Mastering the Mindset
Mastering the Mindset
I Know Why You're So Tired
The season has changed. It gets dark way too early these days. That makes it hard enough as it is to maintain the energy you need right now. I can't change the weather, however, I can tell you how to have more energy throughout the day. I know why you're tired. Try these tips and see if you can find the energy you need. Because when it's all said and done, the action needs to be taken in order to achieve those goals. It's a lot harder to take action when you're drained. Let's dive in!
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What's up everybody and thank you for listening to Mastering the Mindset. My name is Darius Dodge and I'm an actor, hip-hop artist and fitness and life coach, and I'm here to personally help you train and improve your mindset so that you can, one, become the best version of yourself mentally and, two, gain focus and motivation to be able to take action and achieve the success in life that you want and deserve. Before we get started, please like and subscribe to my channel and at the end of this episode, if you liked it, please share it with a friend or a loved one or someone who would benefit from hearing this message. I'm so glad you're here and I'm ready to go on this journey with you, and that journey begins now. That journey begins now. All right, and welcome back to another episode. Thank you for being here, like always. If you are on YouTube, please go ahead and like and subscribe to the channel, and if you are watching on the podcast platform, please leave a review. Also, I would greatly appreciate it if you became a monthly supporter. You can choose the amount. It can either be three, six, eight or ten dollars. That is greatly appreciated. I think you're in a van, so please go ahead and do that. Let's jump right in.
Speaker 1:Today. I'm going to talk about four things you can focus on in order for you to have more energy in your day. And one of the most important things to focus on if you want to take the action that you need to take to create the life you want is energy. It's important when you have it, it's a lot easier to take that action, and when you don't have it, it's a whole lot harder. You have to force yourself. Forcing yourself to do something don't really feel good. Nobody want to have to force themselves to do something, but it's still necessary because, no matter what, you're going to have those days when you don't feel like doing something. But if you have energy, it'll make it that much easier, especially during these dark winter months. It's the hardest to be productive during this season. I hate it when you get home at 430 and it's already getting dark. It just feel like the day over and it's time to wind down and it's hard to take action and make you feel sluggish, and it's hard to be driven and disciplined if you sluggish Right. So let's dive in. I want to talk about four ways to be able to have more energy, and this will be straightforward and more than likely things we already know, but it's good to have that reminder from time to time.
Speaker 1:Okay, so the first one is obvious, but it's sleep. That's number one. If you want to have energy, you got to have sleep, and that's just science. Simple science and studies show that 98 percent of us need at least seven hours of sleep, and 98 percent, that means only one out of 50 people don't need that much sleep, and I ain't one of them. I promise you that, and you probably ain't. You probably ain't either.
Speaker 1:Sleep is important and there are ways to sleep better and also ways to stay awake better. To sleep better and also ways to stay awake better, and let's talk about it Now. One of the things that really helps with sleep, which also helps lead to more energy, is getting sunlight on your skin, on your body, on your face, in your eyes, and the reason it's important is because getting sunlight on you, it signals your body to stop making melatonin. Sunlight on your skin and the blue from the sky on your eyes. It's very important to get it as soon as possible after you wake up. It helps regulate your sleep pattern right. So wake up immediately, open up them, blinds and curtains, let the sun hit your skin and if you got neighbors that can see, don't be naked. But look at that blue in the sky and I won't even lie to y'all, this one is hard as hell for me, like I'm one of those. I'm one of those people that sleep in pitch black and I got blacked out curtains so the sun don't exist to me unless I open them blinds. So I know firsthand how hard it can be to fully wake up and be sleepy for a long time before my body catches up. But the blue in the sky, it sets your circadian rhythm and this regulates your sleep cycle. Every 24 hours the blue will signal to your brain that it ain't time to sleep no more, and it's really important, even if it's only 10 minutes. The longer the better. But you need to get that sun on your skin and that blue in your eyes.
Speaker 1:Also, another trick to do if possible have a bright light, something that's not too bright but something that won't make you squint the whole time. But have that light in your environment above eye level or just above your head, the blue that's inside of that light, even though it's a white light, there's blue in spectrum. The blue will make you more alert and have more energy, and I actually figured this out by default before I actually learned about it. So, since I'm an actor and I do a lot of self-tape auditions from home, we have these big lights that we use to record and the better the lighting, the better the video will stand out. And I also use it during zooms and there's been a few times where I would use it after a zoom, or I'll use it and forget to turn it off after a zoom, and I'm sitting in my laptop and I'm working and I'm like like man, I'm kind of in my zone right now. I'm feeling so productive and I'm alert and getting a whole lot of work done and and now I know why the light was helping my brain stay awake and stay alert and I was able to get a whole lot of stuff done.
