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Ask HN: Tips for more energy during day?

95 points by epimetheus2 ↗ HN
There are obvious ones like quality sleep, excercise, get some sunlight during the day and check your hormnes. I still feel a too drowsy during the day.

Do you have any personal experiences / anecdotes with what have helped you in the past?

95 comments

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Kaibeezy
Energy and caffeine regulation seems to make the difference for me. I like myself better when I have a substantial high-protein, high-fat, low-carb breakfast with a large strong cup of pourover or Aeropress coffee in the morning, a light lunch, and sometimes an espresso, small Arabic coffee or oolong tea mid-afternoon with almonds or cashews plus figs or dates or a small bite of something sugary. Otherwise I avoid sugar, which seems to throw everything off balance.
mhkool
Did you check your cortisol levels? Drowsiness is a symptom of adrenal fatigue.
can16358p
Don't eat carbs, don't drink too much coffee, do take cold showers.
arnejenssen
Agree. There is no essential carbs. The only reason to eat vegetables is for the vitamins and minerals. But there are essential fats and amino acids.
avl999
Not sure why you are being downvoted. You are right, there is no such thing as "essential carbs", the body can easily create glucose it needs from protein and dietary-fat. Whereas the opposite is not generally possible.
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muzani
This is one of those things where the average dietitian disagrees, but anecdotes prove otherwise.
rkk3
> There is no essential carbs.

Fiber is an essential Carb

paulcole
This is funny because I do eat lots of carbs, drink quite a bit of coffee, and never take cold showers. Yet somehow I have plenty of energy. What do you think is going on here?
sgt
What works for one person might not work great for another. Maybe the cause is something else completely. I tend to eat something sweet with my coffee like 70% chocolate, throughout the day - small pieces. I don't feel that it is unhealthy at all.
munch117
The type of carbs matters. I wonder how much of the carb demonization here is really code for high-glycemic stuff like cereals and bread, in particular sugary American bread.

If the carbs you eat in the morning are slow carbs, then there's no reason you shouldn't have high energy all through the day.

The other possible explanation is that you are young, and your body is (for a while yet) very good at regulating blood sugar.

paulcole
> The other possible explanation is that you are young, and your body is (for a while yet) very good at regulating blood sugar.

Nope! I have Type 1 diabetes!

can16358p
It changes from person to person, I used to be the same too for some time.

What I was saying is not like "you can't have energy if you eat carbs and take hot showers" but more like "if you lack energy, try not eating carbs and start taking cold showers to see if it helps".

Graffur
Light exercise + keep active. i.e. no long periods of sitting without getting up.

Drink water

pddpro
I think that if maintaining good sleep hygiene and diets have not helped for a long time, then one should probably start consulting a trained medical professional.
timdaub
Agreed, having iterations with a good doctor on what's potentially wrong in your body can do wonders! But finding a caring and trustworthy doctor is difficult.
silisili
Exercise is the biggest one for me. It's weird because when I get out of the habit, I feel tired and lazy and don't want to exercise. If I can make myself go for a week or so, energy shoots up and you look forward to it. I'm not talking anything strenuous even, just a couple mile walk.

Also, eating less for lunch. When I eat too much I immediately feel sleepy for some reason. Anymore I just have coffee and an apple.

michaelmarion
This! If I don’t get exercise in the morning I feel really sluggish in the afternoon. It’s counterintuitive but really helps.
Jugurtha
I used to wake up at 0430, do a workout at home (push-ups, squats, abs, jumping jacks, mountain climbers, etc) for 30 minutes (hundreds of push-ups and squats, etc). Then take a shower. Then breakfast: water, 4 eggs, steak, turkey scallops, half a liter of milk (well, café au lait), fruit).

I'd go out and feel I could slay dragons and bite the moon, and feel that way throughout the whole day. My classmates would get hungry and drowsy by 1100/1130 (they'd drink chocolate milk and eat some treats at 1000), then completely sleepy after eating pizza or sandwitches (I wouldn't get lunch because the food sucked and I still had energy). By 1400, everyone's empty and trying to eat biscuits or something. By 1600, people were dead. I still had a lot of energy. I hadn't eaten anything after breakfast, only drank water.

I would then go home, buy next morning's food (steak, scallops, etc) with the money I saved from not having a disgusting fast food lunch.

