we want high energy we want to be in a good mood and we want to be able to do these things without having to take medication or to rely on a bunch of pills or maybe even energy drinks if you're someone who you see other people and you're like why are they always in a good mood how is it this person has so much energy today I am going to reveal their secrets in this episode of the shelene show hey thanks for joining me my name is shelene Johnson and that is actually one of the
questions I often am asked like are you always in a good mood do you always have high energy and I guess relatively speaking the answer would be yes I mean not like 100% of the time but it's something that I make very important in my life I don't want to be in a bad mood I don't want to have low energy and I don't think you'll find it shocking to know that our mood and our energy are very closely tied together I mean let's face it when you're in a bad mood do you have high
energy and when you have low energy are you ever in a really good mood probably not so the best news of all is that when you take these seven steps or apply these seven principles I'm going to share with you today it will have this compounding effect where it won't just boost your energy it'll also boost your mood win-win for most of us the reasons why we would want to make these changes to be happier and to have more energy might seem self-evident but sometimes like when you are down when you're feeling low energy when
you're in a bad mood mood it's hard to get out of that place it's hard to even find the motivation to do something different but I want to help you find that motivation so I want you to think about your relationships I want if you can't do it for yourself the things I'm going to share with you today I want you to consider how important it is you do these things for the people that you love because I know there's people who you care very much about and they're being impacted by your low energy and
your your mood as much as we wish it we could insulate others from that the truth is most of us are pretty kind of interdependent or dependent on each other and we notice when someone we love is feeling low energy it's just they're not themselves and so if for no other reason I want you to think about doing this because you love the people who love you and I also want you to consider these seven practices because it's going to make you more resilient it's going to make you healthier mentally and physically it's going to
improve your quality of life it's going to make you more productive and it's going to make you feel better about yourself all right let's get to it we have to start with sleep and that might seem super obvious but what you may not realize is you could be getting enough hours of sleep but your sleep might not be quality sleep if you're not getting REM sleep if you're getting woken up in the middle of the night because you have to use the bathroom or because you're having night sweats or things of this nature or if
you're just waking up at 3:00 a.m. and you don't even know why but your heart starts racing and you feel this like lowlevel anxiety and you can't fall back to sleep well that's going to impact everything it's almost like a cascading effect from our sleep it's going to impact your cortisol when we don't have enough sleep when we're not getting quality sleep we wake up in the morning and we feel tired run down and and when it affects our cortisol levels then we have like really low energy or we feel stuck in this fight or
flight State then we want to eat less healthy foods right and then you can just generally feel like you want to take a nap and when you feel tired you also feel bummed out like it's impossible to be in like a really good uplifted mood when you're tired when you're sleep deprived there are countless ways that you can improve your sleep but I personally think it starts by tracking your sleep so whether you're using a whoop band or your bed tracks your sleep as some do like I have a mattress that tracks a mattress pad
that cools me off which keeps me sleeping better and it ALS o tracks my sleep I also wear uh a ring that helps me track my sleep and there are inexpensive less expensive ways that you can track your sleep but it is really important especially if you're not sure if you're getting quality sleep to consider investing in one of these tools to help you track your sleep if you're like okay I'm track I don't even need to track it I know I'm getting horrible sleep then we need to talk about sleep hygiene what can you
do to improve your sleep hygiene like making the room darker making the room or your bed cold older if your sheets are making you hot OMG like I'm going to write you a p permission slip like right now to go get a cooling pair of sheets now this is not a sponsored post but I will here's your permission slip but I did recently ask my audience um on Instagram because we have these really nice sheets they're soft but they're like hot I mean they're super cozy but I'm like they make me sweat specifically I asked
for a crisp light sheet that was cooling I I I was like I don't want cozy I don't want soft I want crisp so I don't know if that's your thing but like for me uh my audience said uh bow and branch and they also said I'm I'm going to say this wrong but coyuchi I'm not sure if I'm saying it correctly so I'll put links to both of them in our show notes and again I I have no affiliation with them and I don't even have either of these sheets yet but like overwhelmingly I
had hundreds of people telling me those two Brands so I haven't even looked at the price points yet but I'm telling you this I will be ordering them later today and that's going to improve my sleep I will also share with you the supplements that I take that help to help me to get deeper sleep to get better REM sleep and to stay to fall asleep faster and to stay asleep longer but sleep is critical but here's what I realized in preparation for you know this episode I was like all these things are related they