Speaker 1:Also, when talking about sleep, when the sun goes down, that's when you should remove most of the blue from your eyes as possible. So have that screen setting on your phone to remove that blue. And if it's not a setting on your phone, they have apps you can download and this is proven to help you get to sleep faster. It's not going to keep you up as much, because if you're getting a bunch of that blue light at night, it's telling your brain that you should still be awake and your brain thinks it's still daytime. Also, turn off all overhead lights. You have receptors in the bottom sets of your eyes and if you have lights on above your head, then those receptors, when you look up, it will still think the sun is out. So turn off those lights and, if possible, have the room as black as possible. Again, like I said, I'm good at that pitch black and if you definitely don't want you definitely don't want to have the TV on, that light is going to cause your body confusion.
Speaker 1:Also, since we literally spend one third of our lives in our bed, it's really important to invest in a good bed. This will give you better sleep, which will give you more energy. So all that was number one your sleep. The way you sleep is really important in having energy the next day. Surprise, surprise, right, all right.
Speaker 1:So number two is your diet. You have to pay attention to the food you're eating. Is the food you're eating giving you energy or taking it away? And you also have to pay attention to the food you're eating. Is the food you're eating giving you energy or taking it away. And you also have to pay attention to when you're eating your food, and some folks may not like to have a big meal first thing in the morning. I personally only eat a little bit in the morning.
Speaker 1:I'm never really hungry in the morning, but it's actually smart not to have a really big meal in the morning because digestion is one of the most energy consuming things your body does. That's why after you eat a big meal, you get sleepy. Black folks call it the itis. We eat a big meal and be like man I got diet, I need a nap. It's the reason why it's a custom in I forget which country it is overseas to have coffee after dinner.
Speaker 1:Your body is digesting that food and it drains you of your energy. Dinner your body is digesting that food and it drains you of your energy. You want to be careful of how much or how big of a meal you eat throughout the day, especially if you need to be productive. Still eat, yes, but stay away from getting real full. Otherwise it's going to be hard to keep that energy. Like I said, I don't be hungry in the morning anyway, so I usually don't eat much, not until around two or three o'clock, and I have more energy and focus that way and my brain will operate at a much higher level. And when I do eat, right at that time, I don't really eat this big giant meal. I save that for dinner when the day is over, or when I am or when I'm usually done with everything, with the bulk of my work for the day. Another thing that might be important to do is to do an allergy test. Another thing that might be important to do is to do an allergy test because you may have some slight food allergies that you don't even know about that your body is using energy to fight them.
Speaker 1:So are you eating greasy food, fatty fast foods throughout the day, or are you eating more green leafy foods, fish, proteins, healthy stuff? Because the greasy and the fast food is going to take more energy to digest it and it's going to make you tired. So it's important to think about what you're eating. Is it a big meal? Is it something your body is going to take a lot to digest? That's number two what you eat. Number three is exercise. When you exercise more, your body will naturally create more energy. And again, nothing we ain't heard before.
Speaker 1:Working out and exercising if you do often, if it's your routine, it gives you more energy throughout the day. And I can hear you now you say but no, I try working out. I worked out and made me even more tired, I was exhausted and I just wanted to lay down Well, that could be a number of things. How hard was your workout? Did you start at level four, and you really should be a level one? Did you only try it a couple of times? Did you do it for a week and then stop? As you work out, more and more, your body adapts. It starts making that energy for you, and you can ask my roommate about that. He'll tell you. When he started on his workout journey, he was getting his butt kicked. I ain't gonna lie. I was giving him some hard workouts, but that's what he wanted and what he needed for his goals. And you better believe, for like that first month he was hurting. We would work out and he would just lay there. Sometimes he would take a nap right after, but after that first month he literally said it with his own mouth, like man.
Speaker 1:One thing about working out that folks don't realize is it actually give you energy, like I noticed I got more energy throughout the day and I'm like, yeah, that's what I be trying to tell people Now. Am I saying that you should be doing the kind of workouts that are extremely hard and going to have you laying on the floor? No, but exercise in general. A jog, some cardio, a home workout, get your body moving, break a sweat. Not only will it start to give you more energy in the day, but it also helps you fall asleep better at night. You burn the energy by working out and by using it. When you got that energy boost and you know how good that bed feel at night after you had a physical day, like if you moved, right, remember how good it felt, how good that bed felt after moving, especially if you had to go up and down steps and move heavy as couches and furniture and it took hours. You got some good sleep that night, right. And again, I ain't telling you to go kill yourself in the gym, but exercise regularly. It gives you energy. So that's number three and number four, and a lot of folks tend to overlook this one.
