Cultivating a solid morning routine is a pivotal part of having a productive, high-energy day. You stretch a little, eat a good breakfast, wash your face—do whatever you must to make your morning really count before you start your day.
But sometimes, you fall short and it’s no fault of your own. Your coffee ain’t coffeeing like it typically does; that 7 hours of sleep feels a lot like two; and what workout? Just be grateful I’m getting to work on time today.
It’s perfectly normal to have these days! But if you’re having these days a couple times a week, it’s probably time to rethink your routine. And no, we’re not talking about adding new steps, but fixing the old ones.
I bet you couldn’t guess in a million years what’s actually zapping your energy. Hint: the very things you expect to give you energy are actually doing the opposite.
Let’s take a look at your morning routine and pinpoint the 4 ways it may be depleting your energy before you even get a chance to use it.
Drinking coffee is triggering you.
Like all other things we consume, the way coffee impacts you depends on how it interacts with your body. If you noticed that you don’t have that extra pep in your step after your normal cup of joe, it’s probably drinking too much caffeine throughout the day.
An excess in caffeine not only increases the production of cortisol, the stress hormone, but it inhibits the absorption of adenosine, the hormone that calms your body down.
Mix all of this together and you have a recipe for anxiety and even sleepiness—since getting sleepy is actually your body’s fight or flight response to stress.
So if you noticed you’re tired before the day even starts, you might want to think twice about adding that fourth or fifth cup of coffee to your morning routine.
Working out without the proper fuel.
Things like fasted workouts and “I’ll just eat this banana” have become super popular for those of us who workout in the morning. And to be very clear, the short-term effects are undeniable for a great deal of us.
We feel more energized and motivated to take on the day. For others, working out before noon can be downright exhausting. However, we would be lying if we said it only came down to one reason and one reason alone.
The reality is, there’s a whole list of reasons why your current A.M. workout routine might be zapping your energy:
- You didn’t get enough sleep.
- By the time you wake up, all your food has been digested and your blood sugar levels have dropped.
- You didn’t eat anything nourishing before your workout.
- You didn’t eat anything nourishing after your workout.
Again, all of these factors come down to one thing: you didn’t give your body the proper fuel it needs to properly run throughout the day.
Eating an imbalanced breakfast.
This one is easy because those of us who routinely eat in the morning, already know what a healthy breakfast is and what it isn’t. We love our pancakes and bacon, cereals, donuts, and whatever else is delicious but not exactly nutrient-dense.
A big reason why your breakfast is making you sleepy is because it’s packed with far too many carbohydrates and proteins early in the day. This isn’t an inherently “bad” mix, but it triggers serotonin release and can make you sleepy.
On the flip side, eating anything in the morning can also cause your blood sugar levels to rise which is known to zap your energy, as well.
Knowing the cause of your depleted energy really comes down to getting in tune with your body—what’s it saying about your breakfast?
Setting two alarms too many.
We’ve all done the “multiple alarm” dance when we set up multiple alarms or reminders in the morning that are 10 or 15 minutes apart just in case you miss the first one, or fall back to sleep after hitting snooze.
While we think this is keeping us up and alert, this is actually further disrupting your sleep patterns and the overall balance of your sleep routine.
If you really feel like you need more sleep, give yourself another 30 minutes to an hour. If that’s too much, then maybe it’s time to go to sleep earlier.