all Impact each other so like if you're sleep sleep is bad that's going to affect your cortisol and if your if your sleep is bad then you don't want to do number two and the number two is exercise specifically strength training exercise is such a cheap and effective way with many positive benefits way to improve both your mood and your energy now it might seem counterintuitive you're like how can I exercise when I have such low energy the answer is energy begets energy and we have studied after study after study after study proving this so
you just have to believe the smart scientists believe the researchers it is really true now you don't have to pick something that just sounds absolutely horrible like right now if you tell me I had to go run outside like literally run out there I'd be like no way I'm going to stay right here on the couch but if you said you know what you can put on your shoes and just take a nice leisurely walk I'd be like all right and listen to a podcast like the shelene show all right I'm down so if the
thought of exercising just sounds horrible to you and it's preventing you from doing it then come up with something else you actually look forward to activity in general is going to give you more energy just get up just stand up sit less movement all movement being active is going to give you more energy it fuels your mitochondria and it creates a snowball effect so if you just do one little thing you start moving you know what they say an object in motion stays in motion once you start moving you're going to find you've got more
more energy but exercise almost head-to-head in research studies shows that it improves people's mood and helps to cut back on incidents of anxiety and depression now I'm not by any means recommending that you go off your medications if you're taking an SSRI but why wouldn't you add this when it's going to make you look better it's going to make you feel better your clothes are going to fit nicer you're going to feel more proud of yourself and guess what exercise improves your sleep sleep sleep improves your energy and your mood do you see how this
is all connected I'm going to go out on a limb and say that exercise is my secret weapon I really do think that's the reason why I'm almost always in a good mood and how I get myself out of a bad mood when I'm in a bad mood I I will just go and move my body I always say I listen this is my quote I need credit for this quote I said this first only exercise on the days you want to be in a good mood I don't exercise to like necessarily change my physique
I exercise so that I don't kill someone like there are days I'm a human being where my tolerance for stupidity my tolerance for incompetence my intolerance for people who have no common sense is so low like it it makes me it makes me an an unpleasant person in my mind I like want to choke someone when I encounter that and I know that's you know whatever I'm not proud of it but that's how I feel like sometimes my to tolerance for those kinds of situations is so low but I have a lot more tolerance and
a lot more patience for the world when I get to exercise and frankly it's I'm like mentally I'm dependent upon it like yes there's so many physical benefits but mentally it is such a mood regulator for me it's it gives me patience it gives me everything that I need for more energy and to be in a better mood so you should try it okay now this is one that like a lot of people don't even know about but it's like a secret weapon so this is like a bonus Point subscribing to the shellene show here
on YouTube it's like an instantaneous mood and energy boost and it's free and it's legal so yo if you haven't already like smash that like button as they say leave a comment but most importantly um please make sure you're subscribed because that that's going to really boost your mood and your energy all right on to the next one number three is eating as few processed foods and junky ingredients as possible and that includes you know drinking them too obviously I'm a big believer in like you got to live your life right I I don't want
you to get crazy about this kind of stuff and I I think sometimes we can take it too far like literally this is a True Story I Heard a biohacker the other day say that he would be more likely to smoke a cigarette than to eat french fries and I'm like dude dude really really like come on I want you to be a human but I also want you to be aware of how food makes you feel food is the most elegant and beautiful medicine that we have we can heal our bodies or poison our
bodies by what we put into it right like we know this to be true so as much as possible without driving yourself crazy I just want you to look at the things that you buy and ask yourself how processed is this how many ingredients are on the back of this thing that I don't even recognize them how much more instead of like eliminating food I want you to think about incorporating more foods that are unprocessed like more you know meats and cheeses and fruits and vegetables and things that that this is how they came to
the Earth right so things that don't have to go into a factory and add a bunch of additives and chemicals and ingredients in order to be manufactured so consider what it is you are eating and drink drinking because those things you know this to be true when you eat garbage you feel like garbage when you drink garbage whether it's alcohol or just even like sugary drinks you feel like garbage because it doesn't fuel your mitochondria the PowerHouse to the cell like that's where energy is adenosine triphosphate ATP like that's the source of our our energy
