9 Habits to Increase Your Energy

Energy, not time, is the basis for productivity. Having all the hours in the day won’t help you if you’re exhausted for most of it.

Your habits define your energy levels. If you have good habits, you’ll feel energized and be more resilient to burn out, both physically and mentally. If your habits are misaligned, you can get into a cycle where you feel worse and worse, until your it’s a struggle just to keep up.

Here are nine habits you can work on this year to increase your energy levels.

Habit #1: Go to Sleep Early

Sleep is the foundation of your energy. If you don’t get enough sleep, you’ll start to underperform.

While some people claim to work best on six or less hours of sleep, research says they’re kidding themselves. Seven to eight hours are pretty much mandatory if you’re going to stay cognitively sharp in the long-run.

For some people the sleep deprivation may have mentally plateaued, meaning they feel slightly tired all day, but they don’t think they’re getting any worse. An interesting experiment showed that sleep deprivation caused continuous declines in mental performance, even though subjects felt like they were holding steady.