What I Do To Stay Energized All Day Long
When I was a young sociology professor, living a harried, busy life, I would routinely find myself exhausted from 2pm till about 9pm.
At work, I’d be miserable, imbibing coffee to make it through the afternoon (luckily my classes were all in the morning hours).
The result of course was that I got very little done after 12pm, and I was too exhausted to do anything fun - or just hit my neighborhood yoga studio - after work. I was 100% spent… until 10pm rolled around and I’d lay in bed staring at the ceiling.
I didn’t want much- just to feel energized, alive, and present in my life again!
Yup, those were the days…
Dear reader, if you’re going through something similar, I feel for you.
I wish that back then I’d known everything I know now about how to manage and maintain my energy- so I could get more done at work and then actually enjoy my life!
Lucky for you, I’m sharing the formula in this blog post.
Keep reading to learn the 3-part strategy that will give you all-day-energy. You’re going to walk away with specific tools and action steps that you can put to work today.
What I’m sharing with you really does work. It’s how I live my life, and it’s what I teach to all my private coaching clients.
Ready? Let’s dig in.
The Strategy: Foundational Self-Care
What I’m sharing with you here can work for anyone, but it’s also the strategy that I use to support my clients in THRIVE, my private burnout recovery coaching program for high-achieving, professional women leaders.
The women I help are exhausted in multiple dimensions: in their body, in their mind, and in their spirit.
They’ve been living in a constant state of fight-or-flight, just surviving from one day to the next. They feel tired and overwhelmed at work and at home. And they’re at breaking point.
They know they need to make some big changes to their lives- set boundaries, evaluate their relationships, possibly pivot their career - but it’s too hard to do that when they’re feeling so drained.
If you can relate to any of that, then this blog post will be especially useful for you.
The very first thing I always support my clients with is foundational self-care. That means we do what’s required to de-stress their body and refuel their energy at a physical level.
We do this for a few reasons:
It’s the easiest thing to start with because it’s straightforward and doesn’t require making any big decisions or having tough conversations.
It has a quick ROI (“return on investment”), meaning you’ll get your energy back pretty fast, depending on how quickly you can take action.
This foundational self care is not a cure-all for burnout, but because it boosts energy quickly, it puts you in a stronger position to do the “harder” work that it takes to escape the burnout cycle- like setting boundaries, learning to regulate your nervous system and deal with stress, and making potentially life-altering decisions.
Now, let’s unpack the 3 elements that make up foundational self-care- so you can start getting YOUR energy back.
Foundation #1 - Focus on Food
When you’re overwhelmed and exhausted, it’s really easy to skip breakfast, rely on caffeine and carbs to power you through the day, and then DoorDash it once you’re home… washed down by a glass of wine (or two).
I know from experience!
You want energy and you want it now.
And then you want to unwind easily at night after pumping your body full of caffeine and stress hormones.
The result is you’re probably exhausted from the moment you get up. Or, you’re experiencing an afternoon slump for the record books, but then unable to fall asleep at night.
Either scenario, it’s no fun.
So let’s hone in on your diet and look at some simple tweaks you can make that will have a major impact on your energy:
Eat balanced meals. At each meal (and snack), be sure to combine a source of protein, fat, and fiber. For example, this could look like an apple (fiber) with almond butter (fat + protein). Or a salad (fiber) with avocado (fat) and shredded chicken (protein). This winning combo will help stabilize your energy because it stabilizes your blood sugar.
Don’t go hungry. Skipping meals is stressful on your body. It’ll drain your energy and also make you more likely to choose poorly when it does come time to eat. So plan your meals as much as possible and always carry snacks!
Eat real, whole foods as much as possible. Foods you can recognize without a label. Or with less than 5 ingredients on the label. These are foods with lots of nutrients that your body needs! And when your body has nutrients, it feels less stressed- and that means more energy. So ditch the processed foods and take-out and sub in real food instead.
Delay caffeine until after breakfast, and cut it off after 12pm. You can still have your morning coffee! But when you have it before you eat, it spikes your blood sugar and your stress hormones- and the result is that you’ll have decent energy for a little while, but not all day long. In fact, you’ll be likely to have an energy slump late morning and mid-afternoon. And, if you keep drinking after 12pm, it can be harder to fall asleep at night. So just be more strategic about when you have your coffee.
Minimize alcohol as much as possible. You’ve probably noticed a glass of wine or beer helps you get to sleep at night- but it often wakes you up a couple hours later. Overall, your sleep is going to be of sub-par quality, leaving you tired the next day.
Inside THRIVE, I support my clients with all these pieces. We identify your starting point — what’s working for you right now and what’s not. Then we map out your easiest next steps.
I’m not a fan of drastic diet overhauls- it almost never works. You make a few changes and then in a couple weeks find they’re unsustainable.
Instead, in THRIVE my clients take small, do-able steps that build on one another, week after week.
