Ever feel like getting out of bed is impossible? Before you reach for a caffeine hit, perk up with these tips.
1. Make over your morning
If you need more energy, start the day with a glass of fresh juice for burst of nutrients. My favourite combination is carrot, celery, ginger, parsley, garlic, and pineapple.
Use a cold-press juicer to ensure your juice retains all its precious vitamins and minerals; the high speed and heat produced by centrifugal juicers destroy heat-sensitive vitamins.
2. Punch up your prana
In yoga, pranayama – breath control – is used to energise body and mind. Try this invigorating exercise:
* Stand with hands on your shoulders, elbows pointed out.
* Inhale and twist to the left, then twist to the right as you exhale, making a loud ‘Ha!’ as you punch your left arm forcefully to the right. Make the sound from deep in your gut, not just your throat.
* Repeat, inhaling and twisting to the right, exhaling and punching to the left.
If you’d like to know a bit more about the benefits of yoga, please see here.
3. Get some air
Russian biologist Nikolai Kholodkovsky says, “The air we breathe in woods or in gardens contains vitamins given off by plants.” Walk daily in a park or by the ocean, and you will improve your oxygen levels, which energises your cells.
4. Sweat it out
Heating the body improves immune function and detoxification pathways, which lifts energy. A far-infrared sauna uses heaters that emit radiant heat rather than steam, so people with respiratory problems can safely sauna. The heat generated can remove heavy metals, alcohol, nicotine, sodium, and cholesterol.
5. Choose a crystal
Crystals work on the metaphysical level, healing disturbances in your energetic field. There are many types and each has different properties. For example, smoky quartz lifts bad moods and gives the holder courage, turquoise helps recovery from illness and encourages creativity, and clear quartz has been shown, through the use of Kirlian photography, to clear congestion of energy channels.
To decide which is best for you, use your intuition and choose a stone that you are drawn to. Hold it on your body, wear it on a necklace, or take it internally as a gem essence. To make a gem essence, place your crystal in a dish of water and put it in the morning sun to energise the water.
Gem essences are the most potent application, as the crystal’s properties are distributed throughout the body, not just in one area.
6. Recharge with reiki
Rei means universal and ki means life force. This Japanese spiritual healing technique improves the flow of energy through the body. You lie fully clothed on a massage couch, while the practitioner moves their hands over your body, directing the energy to flow more freely and releasing blockages. You will feel a warm sensation and a feeling of total relaxation.
7. Colour your world
The seven primary colours relate to the seven energy centres of the body, or chakras. You can use them to enhance individual organ function, as well as help with emotional, psychological, and spiritual issues.
Red, which is connected with the base chakra between the anus and genitals, is stimulating and combats physical fatigue, while indigo works on the pituitary gland and the ‘third eye’ (above and between the eyebrows), improving intuition and telepathic energy.
8. Switch pictures
Try this neuro-linguistic programming technique:
* Close your eyes and imagine a ‘trigger picture’ – what makes you feel exhausted? Maybe it’s you surrounded by to-do lists. Make it big, like a computer screen.
* Now imagine a ‘switch-picture’ of how you want to be instead, in your ideal, energised state. Place this at the bottom of the screen, like an icon.
* Select the icon and bring it up to fill the screen, deleting the negative picture.
* Open your eyes and stamp your feet. Repeat whenever you start to slump.
9. Pick a flower
Homoeopathy is based on the principle of “like cures like”, meaning that a substance which causes symptoms in a healthy person may cure similar symptoms in an unhealthy person. Homoeopathy acknowledges the existence of the vital energetic force (chi or ki in Eastern philosophies) and believes that when that force is disrupted, illness occurs.
Homoeopathic remedies aid the body’s power to self-heal by freeing up the flow of the vital force. Minimum dose is the key: homoeopathic medicines are made by repeatedly diluting the active ingredient with a mixture of water and alcohol, then shaking the mixture vigorously to potentise it with energy.
This vibrational medicine is perfect for sensitive individuals and children. Dr Edward Bach recommended Scleranthus for sluggishness, and Larch for that couldn’t-be-bothered feeling. Essences can be taken by mouth or used as a room mist.
10. Come alive with aromatherapy
Take a bath with four drops of rosemary essential oil and two of basil oil. Or, sprinkle two drops of rosemary oil onto a tissue and inhale it during the day. Other oils which increase your energy levels include the citrus-derived ones – lemon, orange, grapefruit and mandarin – as well as bergamot, juniper and peppermint.
11. Listen to upbeat music
It stimulates the brain’s production of endorphins, hormones that kick-start your mood – and the happier you feel, the more energy you have.
12. Knock three times
The ‘Three Taps’ of chi kung create waves of fresh energy deep within the body:
* Using your knuckles, tap vigorously from the shoulders up the neck, over the skull to the forehead, and back down the neck again.
* Gently tap the kidneys from top to bottom. You’ll find them just above your waist at the back of your abdomen on either side of your spine.
* Using one hand, tap the centre of your chest. This is where your thymus is. The beat is one heavy tap followed by two lighter taps (ONE, two, three, ONE, two, three).
Thanks to Nina Stephenson (naturopath and NLP practitioner).
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