Don’t we all wish that we can wake up in the morning feeling refreshed, having lots of energy, and just ready to get out of bed ready to get on with our day? Morning fatigue could sometimes get the best of us before we even begin our day, which is why it is super important to maintain a healthy level of energy from the morning. Today, I’m going to give you 5 priceless tips to start your morning feeling refreshed and energized!  Before then, I want to cover how caffeine really affects us every day without even knowing it.

How Does Caffeine Work?

Nowadays we’re always running between task to task, and barely get time to give our bodies the rest it needs. To compensate for the lack of rest and energy in the morning, we often depend on caffeine to be the helping hand in getting us up to par energy-wise. 

Please don’t think I want to force you to give up your beloved coffee fix, I just want to make sure you are aware of its effects, and how it actually gives you that energy boost.

Caffeine is a stimulant, so it stimulates your adrenal glands to produce more cortisol, and raise your blood sugar in order to give you more energy. What this really means is that caffeine makes your nerves go crazy, which is where the energy boost comes from.

It is really important to monitor how much Caffeine you have throughout the day. Because it is a stimulant, it makes your body work harder to produce more energy. That all sounds great, but here’s what happens when we start depending on caffeine for our source of energy.

When the body becomes dependent on these external stimuli, it can no longer wake up in the morning with sufficient energy.  The body no longer feels refreshed, and can no longer do anything in the day without its daily dose of caffeine. I always tell my clients who want to boost their energy in the morning that they don’t need to completely give up their morning fix but rather ease off in small increments, or just lower the dosage. It is important to me that you to learn how to nourish your body the right way so that you wake up in the morning and you are ready to take on what life throws your way!

So then, what should we do when we wake up to really have energy without coffee?

1) Sleep at least 7-8 hours

You must have a good night’s sleep.  No matter what you’re going to have in the morning for breakfast if you didn’t sleep for at least seven to eight hours you are going to wake up feeling tired.

Eventually, your body’s going to break down, your adrenals are going to get exhausted, and they will no longer be able to produce sufficient amounts of energy. At this point, you’re going to feel exhausted all day long even after that cup of coffee

2) Wake up 10 minutes earlier and do something relaxing before you get to chores

You have probably woken up in the morning having work running through your head.  “What am I gonna tell Jenny at the meeting today” or “am I going to be able to get my presentation in on time today?”, and the list of thoughts goes on and on, along with the added stress it drags with it. When you wake up with those thoughts in mind,

Your brain really just shuts down and wants to go back to sleep, which really prevents you from feeling energetic and happy, and from looking forward to what’s to come. This is why I recommend waking up just 10 minutes earlier than usual and doing something that you look forward to like a 10-minute yoga exercise, reading a good book, or just relaxing by the window or in nature. 

3) Hydrate yourself as soon as you wake up

A lot of times, that feeling of being drained in the morning is just dehydration from a long sleep. When you first wake up, make sure that you drink a cup of water, and if you squeeze a little bit of lemon in there, it can really help revive your adrenals. Adrenal glands depend on vitamin C and therefore allowing you to fight off toxins. Especially in the morning, lemon water can really help your adrenals start-up and function

4) Have a blood sugar-balancing breakfast – with healthy fats and proteins

What you’re going to eat for breakfast is really going to define how much energy you’re going to have during the day. If you wake up in the morning and have bread or a bagel or something with a lot of carbs and a lot of sugars, what’s going to happen is your blood sugar is going to have a really big spike followed by a really big dip. That will leave you feeling drained when you go about your day.

A breakfast that’s high in protein, high in fat, and high in fiber is what’s going to stabilize your blood sugar when you wake up and is what will give you sustained energy throughout the day. For example, I’m going to be showing you how I make this breakfast buckwheat cake that I really like. 

Buckwheat Energy Cake Recipe 

Check the full recipe on the blog here 

Want to watch the full recipe instruction on video check out my full youtube video here 

The buckwheat flour will give you a little bit of carbs, but it’s not processed carbs so it’s not going to cause a big spike in blood sugar. It’s going to give you a boost of energy that will stay with you for hours.

Here is my favorite buckwheat flour for baking

5) Drink Matcha tea

Sometimes we aren’t able to sleep well, and sometimes we have a really tough week at work and we really need to get our energy up. This is why I wanted to introduce you to matcha tea! 

Matcha tea is a much healthier alternative for a bunch of reasons. One of the things that’s really special about matcha tea is that it’s actually raw green tea leaves that are ground into a fine powder so when you make the matcha tea you’re using everything in the leaf.  You’re actually taking all the benefits, whereas if you compare that to green tea where you would be steeping the leaves, so you’re not really extracting everything from the plant which equals less health benefit. 

Matcha tea is one of the biggest foods in antioxidants, even surpassing goji berries, pomegranate, coffee, and regular green tea. It does not have the same dramatic effect as caffeine, it doesn’t cause the same spike in blood sugar and cortisol, it gives you a more sustained and slow release of energy thanks to an amino acid called “l-theanine”. This particular amino acid actually promotes calmness and relaxation. So instead of getting that jittery stress feeling that you get sometimes from coffee, you get a more relaxed, clean high-energy feeling and that’s one thing I love about it because I’m someone who can’t actually tolerate Coffee. When I do have to drink coffee for any reason I just feel a little bit anxious, I feel my heart beating faster, which are irrelevant side effects when it comes to matcha tea. 

Matcha tea also is full of chlorophyll. You can tell that from its intense green color. Chlorophyll helps with detoxing and alkalizing the body. It’s characteristic “leafy” might take some getting used to,  but once you do, you will absolutely reap the benefits of this amazing and drastically understated superfood!

Here is my favorite type of matcha tea powder 

I wish you the best of luck on your journey to health and happiness!

All the best, 

Aayah