that's what we our bodies take from when when we need a burst of energy and if that's if you're not giving yourself the nutrients that you need then you're not going to have the energy that you desire which is going to make it harder for you to get up and exercise which then makes it harder for you to see how it all relates it's all connected next up is morning sunshine and this is one that I I think we underestimate how important it is I know I did because I was always like morning I I
don't like going out in the sun I I don't like being in sunshine and also I'm a you know I'm I'm Scottish and Irish so I'm afraid of getting skin cancer and so I I don't like going in the I like to pretend that I've been in the Sun by using a self tanner but I don't like to actually go in the Sun but study after study after study after study just keeps putting that in front of me and so in the last two years I've changed that habit and now the first thing not the
first thing that I do but in the morning like usually before 10:00 a.m. that's when I do my first walk now you know I a big fan of the walking I don't like running but I love walking and like why not get two for one remember how I said exercise yeah well studies show that exercising outside has a tremendous impact on your mood like the difference between exercising inside and outside is huge like absolutely huge so if you're going to exercise right like why wouldn't you get the most out of it by doing it Outdoors
like I'm going to link to all these studies and my show notes in case you want to look at them but I was blown away like it really makes a case for getting your butt outside and walking and if you can do that in morning sunshine now you want want the sun to be able to soak into your skin for at least 20 minutes for me I don't want that on my face so I wear a big hat and I wear usually a sleeveless shirt and I try to wear shorts so I can get sunlight
on my skin that's going to improve that vitamin D vitamin D we need for energy guess what else it does it helps us to regulate our Sarcan rhythms which helps us to sleep better you're going to get so much better sleep if you get morning sunshine so think about it all right so just by going outside and walking you're going to hit the exercise the vitamin D the morning sunshine the sadian Rhythm that's going to help your sleep like if you can just do this one thing if you just did that one thing it's going
to make a huge difference in your mood and your energy in fact countless studies show that spending time in morning sunshine will dramatically decrease your likelihood of experiencing anxiety and depression the next habit that is so important to incre inreasing your energy and your mood is regularly taking your supplements listen none of us are perfect and as careful as I try to be with my diet I also know I'm not perfect and I'm never going to have like all the nutrients that I need plus a lot of us have leaky gut or there's a variety
of other reasons why our bodies just don't absorb nutrients the way we need to even if we were eating a perfect diet so it's really important especially as we age that you consider supplementing specifically when it comes to energy I'm talking talking vitamin D which by the way you're probably doing okay if you're going to get those 20 minutes of of morning sunlight each day but if you're not why not supplement with some vitamin D vitamin B's are essential for energy vitamin B6 vitamin B9 vitamin B12 those are so important for energy people don't even
realize how much more energy they'll have just by taking a B vitamin A B you know all the B's specifically also magnesium I talk about magnesium endlessly and you know I guess if I were to say the two I if I had to pick three like the three essential supplements when it comes to energy and mood and overall health that most people are deficient in it would be magnesium vitamin B and vitamin D now if you if you're not sure of course you can get tested but the worst case scenario is if you take you
know a little too much you're going to excrete it in your urine More than 70% of people are deficient in these so unless your diet it's perfect you can probably safely assume that you're deficient in these nutrients magnesium being so critical for the very first thing that we talked about in this episode which is sleep so magnesium is responsible for over 300 of our body's mechanisms our body's functions it's responsible for so many hormonal reactions in our system that people don't realize that there are so many different types of magnesium so they'll end up taking
they'll end up buying a a cheap form of magnesium like at the grocery store at the drugstore whatever and they don't realize that they're only getting two or three and they're like why isn't it helping my sleep why isn't helping my digestion why isn't helping my my bone density fill in the blank well that's because there are so many different types of magnesium I personally take a uh magnesium supplement because I think it's been three years now three years ago when I did a dexa scan I found out I had osteopenia which is the weakening
of the bones and I'm like how could this be I'm doing everything right I'm eating right I'm lifting heavy I'm doing all these things and I thought I need to take a calcium supplement no magnesium so the Magnesium that I take is in a powdered form um I'll link to it in our show notes I've talked about it before this is not they haven't paid me to say this but they have sponsored the show before to be perfectly clear but I take magnesium breakthrough I don't even know if you can see that but I I'll
link to it in the show notes this is the powdered form they have a capsule form too listen as I always say you don't have to take what I take I'm not trying to sell you anything but I do my research and so when I talk about the supplements that I'm taking I share them because that's what I take um I would never share something because somebody is paying me to do that uh I don't operate that way and also there's been things where it's like oh I found something better then I'm going to tell