I'm considering going back to that regimen. I felt strong and sharp, and working out at home right before taking a shower removed friction as I didn't have to go out, and I did my push-ups and squats right in the bathroom.

c54
This is pretty inspiring to hear. I really do notice that my productivity is highest in the morning when I get time to have a shower, meditate, walk a short distance (10m) to the office, and have a cup of coffee-- I'm basically at peak performance until I get lunch "because it's lunch time" and then perf wanes from there as I get tired, sluggish, lose will power, etc. God forbid I lapse and have a sugary treat in the afternoon (even the little fun size baggie of M&Ms wrecks me for the rest of the day), eating sugar puts me on a sugar-dependent cycle where I need to re-up every hour or so after breaking the seal.

Exercise, eating healthy, eating when you're hungry rather than when it's time to eat. Avoiding sugar, getting good sleep. Taking it easy on weekends and in evenings. All good stuff!

strzibny
You pointed the obvious without maybe realizing it.

I find most people lose energy by eating lunch. So skip lunch or make it super small and light.

pb060
When I stopped drinking coffee I also had to stop having carbs for lunch not to fall asleep in the office. I only had a bowl of salad instead. It seems to be a virtuous routine but I gained weight anyway, as for some reason coffee was reducing my overall appetite.
0des
> gained weight anyway

You were/are still overeating in the sense that you are taking in and storing more calories because you are outpacing the rate at which you deplete them. Eat less, or expend more calories.

ecshafer
For most what you eat matters a lot. A high protein / fat diet gives a huge amount of energy. A high carb diet makes you hungry very fast and then a huge drop in energy. If I eat a small light breakfast of a bagle and cream cheese, or a banana I am more hungry, and have less energy than if I ate nothing at all. When I eat bacon, eggs, sausage, cheese for breakfast. I have a ton of energy all day. Lately, with WFH I have been skipping breakfast, and eating "breakfast" during lunch, but that same food. I have lately been doing a 20 hours daily fast, eating in a 4 hour window, and a 1 day a week fast. And I have so much energy and almost never hungry, and I think keeping low carb is a big part of that.
tchock23
When is your 4 hour eating window?
nynx
Eat any vegetables?
0des
This made me wonder how much nutritional difference there is in consuming the meat of a herbivore vs the meat of a carnivore.
Kaibeezy
This made me stop and think about what carnivores humans eat. I guess factory chickens are fed chicken, and wild chickens eat bugs. People eat dog, alligator, snake, bear. Bats, we now are very aware. Lots of fish and shellfish eat fish and shellfish. So, a few, but not that many.
Jugurtha
Yes, home. I love vegetables.

I also don't eat bread. It's not out of caring for my weights (I have low fat no matter what I eat, but I don't eat bread because I don't eat bread. If I'm not eating peppers and olive oil, or lettuce with vinaigrette, or tomatos-ognons-and-olive oil, then I mostly don't eat bread). I sometimes eat it with lentils or beans in sauces, but other than that, I don't eat it.

Again, nothing against bread, it's just I'm not that into it. I use it more as a container.

canjobear
Your energy might have been what enabled you to complete the workout routine every day, rather than the workout routine being the cause of your energy. How did things change when you stopped the routine?
throw_this_one
Anybody who's done something like the above knows that the early morning workout is the ignitor that gets you on track, syncs your circadian rhythm, etc.

When you sleep in etc, that's when you start to get low energy and lethargic.

caskstrength
"Anybody"? I tried exercising early in the morning for several months and hated it. It turned out that 1) I got very sleepy during the day 2) I can't exercise as hard as usual because I'm just not in the right mood that early.
throw_this_one
Don't need something crazy, just a 25 min run can suffice.
phat_gopher
I would love to do this but have no interest in going to bed at 8:30--9:00
gamegoblin
I have two complimentary things I started doing last winter:

- Keep my home’s heat 1 or 2 degrees cooler than I would find optimally comfortable

- When I feel cold, I do a set of pushups to warm myself back up. Usually about once an hour. A set is usually about 20 pushups.

