For the first time, I achieved a score of 99 out of 100 on my Garmin “Body Battery” metric (for more information on that metric, click here). I reaaaaallly wanted a 100, but after 30 minutes of meditation and breathing exercises when I woke up, my body battery score actually began to drop, so I had to stop. But that just gives me a new goal to aim for next.
So, how did I achieve this new level of energy?
I believe there were six main factors:
- No dinner – I’m strangely convinced that this is the key to my recovery. I shouldn’t say “no” dinner – just nothing for 5 hours before bed time. I learned this from Brian Johnson who quoted Dr. Steven Gundry’s The Longevity Paradox. Dr. Gundry wrote about the glymphatic system which cleans the brain at night, and has a hard time doing so while digesting food. Brian and I have both noticed how much our HRV scores improve without dinner, and therefore our sleep scores improve (mine was an 86 last night – the best in a month).
- Less caffeine – I’m slowly weaning myself off of coffee (with tea). I think this lowers my anxiety, improves my HRV, and helps my sleep.
- More sleep – If Restless Leg Syndrome keeps me up at night (which it did last night), I force myself to stay in bed until I’m too awake to recharge anymore. This probably should have been a self-evident step, but I’m such a creature of habit that I would get up at 5AM regardless of my sleep quality.
- Less sugar – I’m still uncertain what the exact impact of sugar is upon my energy, but I’m sure it was having an impact beyond the normal blood sugar crashes.
- No alcohol – Most fundamentally, I have had to remove my #1 kryptonite from my life. The list of ways alcohol impacts my energy, sleep, mood, and HRV are too numerous to list here, but I can’t leave it off the list.
- More exercise – It seems that my body requires a daily mix of cardio and weights to maintain a healthy HRV score. It must decrease my stress, make me more resilient, and increase energy production somehow. Needs more research (as does sugar). [I remember hearing that exercise releases a flood of 400 growth hormones and chemicals into the bloodstream, bathing our bodies in regenerative goodness. Need to find that reference.]
So that’s a quick look at what I think is going right lately. I hope to post more soon. I just wanted to give you an update on how things are going. Happy New Year!