you about the better oh another one saffron dude dude like the research on saffron blew my mind it is crazy what saffron does for your mood I take saffron in the form of a gummy they're little literally called happy drops again you this is not sponsored you you don't have to take what I take but I do if you are thinking about how you can boost your mood naturally I do want you to look at saffron it's remarkable and your doctor's never going to tell you about saffron your doctor's going to tell you about an
SSRI because they get paid by the drug company sorry not sorry the next thing you need to do to dramatically improve both your mood and your energy because remember they're tied together is to actively work on reducing your cortisol now cortisol is the hormone that our body produces it's that fight or flight that we feel sometimes right so when when we are highly stressed our cortisol levels are usually through the roof unless you get to the point where you are chronically in a state of high cortisol in which case your cortisol can then drop so
low too low and too high both of those wreak havoc on our energy levels we want to stay in that like Kind of Perfect sweet spot cuz think about it like a little bit of that fight ORF flight is good it's what gives us energy you know you've heard those stories of like a woman who um like the car falls on her kid and she can like lift up the car cuz she has this like Hulk level Superwoman strength that is adrenaline partly and also cortisol like it's that fight ORF flight and if you're in
a constant state of fight ORF flight which many of us are and guess what guess what we know causes cortisol to spike how how dependent we are on this especially every single time you can hear the buzz or the ding or the notification or whatever that gives you a little cortisol Spike people give us a cortisol Spike people in our lives make us stressed out so and I know some people you just can't get rid of them and then not go to jail look into what state you live in just just joking listen we don't
encourage violence here but there are certain people that they just stress you the F out and you've got to ask yourself am I giving them too much power am I giving them too much time am I giving them too much of me and how much control do I really have like sometimes it's someone we work with and there's like nothing we can do about it or it's someone who's in our family and there's really you know it's like I can't get rid of them legally but can you reframe it are you saying yes to things
that are giving that maybe it's a friend or a cooworker who you like you're giving them too much at like you're letting them stress you out you're saying yes to things that you shouldn't be saying you're not establishing boundaries you're not you're not saying no when you should be saying no and you're letting them get into your brain you're letting them stress you out you're you're involving yourself in their problems you're making their problems your problems that's what I had to do personally when I was experiencing very high cortisol I realized I was trying to
fix a lot of other people's problems and if I'm being honest I was doing that not because I'm like Mother Teresa but because it made me feel better than them which is not uh like something I'm proud to admit but I really had to peel it away and go like why am I so almost like addicted to helping this person and that person and always helping like the wounded bird like why why do I always have to Champion that right and so I'm just like getting really honest with you right now and that's really what
I realized is like oh I'm doing that to like make myself feel better but it's actually making me feel worse it's making me feel more stressed it puts me in this state where I constantly feel like I have to fix other people's problems and when I finally had that realization I had to put it on paper and I made a list of the names of some of the people who I had to like still love them still pray for them still you know think they're amazing but not give them so much of me and it
was it was me it was my decision and I had to put their names on paper and I had to like specifically write down like the things I was just going to let go of and let them be and it was crazy how much that decision decreased my cortisol so I don't know what it is there's lots of ways to decrease your cortisol if what I just shared with you is not something you that's not what's stressing you out then look at other ways to decrease your cortisol there's so many things you can do to
reduce stress the obvious things like take a bath go for a walk get better sleep like all the things I've talked about so far are all going to decrease your cortisol I told you this this is all it is so interconnected it's insane and the good news is it's like a waterfall effect so when you start doing a few of these things you're going to feel that waterfall effect and it's just going to give you so much more energy and you're going to be a much happier person okay lastly when it comes to your mood
and your energy this one is probably going to surprise you I I haven't heard many experts talk about it but it's huge and that is having a reason to wake up like you can call it a purpose but like purpose sounds so Grand right and then people are like wait I don't know what my life's purpose is like you're supposed to you know have this grandiose Revelation where you're like oh my purpose is da da da like it's going to be so huge and it's what people are going to put on your Tombstone it's what
