Five Bad Habits That Drain Your Energy

Introduction

Your little daily practices have bigger effects on your productivity than you may initially think. These small habits may not feel like much, but you don’t realize that they carry over into how you approach your tasks and responsibilities for the rest of your day.

When you always feel exhausted without an obvious cause, it may be time to take a good look at your routine and see how any part of it could be hurting your energy levels.

But Wait, Not Everything Is Linked to Habits!

While bad habits are many times to blame for sluggishness, it is also possible that tiredness is not due to these. Many individuals suffer from auto-immune disorders and other conditions that keep them from concentrating or getting enough sleep.

If you feel exhausted every day and cannot explain why, you may have problems linked to your immune system or hormonal imbalances that affect ability to accomplish tasks. Seek out professional help for chronic fatigue to find a conclusive explanation for your exhaustion.

Top 5 Bad Habits You Should Fix

It helps to examine how you usually go about your day so you can pinpoint the possible ways in which you may unknowingly be tiring yourself out. The good news is that these habits also have very doable solutions.

You don’t get enough sleep daily

Most adults need around seven to nine hours of sleep every day for a good night’s rest, but the proper amount varies from person to person and what your age is. Determine the amount of sleep your body needs specifically in order to get adequate sleep every night.

If you feel yourself already waking up drowsy to a new day, it is a sign that you did not get enough sleep. Lack of sleep does not only cause drowsiness throughout the day. You will also be irritable and more prone to weight gain, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases.

You don’t exercise regularly

At first glance, it may seem contradictory. Physical activity will use up a significant amount of your energy for the day, so it should be better to pass on it to budget your energy, right? No, not at all.

When you make a habit of skipping your workouts, your body becomes less and less conditioned for an active lifestyle. You lose the endurance and stamina that you built through exercise, and as a result get tired more easily.

There are valid reasons to skip workouts, however. If you are nursing an injury or are currently ill, it is best to skip out on strenuous activity to make sure your condition does not worsen.

You have an unhealthy diet

Your body mainly gets its nourishment from the food you consume. If your diet primarily consists of fast food, junk food, and other kinds of processed foods, you are bound to feel more tired easily every day. Processed foods have high glycemic index, which causes blood sugar to rise and make you feel more fatigued.

Eating too-big meals also slows you down for the day. Heavy meals take more time to digest, so your body will allot more energy to break your meal down.

Eat smaller portions and choose what you eat. Introduce more fruits, vegetables, and proteins into your diet. As much as you can, go with unprocessed foods to introduce vitamins and other nutrients into your system.

You are not hydrated enough

Dehydration makes you feel tired. You don’t even need to be exercising to lose water in your body. Your body “spends” the water it has by the simple acts of breathing, urinating, and sweating.

While water does not necessarily bring more nutrients into your system, it helps deliver them to your cells. Aside from eating healthy foods, drinking water regularly keeps you up and running.

Be less reliant also on caffeinated beverages, too. Drinking coffee is okay in controlled amounts, but the buzz usually comes before a caffeine crash. Drink around 3.7 liters of water a day to replenish your body.

You are stressed out

Stress makes you tense, making you feel more tired as you do your responsibilities. When you’re stressed, whether due to work or personal reasons, you are also more likely to lose sleep. Your worries affect how your body functions!

If there is too much on your plate, take things one step at a time. Big goals are more achievable when you break them down into smaller tasks.

Remember, too, that you can’t control everything. Cut yourself some slack and leave room to de-stress. Rest is good to recuperate and gain more energy for the next day.

Conclusion

Healthy habits go a long way. Our daily habits can dramatically impact our overall health and well-being, so it’s obviously very important to foster good habits.

If you have bad habits, your health may eventually suffer. Sure, you may get by without issues for awhile, but eventually things will catch up to you. What goes around comes around.

Remember, simple changes go a long way. And sure, changing poor habits isn’t exactly going to be easy, but it can be done. Start with one poor habit, reign it in, and then move onto the next.

For example, if you’re stressed out all the time, try meditation. If you’re going to bed at 1:00 AM, try shaving an hour off that time weekly until you’re sleeping at 10:00 PM.

You can do this!

Try the tips in this guide, but most of all, be creative and consistent. You can (and you will!) turn your bad habits into healthy habits. In time, you are going to reap the rewards in more ways that you can imagine.