And we use whatever tools are available. For example, some of my clients don’t have the time or desire to meal prep on Sundays. So we look for alternatives- like local meal prep services or healthy meal delivery. There’s no rule that says you need to do it all yourself!
The other thing we do in THRIVE? Focus only on those basics above, to the best of our ability. The goal right now isn’t perfection or weight loss. It’s simply to leverage simple nutrition and food as fuel to feel more alive and alert, all day long.
⭐️ If you want even more details about how to use simple nutrition to boost your energy and jumpstart the burnout recovery process, make sure to grab a copy of my Burnout Diet Blueprint- a free guide that goes over all this in much more depth.
Foundation #2 - Prioritize Sleep, No Matter What
The second component of foundational self-care for better energy is sleep!
You probably already know you need more sleep. It’s kind of a no-brainer. You’ll have more energy when you’re well-rested. And when your sleep is poor, you’re not only exhausted the next day, you’re also usually more stressed and anxious- which is an additional drain on your energy.
But too often, my clients know they need and want better sleep- but they haven’t really been prioritizing it.
So here’s my first piece of advice to you: if you want better sleep, make it a priority and decide today that you’ll do whatever it takes to get 7-9 hours of quality sleep.
I have an entire blog post dedicated to this topic, but for now here are the 3 steps I recommend you start with to improve the quality and quantity of your sleep:
Get morning sunlight. Take a 15 minute walk around the block or just sit outside with your breakfast. The sunlight helps to reset your internal body clock, gives you more energy during the day, and helps you fall asleep more easily at night. This is the absolute number one thing you can do to improve your sleep and it works even if it’s cloudy outside. (I do this every morning immediately when I wake up!)
Turn off all screens at least an hour before bedtime. The blue light from screens tricks your brain into thinking it’s daytime- making it harder for you to fall (and stay) asleep.
Plan your bedtime and wake time so that you’re truly getting enough hours of sleep. For example, want 8 hours of sleep and need to be up at 7am? Then you need to be laying in bed with the lights out no later than 10:30pm because it will take ~30minutes for you to fall asleep.
Inside THRIVE, I always take a personalized approach to sleep, looking at what’s most likely impeding my client’s sleep, what they’ve already tried, and then identifying the best action steps from there.
For example, sleep was a big problem for my client Deanna.
She went to bed early enough but would wake up around 3am and stay awake till ~5:30am, finally grabbing 30 more minutes of sleep before she had to be up for work.
We started with morning sunlight- she’d relax on her porch for a few minutes in the morning- and then built up from there. What at first felt impossible - 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep- became a reality for her in less than a month.
Can you even imagine the impact this had on Deanna’s energy and mood? Pretty huge.
Foundation #3 - Move Your Body, Daily
Exercise is the third element of foundational self-care. It helps you let go of stress building up in your body, helps you sleep better, and boosts your energy - even if you’re exhausted to begin with.
And here’s the thing: it doesn’t need to be crazy or hardcore. You don’t need to go to the gym, do a HIIT class, or run 5 miles.
The goal here is not weight loss or building muscle- it’s getting you more ENERGY, every day.
—> That means focusing on moving your body daily, whatever that looks like.
For me, personally, I do go to the gym but what really keeps my energy up during the day is taking short walks - one first thing in the morning, another right before or after lunch. If I can, I’ll walk around the block before a meeting.
With clients in THRIVE, we’ll strategize the easiest way to get moving (if they’re not already doing some sort of exercise). We’ll identify their starting point, their current energy levels, and craft a plan from there.
There’s honestly no one-size-fits-all approach to this!
For example, if you’re deeply burnt out and running on empty, you need to start slow - maybe a yin yoga class or a walk on your lunch break.
If you already have a favorite kind of exercise but you’ve fallen out of the habit, we might try easing you back into it, without pressure- taking it slow at first.
With time, and as your energy expands, you can increase the intensity of your exercise. There’s a season for everything, and this is the season of building better energy.
“Ummm… THAT’S IT?”
In short, YES.
This foundational self-care strategy can bring your energy back surprisingly fast.
To illustrate, most of my clients start THRIVE rating their energy around a 2 or 3 out of 10. Within just a few weeks of applying these strategies, they’re at an 8 or 9 — with consistent, all-day energy and fewer afternoon slumps.
But, a caveat: if you’re like my clients and deeply burned out — emotionally, mentally, and physically — self-care alone will not be enough.
To feel fully alive again - to wake up excited for your day - you also need to refuel your mind and spirit. That means:
Setting boundaries to protect your time and energy.
Refueling with fun activities and people who uplift you.
Regulating your nervous system so you’re not constantly in fight-or-flight mode (stress is serious energy drain).
These deeper steps are what make it possible to sustain your energy long-term, but they're not easy to navigate on your own. That’s the main reason I created THRIVE - to help smart women recover from burnout permanently and more quickly and easily than I did (click here for the full story).