Speaker 1:But is your environment the place you live, the place you work? What are you surrounding yourself with, and we all know there's two kinds of people when it comes to energy. You got the ones who are batteries and then you got the ones who are vacuums batteries and vacuums. A battery is the kind of person that gives you energy. They make you motivated, they put that spark inside you and within a few minutes of being around that person, you feel good and when you leave them, you have more energy than before. Those folks are batteries, and then you got those damn vacuums. Those folks are batteries, and then you got those damn vacuums, those folks that just suck the energy right out of you. When you walk into a room, or when they walk into a room, you can already feel that energy. Like Kendra Lamar said, I can feel your energy from two planets away and you feel it no-transcript. And when you leave their presence you damn near feel like you need a nap. We know those people.
Speaker 1:So think about your environment. Who are you surrounding yourself with? Are you around a bunch of vacuums? Or the term that I heard is time vampires, those people that steal your time from you. They just talk and talk and talk, and it's usually about nothing. And you got things to do, you got things to go get done and they clearly don't, because they won't shut the hell up. I can't stand that Like I know. You see me, you see I'm occupied. Oh, ok, you just go keep on talking. Ok, yep, you go hold me hostage, all right, got it? Or when you're around the batteries all day people that give you energy that will make you feel better after you leave them Right.
Speaker 1:Which one would you prefer? What about your job? Does what you do make you feel drained? Does it make you feel like a stripping your life away? And it's just an okay job not really great pay, just okay but it's draining you versus having a job or career that you actually enjoy? That's going to give you more energy. Also, do you sit all day at work or hell all day in general? Get your body up and get it moving. When your body moves, it creates energy. Get that heart rate up, get your breathing going. How can you create your environment that can allow you to be able to move your body, even if you just get up and do some jumping jacks next to your desk?
Speaker 1:Also, thinking about the environment, what about your mental environment? Do you tell yourself you're tired all day? Do you wake up and think about how long and tiring the day is going to be. Do you constantly tell yourself, man, I'm tired as hell? Your words have power. I say it all the time on here. The way you talk to yourself matters. And if you're telling yourself how tired you are all day, how do you think your body is going to react to that? You're going to look for all the ways that confirm how tired you are.
Speaker 1:What you should be doing is shifting that thinking and the way you're talking to yourself and say today will be a good day. I'm going to have a lot of energy today. I'm going to get it done today. I'm going to kill it today. Focus on how you will have the energy, how you will be alert and happy. Set up that mental environment for success.
Speaker 1:So that's number four your environment, physical and mental, and that's it, straightforward. Nothing we don't already know. Four things that can determine if you have energy or not. Number one your sleep. Two your diet. Three your exercise. Four your environment. So figure out how you can level up on all four of these and make them work to your benefit. Again, more energy equals more opportunities for you to get things done throughout the day, equals more happiness. Going after your goals will feel impossible without energy. We've all been there, done that. So let's wake the hell up and get after it. So that's what I got for you today.
Speaker 1:Again, become a supporter of the podcast. You can choose the amount. I truly appreciate it and I thank you in advance. So let's ride out. The song we go ride out to is Money. Let's ride out.
Speaker 1:See, I've been thinking about money a lot lately. So, see, I've been thinking about on a wave. It's a good thing I can surf, pick up my phone. Two missed calls from her. I swear. Having the magic stick is having the gift and the curse Cause I know she miss me. She wasn't big. As soon as she get in from work I get sweat on my shirt. Now she can't find her skirt. She put that thing in reverse. They see me in public. I don't say much. They probably think I'm a jerk. Sometimes We'll be right back. One of me. I plan for the future and learn from the past. Hopefully it make a little more cash. Look in the mirror like boy. Goddamn, what have you done to me? All I've been thinking is money trees. Money don't grow on trees, my nigga. I still be looking for money seeds. Put that in my dungarees. I give it exactly the way that it come to me. Watch how you talking in front of me. You think this funny I've been.
Speaker 2:Thinking about this cash you play with mine and I'm on your ass. I'm thinking about this money, thinking about this cash you play with mine and I'm on your ass.
Speaker 1:Look money. I think about money so much. It ain't healthy for me. I know this can't be healthy. I chase it like waterfalls. She sound like TLC. I'm trying to bring home the bacon. Thank you, I don't need your feedback, I need some cash. Too much pride is the reason I don't ask. I'ma take what I got and make it last, but I won't sit on my ass, won't sit here feeling bad. Got all my grind. I gave it everything I have. I feel like Martin McFly. Every time I came back I put in an overdrive and left that bullshit in the past and I bet not see you laugh. You bet not make me mad. Think this funny. I've been thinking about this Money.
Speaker 2:Thinking about this cash you play with mine.
Speaker 1:And I'm on your ass. I'm thinking about this Money.
Speaker 2:Thinking about this cash. You play with mine and I'm on your ass. Money Outro Music. No-transcript.