No More Energy Slumps During The Day!

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In A Rush?

Today’s 30-Second Summary

If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:

• Afternoon energy slumps do not improve anyone’s day, but what can be done about it?

  • Today’s main feature takes expert advice on 5 ways to enjoy better energy throughout the day—including avoiding early afternoon and post-meal slumps in particular.

• How’s your hydration right now? For most people, at any given time, it’s not great. But it doesn’t have to be that way!

  • Today's sponsor NativePath is offering a free gift and free shipping with their range of electrolyte and amino acid drink mixes, which are great for your kidneys, bladder, and more.

• Today’s featured book is about how to treat your own back, from arguably the world #1 authority on that.

Read on to learn more about these things, or click here to visit our archive

A Word To The Wise

Watch and Learn

Avoid Knee Surgery With This Proven Strategy (Over-50s Specialist Physio)

A diagnosis of knee arthritis can be very worrying, but it doesn’t necessarily mean a knee replacement surgery is inevitable. Here’s how to keep your knee better, for longer (and potentially, for life):

Prefer text? The above video will take you to a 10almonds page with a text-overview, as well as the video!

Tuesday’s Expert Insights

5 Ways To Beat Afternoon Energy Slumps

This is Nisha Vora, of Rainbow Plant Life fame. After graduating from Harvard Law School, she realized she hated being a lawyer, and pivoted completely to become what she now is 12 years later, a chef and health coach.

Here are her tips for boosting energy through the day:

Caffeine timing

If you don’t do caffeine at all, no need to change that, but if you do, Vora advises that midday is the best time for it, with a very good rationale:

• of course it should not be too late in the day, because the elimination half-life of caffeine (4–8 hours to eliminate just half of the caffeine, depending on genes, call it 6 hours as an average though honestly for most people it will either be 4 or 8, not 6) is such that it can easily interfere with sleep for most people

• because caffeine is an adenosine blocker, not an adenosine inhibitor, taking caffeine in the morning means either there’s no adenosine to block, or it’ll just “save” that adenosine for later, i.e. when the caffeine is eliminated, then the adenosine will kick in, meaning that your morning sleepiness has now been deferred to the afternoon, rather than eliminated.

Another reminder that caffeine is the “payday loan” of energy. So, midday it is. No morning sleepiness to defer, and yet also not so late as to interfere with sleep.

See also: Calculate (And Enjoy) The Perfect Night’s Sleep

Simplify what can be simplified

This one’s not from a physiological basis, but rather, that a lot of the time most of us have much of our energy being taken by constant task-switching (what gets called multitasking, but as our brain is a single processor, it really means switching rapidly between different kinds of cognition, which is not efficient). In order to avoid that energy drain, try to streamline things and make a particular effort to not only single-task, but to do so without distractions.

Counterpoint: if you have unmedicated ADHD, then chances are you’ll do better with a single small distraction chosen by you, than trying to go without distractions, because your brain will find distractions anyway, so you might as well choose one (for many people it is background music, or a podcast or TV show that one doesn’t may attention to but it’s there) as a matter of harm reduction, and that way you’ll do better at focusing on your primary task than if your brain were reaching out for every and any possible distraction.

Manage your blood sugars

In particular, she advocates for avoiding sugary breakfasts, opting instead for protein, fat, and fiber-rich options. For more in this regard, see:

10 Ways To Balance Your Blood Sugars

Walk after meals

You don’t have to don hiking boots and “I am just going outside and may be some time“; rather, even a 2–5 minute walk after a meal helps regulate digestion and glucose levels, avoiding postprandial energy slumps.

So,

• if you have a treadmill, after eating is a great time to use it for a few minutes

• if you have stairs, now’s a great time to go up and down them a few times

One last technique for when everything else fails

We’ll quote her directly on this one:

There are more benefits than just that, though, see:

A Cold Shower A Day Keeps The Doctor Away?

Want more from Nisha Vora?

We reviewed one of her books a while back:

The Vegan Instant Pot Cookbook – by Nisha Vora

Enjoy!

Our Sponsors Make This Publication Possible

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Please do visit our sponsors—they help keep 10almonds free

This Or That?

Vote on Which is Healthier

Yesterday we asked you to choose between carrots and parsnips—both very respectable vegetables, but ultimately we picked the parsnips (click here to read about why), as did just 25% of you!

Now for today’s choice:

Click on whichever you think is better for you!

One-Minute Book Review

Treat Your Own Back - by Robert McKenzie

A quick note about the author first: he’s a physiotherapist and not a doctor, but with over 40 years of practice to his name and 33 letters after his name (CNZM OBE FCSP (Hon) FNZSP (Hon) Dip MDT Dip MT), he seems to know his stuff. And certainly, if you visit any physiotherapist, they will probably have some of his books on their own shelves.

This book is intended for the layperson, and as such, explains everything that you need to know, in order to diagnose and treat your back. To this end, he includes assorted tests to perform, a lot of details about various possible back conditions, and then exercises to fix it, i.e. fix whatever you have now learned that the problem is, in your case (if indeed you didn’t know for sure already).

Of course, not everything can be treated by exercises, and he does point to what other things may be necessary in those cases, but for the majority, a significant improvement (if not outright symptom-free status) can be enjoyed by applying the techniques described in this book.

Bottom line: for most people, this book gives you the tools required to do exactly what the title says.

Click here to check out Treat Your Own Back, and treat your own back!

PS: if your issue is not with your back, we recommend you check out his other books in the series (neck, shoulder, hip, knee, ankle) 😎

Penny For Your Thoughts?

Wishing you a vibrantly healthy day,

The 10almonds Team