This has multiple benefits:

- The very slight discomfort of the cold keeps you less drowsy

- The pushups are good for you and help wake you up

- Keeping the heating a little lower has a small but non-zero impact on your heating bill

koala_man
Many vitamins and minerals have lethargy as a symptom of deficiency.
jimmaswell
It helped me to take a caffeine break. Went to half a cup of coffee for a few days then to nothing for a few days and that's all it took to see an improvement.
JimboOmega
Figure out what motivates you and what drains you. Do you feel drowsy every day regardless of what's going on, whether it's a work day or the weekend?

Do specific things or tasks take energy from you? It might be that meetings sap your energy. Or, if you're extroverted, meetings might give you energy.

Sometimes it's bigger things - like a job that's just not interesting any more. Can you shake it up with different tasks and challenges?

Or maybe it's burnout, which can manifest as constant fatigue. Maybe you need a break. Maybe that break is a small one during a hectic day, or maybe you need a break from your current life situation to recharge.

Physical health absolutely matters, but don't forget the mental aspects. If you just aren't finding your current situation stimulating, that might be a signal about the situation, not just your body.

ttul
See a doctor. Don’t try to science this yourself.
joombaga
Agreed. You will have biases for which a doctor may control.
muzani
I've seen a few and the general response is the same as the top comments - eat well, exercise, less sugar, sleep. Also the advice is usually less useful than the internet. This is why the alternative health market is booming. There's not a lot of people like Dr Atkins who'd stick their neck out because of a more radical opinion.
jbjbjbjb
That’s wise but equally doctors treat disease and don’t tend to deal with optimising health.
jazzyjackson
yerba mate

and/or

having a future you’re looking forward to

Tea418
I noticed last year that using a standing desk (in lifted position) half of the day helps me to focus significantly.
culopatin
Keep water near you and drink more than you think you need. The side effect besides keeping you awake is that you’ll have to walk to pee, which wakes you up too.
highspeedbus
What works for me is a cup of coffee and avoiding sugar all day.

Also, doing something that you like and feel proud off helps a lot.

bipson
Wihtout any guarantees:

You could try skipping a lunch or only eating half of what you usually eat.

I myself tend to eat a lot more than I actually need to. A full stomach will actually drain your batteries for a few hours.

While intermittent fasting (the way I did it - 2/5) was nothing I would do for a regular work week, skipping a lunch once a while or eating just enough to not get really hungry gives me an incredible boost.

kingcharles
Living in jail opened my eyes to how little food a human actually needs to survive and how insane the eating habits of a typical Westerner, in particular, actually are.

In jail the biggest complaints from everyone were how small the portions of food were, but the calories were actually more than anyone needed, it was just that society had programmed everyone to believe they needed a certain quantity, rather than quality, of food every day.

nynx
I find that I tend to drift into an pseudo intermittent fasting routine. I usually eat one large meal a day, in the middle of the day. I try to avoid anything that has sugar, carbohydrates (though I do eat a decent amount of rice), dairy, stuff like that.

If you eat bread in the morning or drink coffee/tea/juice with sugar, cut that out immediately. That is probably a big contributor to your tiredness.

aiibe
Sleep at least 8 hours is a full charge for me.
sgt
Probably just going for a walk at least once a day. Doesn't have to be more than 30 minutes.
egypturnash
lbrp + middle pillar

or similar practices rooted in other traditions

xhrpost
What has been your experience with the obvious ones? People keep bringing them up because by far they are the biggest contributors for most people.

Couple anecdotes from myself: TL;DR - Be on the lookout for patterns.

1) I noticed a pattern when I would go home for the holidays to visit family. I was incredibly drowsy on most days, for most of the day. I would eat all I want, which for breakfast might mean pancakes with loads of syrup or french toast with syrup and maybe there's an egg in there somewhere. If I made an effort to vastly reduce my consumption of high glycemic carbs at breakfast, my energy through the day would be immensely better, like night and day improvement.

2) I was also struggling with fatigue during the day sometimes while not on holiday. I found that it was tied to consumption of artificial sweetener in my coffee in the morning. I often wouldn't eat breakfast and just have coffee and be ok until lunch. But if I had saccharine(sweet n low) in my coffee, I would feel very tired. I stopped drinking coffee like this and haven't had the problem come back. My non-doctor opinion is that because artificial sweetener induces an insulin response in the body, but doesn't contribute to any blood glucose, what blood sugar I had was getting pulled out and placed into fat cells. I will sometimes allow myself sweetener but with a breakfast and be fine.