You never know when you might experience pain, when you are out and about enjoying your day. A headache might come on or period cramps occur. Many people can feel stressed and anxious when they experience pain, especially when they're not home.

Therefore, it is a great idea to carry around pain medication with you so that if the pain does occur when you are out, you can manage and treat it.

A spare credit card

Similar to experiencing pain, you will never know when you will experience a financial crisis when you are spending time outside of the house.

Whether you are put into a difficult financial position, you lose your cash, or your card doesn't work., you can rely on a spare credit card to pay for whatever you need.

Try to avoid using your spare credit card if you do not need it. Having it in your handbag for emergencies will guarantee that you can feel rest assured that if you do come into financial difficulty, you can get yourself out of it.

Water

Water is an everyday essential we all need to carry around in our bags.

We can easily get dehydrated when we are out and about, especially if it is a warm, sunny day. When you have water in your bag, you can ensure to keep hydrated and help anyone that needs water around you. Whether you or someone else required water immediately, you can guarantee to fulfill that need if you have a bottle of water ready in your bag. 

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People widely regard coffee as something that “gets them going in the morning.” It’s one of life’s daily essentials for many workers, particularly those in high-stress jobs and under a lot of pressure. Coffee makes it easier to get through the day and give your work your all. 

However, it turns out that coffee has some rather unusual health benefits that you wouldn’t expect. It’s the perfect addition to your daily routine and something that can make a tremendous difference in your overall well-being.

Coffee’s most obvious benefit is that it increases alertness throughout the day. Even if you drink a coffee in the morning, the caffeine remains in your system for another 14 hours or so. 

It’s important to remember that coffee is a natural stimulant. That means it’s actually a part of the bean – something nature created – not an addition created by researchers somewhere in a lab. Caffeine works by increasing the production of certain neurotransmitters, helping to improve mood, alertness and energy. Drinking coffee, in other words, helps you concentrate on what you’re doing during long working hours or while studying. 

But other than the clear effects of caffeine, is there any other evidence of coffee’s role in promoting health? After all, it’s a plant-based food – and most plants have positive effects on well-being. 

Burns Fat

Thanks to its caffeine content, coffee might be an excellent fat burner. Caffeine can help you burn fat by increasing your metabolic rate and stimulating the breakdown of fatty acids in your body, particularly when you exercise. Coffee may actually help you go harder for longer in the gym, increasing your body’s exertion capacity. (That might be one of the reasons so many pre-workout formulas include it). 

Coffee can also help you feel less groggy during exercise, particularly if you are someone who likes to train in the mornings. It may not burn fat directly, but it encourages you to engage in more exercise and, therefore, more calorie burning. 

Improves Antioxidant Status

Another benefit of coffee is how it can help improve antioxidant status, something that is often low in people who don’t get sufficient fruit and vegetables in their diet. Antioxidants are compounds that protect your cells from damage caused by free radicals. Free radicals are unstable molecules that can cause inflammation, ageing, and chronic diseases. Certain oxygen-scavenging compounds in coffee beans neutralise free radicals and prevent them from harming your body.

Coffee may also upregulate the activity of your body’s own antioxidant systems. They may detect incoming coffee nutrients and use these as a signal to increase the production of glutathione and superoxide dismutase, again helping you to become healthier and live longer. 

Interestingly, research shows that coffee contains more antioxidants than many other common sources, such as fruits, vegetables, tea, and wine. The most important compounds appear to be chlorogenic acid, caffeic acid, ferulic acid, and polyphenols. These work in different ways in the body, lowering blood pressure, reducing cholesterol levels, preventing diabetes, and protecting against cancer.

Improves Brain Health 

Another reason to buy coffee beans is that they may improve brain health. For instance, some studies have suggested that it can lower the risk of developing neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. These diseases lead to a loss of cognition as you age and affect more people than ever before, particularly over the age of 65. 

Interestingly, coffee may help prevent or delay these diseases by enhancing the function of the brain cells that produce dopamine and acetylcholine, which are critical for transmitting nerve impulses and regulating thoughts, memories, and other brain activities. 

Offers Liver Protection

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A lesser-known benefit of coffee is the effect that it has on the liver. Beans may protect it from damage caused by alcohol, drugs, or toxins. That’s because polyphenols in coffee assist the liver as it filters your blood and detoxifies your body from harmful substances. By improving the organ’s antioxidant status, it can improve inflammation and reduce scarring of the tissue. 

Reduces The Risk Of Type 2 Diabetes

Type 2 diabetes is becoming more prevalent as people begin suffering the effects of a western-style diet and lifestyle. Too much sedentary behaviour and insufficient physical activity make it much more likely that a person will become insulin-resistant.

However, coffee may help to reverse some of the impacts of these behaviours. This is because coffee contains compounds that help regulate blood sugar levels, such as chlorogenic acid and caffeic acid. These help to blunt the insulin spike that occurs after a meal, assisting the pancreas and causing less damage to blood vessels and other sugar-sensitive tissues in the body.

Additionally, coffee has been shown to increase insulin sensitivity, which can help prevent insulin resistance, a leading cause of type 2 diabetes, possibly due to the polyphenols it contains. That’s one of the reasons it’s important to get your coffee freshly ground because that way, you can take advantage of all the chemicals in the beans. 

Reduces The Likelihood Of Cardiovascular Disease Developing

Studies also show that coffee may reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease significantly. Compounds in coffee can lower blood pressure, reducing the incidence of heart disease and stroke. 

Researchers are still trying to figure out why this might be the case, even though coffee is a stimulant. However, they think it has to do with the way coffee binds to receptors in the blood vessels, making it easier for them to open and close. 

In addition, the antioxidants in coffee protect the blood vessels for the same reason they protect tissue in the rest of the body. Oxidation is less likely to occur, improving overall health long-term. 

Lower Risk Of Cancer

Some studies show that coffee may also lower the risk of cancer significantly. A daily cup of Joe can slash your risk of colorectal, liver and prostate cancer, according to research. Again, it’s all down to the protective capacities of the antioxidants. 

Improves Physical Performance

Lastly, drinking coffee beans before a workout has been shown to improve physical performance. Caffeine enhances adrenaline production, which allows you to go longer and harder during exercise. It may also reduce muscle pain and fatigue, making it possible to work out more intensely in a single session, enhancing your results. 

As you can see, coffee has many benefits for your health that go beyond its delicious taste and energising effect. However, this does not mean that you should drink unlimited amounts of it or consume it in any way you like. Always consume it in moderation and listen to what your body says. While it can give your body a boost, it can also lead to insomnia and irritability in some people. Therefore, take it easy and experiment with what works for you. Traditionally, people would consume a single espresso in the morning and that would set them up for the rest of the day. 

Also, make sure you’re preparing your coffee in a healthy way. For instance: 

• Adding sugar or cream to your coffee can increase its calorie content and negate its fat-burning effect

• Using paper filters to brew your coffee can remove some of the beneficial antioxidants from it

You should also check the beans are being roasted at a regular temperature. If the temperature is too high, it can lead to acrylamide production which is something you often find in starchy foods cooked to excess. 

Conclusion

In summary, coffee offers numerous health benefits. It increases energy and may protect against several chronic diseases, thanks to its polyphenol content. Therefore, it’s worth including in your health regimen.