Ask HN: Do you have a high level of energy throughout the day?

That&#x27;s a very broad question. Since you&#x27;re asking, I assume that you do not enjoy high energy all day.<p>First of all, the cause for low energy may be mental or it may be physical.<p><i>Don&#x27;t assume that because you feel tired in your body, the root cause is obviously physical</i>. Long-term therapy helped me a lot. I also meditate semi-regularly, and try to maintain a good network of friends I see regularly. (AND, VERY IMPORTANT ... exclude negative people, if necessary family, from my life!)<p>Moving on to the body, it sounds like you&#x27;re asking about &quot;good health.&quot; Here&#x27;s what works for me (has evolved over time):<p>* Early morning sun exposure, ideally a run.<p>* Keeping a healthy weight through intermittent fasting and low-carb eating.<p>* Regular resistance training - squats, pushups, pullups, can be done at home.<p>* Did I mention low-carb eating? Say no to lunchtime rice or noodles. Or perhaps say no to lunch.<p>* Very limited alcohol. No recreational drugs.<p>* Feeding that gut microbiome with lots of prebiotics and probiotics.<p>* Using a standing desk for about half the day.<p>* Avoid most meds except in case of emergency, i.e. stay off the prescription cascade.<p>* Regularly getting a good night&#x27;s sleep, again without using meds. I recommend a weighted blanket.<p>I do drink coffee and tea, which are both reputed to be healthy, and I eat lots of other delicious cooked food. (Often without the rice&#x2F;bread&#x2F;noodles.) I am highly skeptical of raw-food diets - they seem completely anti-evolutionary.<p>Good luck!

Everyone is different, but i have experimented quite alot with what works for me:<p>Sleep 4 hours twice per 24 hr cycle, spaced 10-14 hours apart. No caffeine, lots of water. This makes a massive difference.<p>I reach my &quot;final form&quot; when adding a keto diet to the mix. No energy crashes ever, it&#x27;s like being a machine. It can also be fun.<p>That being said it&#x27;s nontrivial to schedule things in that way, and overall I&#x27;m happier when i get to see my family more by sleeping an 8 hour block in exchange for the performance benefits.<p>Also don&#x27;t forget to do creative&#x2F;fun things outside work. Watching TV doesn&#x27;t count. Nothing kills my productivity faster than feeling like a work robot.

A largely raw food diet might be great for a lot of things, but it&#x27;s not necessarily going to be great for energy.<p>Make sure you&#x27;re getting enough protein, and then enough nutrients generally to fuel your body at the right rates.<p>For some people this means a lot of slow-digesting grains, other people do better with less carbs and more fats.<p>And then some people need more to keep their blood sugar from being too low, whether it&#x27;s bananas and honey at the start of the day or crackers between meals or whatever.<p>My biggest advice is that energy can be very linked to diet, and don&#x27;t be ideological about it. Experiment widely and figure out what works best for you. It&#x27;s truly bizarre just how differently different people respond to different proportions of macronutrients, or things like raw vs cooked, or things like intermittent fasting.

I do 300+ caffeine daily. However one thing this does &quot;wake&quot; me up is short walk outside in full sunlight.<p>Also found having a good convo on an interesting topic. Find it very satisfying however, that may be due to my loneliness :)<p>And what others have said: B complex, B12 in particular.<p>Lastly, I found one of my best workout days are the days where I did NOT want to work out. Those days I flip a coin and do whatever it says. So I find it&#x27;s a lot of mind over matter.<p>Like when your football wins, you wanna go out and run a marathon!

Have you considered that your definition of &quot;high level of energy&quot; and other people&#x27;s may not be the same?<p>For example Ballmer&#x27;s famous Developers Developers Developers speech[0] is NOT my &quot;high energy&quot; and in fact if I ever had that much &quot;energy&quot; I&#x27;d consider myself to be having an emotional breakdown.<p>My &quot;high energy&quot; is: zero brain-fog, good mental acuity, and not feeling sluggish. I&#x27;ve found light fasting to help with that (e.g. only eating dinners). But it isn&#x27;t really clear what you&#x27;re trying to achieve and or what success would look like.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=XxbJw8PrIkc" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=XxbJw8PrIkc</a>

I drink (literally) 20 cups of Folgers coffee at work per day. Also a 12oz Red Bull for breakfast. Work provides a large lunch and I skip dinner. Essentially OMAD with tons of caffeine. I also sleep like a baby because no caffeine after 2pm (starting the day at 6). I am able to hyper focus 11 hours a day 6 days a week on this diet.<p>Edit: reading this back and I see I might have a problem with caffeine but I’m not ready to confront that yet.<p>Edit 2: does hyperfocus == energy? I think so

If you&#x27;re having trouble staying focused and having high energy, especially while working, you might want to consider if you have ADHD. Medication has completely changed the lives of many people that I know for the better.<p>To be clear: I&#x27;m not a doctor, I&#x27;m not saying you must have ADHD based on two sentences. I&#x27;m not saying that medication is your only option, or would even be appropriate for you. I&#x27;m suggesting simply that you take a look at one of the self-report scales like &quot;Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale&quot; (ASRS) and see if it fits your experiences, and if it does maybe talk to your healthcare professional about it.

