The best ways to improve energy have nothing to do it with stimulants and sugar.

Okay, so you want to have more energy…

But I need to tell you that eating for energy, such as eating foods that are high in stimulants such as coffee and energy drinks or even sugar, is very short-lived.

At best, these quick fixes will give you a short-term pick-me-up but will leave you feeling drained and lethargic shortly thereafter.

So let’s look at a couple of healthier and more sustainable options for improving your energy.

And I’m talking about all day energy–not the type of energy that lasts for an hour.

One of the best way to improve energy is to drink more water.

The reality is that most people walk around dazed, confused, and tired simply because they’re dehydrated.

So as a starting point, do your best to drink more water throughout the day. Doing so, will allow your brain to function more effectively, provide the hydration your blood needs to circulate properly, and provide the necessary transportation to remove wastes from your cells.

One of the best ways to improve energy is by getting BETTER sleep.

Notice how I didn’t say getting more sleep, but rather better sleep.

A lot of people think that sleeping more is required to have more energy. But if you’ve ever experienced waking up late–haven’t we all–you’ll know what it feels like when you sleep too much.

The reality is that we need sleep, but of the right kind. Our body goes through cycles of deep sleep throughout the night, interspersed with bouts of REM sleep. These cycles occur at about 90-minute intervals.

One clever way of feeling more rested on less sleep is by timing your sleep wake cycle with these 90 minutes intervals–to match your body’s natural sleep patterns.

For instance if you go to bed at 11 PM you would want to wake up at a 90 minute interval from that point in time.

That would mean that you would ideally wake up at 5 AM, 6:30 AM, or 8 AM. If you just follow this sequence you can map out your ideal waking times no matter what time you go to bed.

Personally, I feel more refreshed when I wake up following this type of 90-minute schedule. The

Now you may be wondering what this has to do with having more energy. And that’s a great question. The reason for this is that if you wake up at the end of a 90-minute sleep cycle you will be waking at the end of REM sleep.

Conversely, if you wake up during that 90-minute interval you will feel lethargic, groggy, and won’t feel like getting out of bed. That’s because you’re waking right in the middle of DEEP sleep, and nobody enjoys that.

Okay, moving on.

The 3rd way to improve your energy is to eat more raw alkaline foods.

These include plant-based foods–essentially fruits and vegetables–in their raw state, predominantly.

The reason this is important is because raw foods have high water content, enzymes, vital energy, and higher degrees of nutrients then their cooked food counterparts.

At the same time, raw foods are highly alkalizing once inside the body. What this means to you is that because your blood needs to be alkaline in order to function at its optimal level, providing your body with a diet that is highly alkalizing will allow your blood to distribute oxygen to your cells more efficiently.

The results… More oxygen to your cells, which can then be used to produce energy.

So when you’re looking at improving your energy the first thing to really consider when it comes to your diet is eating more alkaline forming foods. There really is nothing more powerful from a dietary perspective that you can do to have more energy.

And remember this has nothing to do with sugar foods, stimulants, caffeine, or other quick fixes.

Eating more of an alkaline raw food diet is a surefire way to increase your all-day energy and at the same time eating these foods will also allow you to sleep more effectively. So that means you won’t need to sleep as much and your body will feel more refreshed in the morning–win-win!

Our final stop in this best ways to improve energy post is regular exercise.

And here I’m mainly referring to 2 types of exercise – higher intensity cardiovascular training and strength training.

High-intensity cardio training–or interval training if you like–is the best way to increase the adrenaline in your body, which makes you feel euphoric. When you exercise at a high intensity, such as repeated bouts of sprinting, this adrenaline rush lasts for hours.

At the same time, high-intensity work also boosts your metabolism for several hours afterwards. So in this case, your exercise session not only burns calories during your session but for hours afterwards.

Perhaps more importantly from – a vitality perspective – is how strong your body is. And how strong you are is directly related to how much strength training work you do.

Now this can take the form of bodyweight training or using resistance bands or weights. The idea is that you need to strengthen your muscles so that your body becomes stronger. This will enable you to do more in your day-to-day life and feel stronger as you do it.

At the same time, the more muscle you can build and the greater your cardio endurance, the more capillaries your body is able to create. This allows more blood to flow to muscles and more oxygen to your cells.

And, as we’ve already seen, getting more oxygen to your cells is the foundation to having more energy.

The other mechanism that helps to do this is the fact that your heart has become stronger, which allows more blood flow to be pumped in the same amount of time. More blood flow equals more oxygen to your cells, which equals more energy.

So I hope these 4 tips have shed some lights on some simple yet very effective ways of improving your energy in a safe, healthy, and sustainable manner.

If you want all day energy then be sure to learn more about my Eating for Energy program, it’s by FAR one of the easiest and best ways to improve energy!