How To Be Happier, Slimmer And Less Stressed in 24 Hours
November 6, 2007
Hormones have a way of taking control of our lives. Whether it is mood swings, hot flushes, PMS, spots or grumpiness, we have all been their victims. But knowing how to take charge can make you energetic, burn fat faster and give you a better night of rest.
6:00am-Difficultly In Waking Up
There are some mornings when all your energy feels drained out and you have to drag yourself out of bed. But shouldn’t you feel energized after all that sleep? Not always true.What may feel like a good night’s sleep to you nonetheless is eight hours without food for your body. So, in an effort to conserve energy, your levels of leptin and insulin drop dramatically. These two blood sugar hormones affect how fast your body turns food into fuel. Low levels of these make you feel sluggish.
How To Get Going: Eat within an hour of your alarm going off to make sure you don’t start the day in a daze. Food triggers a rise in leptin which tells the body that the overnight fast isn’t a famine and boosts the energy levels. If you want the energy to last till lunch then choose the right breakfast of a combination of protein and fibre rich carbohydrate.
7:30am-Still Feeling Sluggish?
At this time in the morning, your metabolism isn’t working at full fat burning capacity and that is because your thyroid gland is still asleep. As the master regulator of all metabolic activities, this gland pumps out hormones that control how quickly your body burns calories and stores fat. It will have barely been ticking over while you were asleep and needs a jumpstart to get it going in the morning.
How To Get Going: Go for a brisk 10 minute walk or run to boost your thyroid. If time is a problem, try to incorporate it into your journey to work-walk to the train station or park your car a bit further away than normal.
11:30am Mood Crash
The effect of any morning coffee and exercise will be wearing off by now. And this is the time you reach for the chocolate biscuits just to keep you going until lunchtime. Crucially your mood may also have dropped because of a natural mid-morning slump in serotonin.
How To Get Going: Try and avoid the biscuit tin and instead swap personal information with friends and colleagues. This increases your brain’s output of serotonin. Have a tea break and catch up with the office gossip or call a friend for a five-minute chat.
12:30pm Difficulty In Concentration
As lunchtime gets closer, your body’s production of the hunger hormone ghrelin rises. Ghrelin slows your metabolism and makes it hard to focus.
How To Get Going: Choose a large, healthy lunch. As food enters your stomach, it stimulates the production of two hormones- peptide YY and oxyntomodulin that create a feeling of fullness.
3:00pm Struggling To Stay Awake
The mid-afternoon energy slump is a universally acknowledged phenomenon. You only have few hours more left of your work day but your brain feels like it’s shutting down. This is due to a drop in glucagons, which are blood sugar hormones. It gets worse if you relied on sugar and caffeine for energy earlier in the day.
How To Get Going: Raise your testosterone and feel your energy pick up again. Take 10 minutes to work a crossword or do a Sudoku puzzle.
6:00pm Stress Levels Soar
After a tough day at work your body is flooded with cortisol, the stress hormone that raises your pulse rate and makes you feel irritable and emotional
How To Get Going: A hug or a massage from your partner as physical contact boosts levels of the love hormone oxytocin.
8:00pm Still Not In The Mood?
If you are in need of some help to relax and feel sexy, opt for a good movie.
How To Get Going: Watch the kind of movie you love to release feel good hormones.
9:00pm Still Tensed?
By this time, you should be relaxed. The positive effects of relaxation hormones oxytocin and progesterone can wear off after an hour so your mood could be in danger of crashing.
How To Get Going: Enjoy some refreshing drink like some green tea or soak in a aromatic bath.
11:00pm You Can’t Sleep?
Televisions emit a glare that can shut off your brain’s production of melatonin, the hormone that tells your body it is time to sleep.
How To Get Going: Give your body’s melatonin production an opportunity to kick in by dimming the lights and switching off the television atleast 30 minutes before you go to bed. Also, eat a handful of chopped walnuts before you brush your teeth. Walnuts contain enough melatonin to boost levels of sleep hormone.
Excerpt Daily Mirror
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