You can never have &quot;high level of energy throughout the day&quot; everyday. A lot depends on your Food, Sleep, Time-of-the-day, Past Activities etc. That said you can have good high alertness, cheerfulness, positive mentality, energy for most of the day by following some simple disciplines. Here is mine;<p>1) From Hatha Yoga: Do Kapalabhati, Bhastrika, Nauli kriya, Mula Bandha, Uddiyana Bandha. All should be done gently without too much force. End with massaging the head lightly.<p>2) Loosen all your joints particularly hip&#x2F;pelvic area and then do some stretches (Yoga asanas are recommended).<p>3) Do deep &quot;Hindu squats&quot; aka &quot;Baithaks&quot; (using the ball of the foot to push off the ground while getting up) and &quot;Hindu Pushups&quot; aka &quot;Dand&quot; in sequence. The squat raises the energy from the sole of the foot and the pushup conducts it through out the body.<p>4) Read Dr. Satchin Panda&#x27;s book &quot;The Circadian Code&quot; (and watch his videos on Youtube; eg. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=fciGNBN0nKM" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=fciGNBN0nKM</a>) and setup your daily activities in accordance with your circadian rhythm.

What works for me:<p>0. Accept that your energy and dopamine levels will slowly go down throughout the day<p>1. Get enough sleep<p>2. Take a short nap or meditate (10-15m) after lunch to clear my head.<p>3. Exercise (even a little bit helps)<p>4. Accept that you’re not a robot and you will have worse days.<p>I’m oversimplifying here a bit but: historically humans worked in cycles (one busy day followed by one slower day) and our current approach is not sustainable.

For most of this year I’ve needed a lunch time nap and not been very satisfied with overall energy levels. Unrelated to that I decided to lose some weight, and after losing 6kg (~13lb) the difference in my energy levels has been astounding. I haven’t needed a nap since and my productivity has certainly increased.

I don&#x27;t know what you mean by high energy? I consider my energy level adequate.<p>There are no secrets, it&#x27;s just how I run. I only eat &quot;OK&quot;, certainly not great. I drink a pot or more of coffee per day, but only water other than that. I don&#x27;t drink a lot, or do any drugs, not sure if that helps.<p>I wake up, I get kids ready, start my workday, take them to the bus, continue my work day, pick the kids up, and then I go wherever the night takes me. Sometimes I need to finish my day, my wife and I are going to need to feed kids, wash kids, get their homework going, get them somewhere, etc.<p>That&#x27;s probably 7AM-7PM, sometimes closer to 9PM. Most days I&#x27;m ready to go until about midnight or so, at a fairly steady, sometimes brisk, pace.

My smart watch has a smart alarm on it; it helps me wake up &quot;on the right side of bed&quot;. Combined with 8 hours of sleep.<p>Also, find the tasks that motivate you; working out, working on your car, working on a house, working on a side project. Avoiding TV if possible.

I will say my energy levels have seriously increased in the last few years and I 100% think it is because I have stopped working out as much. When I worked out a lot I felt like I had a lot more energy and I have noticed similar things from other people.

Cocaine and gummy bears

The single most helpful thing for me is having a relatively consistent bedtime and wake-up time. The next important things are: Drinking plenty of water, and exercising every day (It doesn&#x27;t have to be intense exercises like a full-blown gym session or a long-distance run or bike ride, but you&#x27;re body is designed to move, so go for a walk... or do something).<p>For normal healthy individuals without other medical conditions, it really doesn&#x27;t take anything special, it&#x27;s just taking care of the base needs, and then from there everything else kind of flows.

The highest energy I&#x27;ve ever had was achieved by: - Using a standing desk.<p>- Creating my own list of tasks and trying to get through as much of it as I could.<p>- Skipping breakfast, keeping my lunch small, drinking plenty of water.<p>- Working out before dinner, and finally having my first big meal.<p>- Getting a full night&#x27;s sleep. Usually skipping coffee because it wasn&#x27;t needed.<p>Even on days when I had a large lunch, standing ensured that I didn&#x27;t fall asleep at my desk.

I&#x27;ve struggled with this a lot and haven&#x27;t found the answer yet, but I will say that having a light dinner, just enough not to make me wake up at night, has improved my sleep a lot. I also stopped running and have switched over to weight training and that has helped as well. I think everyone&#x27;s body is different and that these comments will only go so far for any given individual.

From what I observe, some people are just constantly high. I found many examples in sales&#x2F;marketing. Tired yet high.

Here are some tips:<p>- Use caffeine for a boost when you need it, but try to go without when possible.<p>- Try a light green tea instead of coffee for your caffeine boost.<p>- Take B Complex, strong enough for your needs. Others vitamins such as C, D3, Magnesium and Zinc are good too.<p>- Try disconnecting from all screens whenever you&#x27;re not working, where possible.<p>- Consistently get enough sleep.

I’ve recently started doing 5 minutes of calisthenics every half hour while working. It’s making me much more focused on work plus it feels like getting exercise for free since it’s time I would otherwise waste. Also 10-20 minutes of mindfulness meditation most days.

I was vitamin D deficient, daily supplementation has been a game changer for me.

After lunch nap (when drowsy) has made me almost 200% more priductive during afternoons.

Modafinil or Adderal

you may need some Vitamin B 6&#x2F;12, D ... esp. B

Take a 1 hour nap at lunchtime

I sure do. Lift weights for 23 years and do lots of soul searching, praying and eating healthy (blood-free diet). ;)