Because self care is important.
Even as we move into Phase One of re-opening the economy, many of us are still encouraged to work from home. So what can we do to avoid feeling exhausted physically and mentally? Lim Swee Lin, an executive and transformational coach as well as author of 10 Easy Habits of Being Well, Staying Well, offers some advice on how to manage our hormones in order to improve our physical health and mental wellbeing, focusing on eating, sleeping and moving right.
What to eat
What you should do
Breakfast: Focus on protein and caffeine
Lunch: Focus on protein and vegetables; limit carbohydrate
Dinner: Focus on carbohydrate; limit protein
Snack: Have a small handful of nuts or a hard-boiled egg.
Why it works
What you eat has a big impact on your mental alertness. A meal rich in protein allows for more tyrosine (an amino acid) that’s made accessible to the brain. The body responds by producing more hormones like dopamine and noradrenaline, which makes you feel good and alert respectively.
Carbohydrates, on the other hand, encourage tryptophan (another amino acid). This makes the body produce more serotonin, a hormone that makes you feel calm and drowsy. That’s why you feel sluggish after indulging in chicken rice, noodles, or a big sandwich.
To avoid doing so, eat more protein, while giving carbs a miss. In the evening, carbs can help you feel relaxed and ease into a good night’s sleep.
Tip: Avoid tea and coffee (dark chocolate too) after 2pm. Caffeine has an extremely long half-life and continues to stimulate the body for many hours after it has been consumed.
How to sleep better
What you should do
Limit your screen time before bedtime. Ideally, you should avoid looking at your computer or scroll through your phone an hour before you go to bed.
Start dimming your lights at least 30 minutes before you sleep.
Why it works
Melatonin is our natural sleep hormone and its stimulant is darkness. At 9pm, two hours after the sun has set, melatonin production starts to rise. It peaks at 12 midnight, before tapering off around 3am. Research shows that higher melatonin levels are correlated with higher levels of growth hormones, which help the body restore and repair damaged cells. Good sleep also helps the brain clean out toxic waste that has built up during the day.
What about mobile phones and tablets? These typically emit blue light, which mimics the colour of the light at dawn. Biologically through evolution, this blue light tells our body to switch off melatonin production. Work emails or reading the latest news or playing games on your phone are all not conducive to getting good, restorative sleep.
Tip: Buy a table lamp or install a dimmer for your ceiling lights and avoid “white daylight” light bulbs.
Keep moving your body
What you should do
Get into position: Stand with feet shoulder width apart
Start moving: Bounce and shake your arms (Five minutes; work up to 15-20 minutes)
Why it works
Researchers found that this easy exercise was incredibly effective in getting both circulation and lymph moving throughout the body. It’s safe, requires little space, workout attire or equipment. Incorporating this movement two to three times a day into your schedule can keep your blood circulation and lymph going.
As a variation, you can also add a twisting motion through your waist at the end. These twists encourage cerebrospinal fluid to move up from the spine to the brain, which helps to expel toxic waste in the brain.
Main image: Travis Yewell/Unsplash
The story originally appears on Prestige Online Singapore.
