BOOSTING VITALITY AND ENERGY

After all this time in lockdown here in Australia, it’s now time to pursue our hobbies, social life, and responsibilities again. Especially now, throughout spring, the weather draws us out and about. But perhaps you could benefit from a little bit of uplifting energy to find back to your rhythm pre-covid. Everybody has changed their habits and routines throughout the past challenging months and perhaps it’s time to question and re-evaluate our lifestyle, diet, and sleep patterns.

Vitality and our energy reserve are affected by multiple factors and can be addressed in many ways. I thought it might be helpful to shed some light at the underlying mechanisms that help us cope with stress and are involved in energy production, as well as top tips and tricks to support optimal function and energy levels. So, sit back, and have a read, I guarantee you it’s worth it to fine-tune our awareness around energy and vitality!

What’s behind Energy Regulation and Vitality?

One of the main involved body systems is the neuroendocrine system, which is the intersection between our nervous system and our hormonal communication. This system, along with all the others, helps to regulate and adapt our internal processes to the external environment. During a stressful event, may it be life-threatening (evolutionary for when there was a wild animal wanting to feed on us and we had to react) or simply your daily tasks, that we keep on procrastinating, several processes in our body help to regulate our response to it. Firstly, we acknowledge the danger during the alarm phase and recognize the threat and switch into a “fight or flight” mode, that’s initiated by our sympathetic nervous system (SNS), which then initiates the release of our stress hormones cortisol, epinephrine, and norepinephrine. The release of our stress hormones increases our heart rate, pulse, blood flow to our skeletal muscles, overall blood sugar levels (which have been freed from their original storage site), whilst downregulating less “survival important” body functions, such as digestion, initiated by the parasympathetic nervous system (PSNS). Ideally and evolutionary, the threat resolves and the PSNS takes over again, reducing our stress hormones and switching back to our “rest and digest” phase, restoring our internal balance or equilibrium. However, these days, stress often seems to be ongoing and perhaps endless, which impairs our ability to return to our state of calm. Our body ultimately is drained of energy, due to its constant mobilization of energy to facilitate the “resource expensive” stress response. Its effects show in our body’s ability to regulate cortisol, epinephrine, blood sugar levels and brain chemicals and a chronic imbalance may establish, that impacts our energy levels, stress levels, concentration, ability to deal with emotions, sleep and ultimately mood and happiness [1].

How does our Day-Night Rhythm play into this?

Obviously, sleep and relaxation time are also essential to deal with stress, both, physical and emotional, and our ability to distribute our energetic resources appropriately. Often, it’s a vicious down-spiralling cycle with sleep issues and vitality. People don’t sleep well, so they nap throughout the day to regain energy, but are then awake again at night[2]. The internal clock is called the circadian rhythm which is coupled to our external day-night rhythm and regulates our body responses according to the time of day (please refer to my last newsletter/blog post on my website to learn more about the circadian rhythm and sleep). The action and setting of our individual circadian rhythm are of highest importance when it comes to energy and vitality, as it also regulates cortisol and epinephrine production (neuroendocrine regulation), thus the SNS, as well as blood sugar levels and mobilization from the storage tissues, plus the body’s ability to use those freed sugars [3], [4].

And what about our Blood Sugar?

Our ability to process and utilize the freed sugars depend on insulin sensitivity (insulin is basically the key opening our cells to the circulating blood sugar(glucose), which in turn regulates how much sugar is taken up. Drastic changes (spikes and drops) of our blood sugar are associated with reduced energy and vitality. As fast as blood sugar levels can rise from the intake of refined carbohydrates and sugary drinks and beverages, as fast they the blood sugar levels can drop again. The drastic drop of sugar levels is sensed, and signals are sent out to our brain that our body is in need of another glucose or sugar hit, as the body always thrives for equilibrium and balance. The drop of blood sugar also comes with a feeling of fatigue and lethargy, as the body does not have enough glucose available to produce energy in our cells. But not only the load and quantity of our blood sugar is important in regulating energy levels, but also the time of digestion and release of glucose from the food into our bloodstream determines how fast our levels rise and drop, and therefore how much energy is available to our cells in a certain time frame [5].

So how are all those effects in theory translated into a practical and efficient way of management?

1. Exercise daily: aim to reach for a total of 160 minutes per week of moderate activity (heart rate over 130-140 bpm) to support the regulation of cortisol, blood sugar levels and “boosting” brain chemicals (neurotransmitter, such as dopamine) [6].

2. Engage in sleep hygiene: turn off screens 1h before bedtime, finish your last meal around 6:30/7 pm, use blue-light blocking glasses at night, ensure a nice cool temperature in your bedroom, meditate, or read a book before going to sleep.

3. Aim for 7-8h of sleep per night.

4. Switch from refined carbohydrates to whole grains and legumes:

White bread  wholemeal sourdough

White Pasta  Pulse pasta or buckwheat pasta

White rice  Buckwheat, quinoa, wild and brown rice

5. Avoid pastries, sweet biscuits, tarts, sweets and rather have a savoury snack, such as nuts, hummus and veggies, rice crackers with some cottage cheese.

6. Balance your meals and avoid snacking if you are not hungry:

- Protein: should equal the size of your palm

- Complex carbohydrates (whole grains, legumes etc.): 1 handful

- Healthy fats (avocado, fish, nuts and seeds, olive oil): about a thumb

- Colourful veggies: ½ plate

7. If you feel like something sweet, eat a piece of fruit and combine it with protein-rich Greek yoghurt or nut butter.

8. Once you wake up in the morning, get up straight away and start your day with a glass of water and go for a small walk in nature (in the sun).

9. Ensure you have a protein-rich breakfast and move your first coffee ideally to 1h after waking and after breakfast.

10. The second coffee shouldn’t be consumed later than 1:30 pm.

References:

[1] Q. Zhu et al., ‘Neuroendocrine Regulation of Energy Metabolism Involving Different Types of Adipose Tissues’, Int. J. Mol. Sci., vol. 20, no. 11, p. E2707, Jun. 2019, doi: 10.3390/ijms20112707.

[2] ‘Daytime light exposure and feelings of vitality: Results of a field study during regular weekdays - ScienceDirect’. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272494413000716 (accessed Nov. 04, 2021).

[3] I. C. Mason, J. Qian, G. K. Adler, and F. A. J. L. Scheer, ‘Impact of circadian disruption on glucose metabolism: implications for type 2 diabetes’, Diabetologia, vol. 63, no. 3, pp. 462–472, Mar. 2020, doi: 10.1007/s00125-019-05059-6.

[4] I. Biaggioni, ‘Circadian Clocks, Autonomic Rhythms And Blood Pressure Dipping’, Hypertension, vol. 52, no. 5, pp. 797–798, Nov. 2008, doi: 10.1161/HYPERTENSIONAHA.108.117234.

[5] M. N. Nakrani, R. H. Wineland, and F. Anjum, ‘Physiology, Glucose Metabolism’, in StatPearls, Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing, 2021. Accessed: Nov. 04, 2021. [Online]. Available: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK560599/

[6] O. C. Witard, C. McGlory, D. L. Hamilton, and S. M. Phillips, ‘Growing older with health and vitality: a nexus of physical activity, exercise and nutrition’, Biogerontology, vol. 17, no. 3, pp. 529–546, Jun. 2016, doi: 10.1007/s10522-016-9637-9.