people are going to talk about at your funeral no like stop thinking about purpose as being that big and just ask yourself like why do people like me why how can I help people like what makes me useful to others that's what purpose is it's like what can I wake up and be excited about and sometimes purpose is just found in ways that we can improve ourselves like just waking up and saying like I'm excited today because I'm going to stretch myself I'm going to do something new and I'm going to share with you something
that I'm doing right now that it it's making me wake up every single day in the best possible mood and I never thought that this would be the case I'll get you in just a second don't let me forget okay but first I want to tell you that there have been incredible studies in fact a meta analysis from 2023 found that just having a sense of like what you're supposed to be doing each day dramatically improves people's level of happiness and decreases levels of anxiety we know this to be true so often when people are
you know nearing retirement or they do retire you hear about people who are like I lost my drive I lost my will to live this is when people start drinking more it's when they become reclusive and staying in their homes and we often find that people who are elderly I don't even know how you define that but look when people stop having something to wake up that they are excited to do you lose your energy you lose your your love of life and you're like why am I even here but when you have purpose which
every single one of us do until the day that God says hey I need you up here like every single day of your life you have purpose no matter how small that might feel there's something that you're you're meant to be doing that day and it will improve your mood like when you wake up each day and you're like excited to do something it puts you in a good mood it's like having something to look forward to think about the last time when you're excited about going on a vacation or seeing some friends or buying
a new outfit or whatever it is when you have something to look forward to that puts you in a good mood and what does that do to your energy I used to use this trick all the time when I was teaching Fitness classes so I would teach like a an hourong super high-intensity hit workout that was just it was humanly impossible to have more energy after I finished that hour but I didn't have a choice because I would often have another class right after it another full hour workout in front of like you know 50
to 100 people so I had to have energy so I develop these little tricks that I would use and I would before I went to go teach my first class I would think okay so what is something I'm really looking forward to sometimes it would be a vacation sometimes it was you know I knew I was going to be going out to dinner that weekend and sometimes it was something as little as I knew I was going to you know go shopping later whatever it was I would just always think of something that was that
made me happy I remember like thinking about the fact that like oh I'm I'm getting married soon that was a long time ago or we're we're going to start to plan our family like little things and big things I would just think of something and I would hold on to it because it would it would put me in such a good mood and I would flip to that thought every single time I started to feel my energy Dr and then it would put me in a good mood and that good mood gives me gives you
high energy so have something each day that you're excited about for me currently I said I would share this with you it's also kind of like a bonus right so I've gone over the seven things that I've done but this is number I guess you would say this is the bonus this is the number eight and and I think some some of you are not going to want to hear this and I I get that but one thing I'm really excited about right now that every day right now I've been waking up and just in
such a good mood over this is the fact that I've given up alcohol and I did an episode about that you can check it out I'll link to it below I was one of those people that like when other people would say that I was like like why why would you do that alcohol makes me happy alcohol makes me you know I I and I don't have a problem I like to enjoy a glass of wine I I really like it and I don't have a problem like all those things and so whenever I would
hear anyone else talk about it I was like ew first of all I'm never going to go out to dinner with them Bo boring I don't have anything in common with them I don't want to hear anything they have to say they probably had a problem or they're a stick in the mud or you know all the things but now looking back and I realize that was and so like if that's you right now it I hate to say this but let me just say it um that is indicative that there's a dependence there and
I'm not saying like a physical dependence it might be a mental dependence for me it was definitely a mental dependence I just thought like that was my treat like that's what I get to look forward to when I go out to dinner but really was the ritual anyways I'm not going to go into all of that because I don't want that to be my whole personality and I remember how annoyed I was to hear other people talking about that you know and I was like no I'm happy with my cocktail so I'm I'm not going
to annoy you I'm just going to just if that's something you're at all interested in drop a comment below this episode and um just let me know what questions you have like anything anyways I would be a hypocrite if I didn't tell you and it's only been like I don't know 3 weeks so I'm certainly not an expert but I am shocked how much more energy I have I'm shocked and it wasn't like I was like a heavy drinker but you know we were doing it too often and I'm I'm I'm shocked at how much
more energy I have I'm shocked and it shouldn't shock me because here's what I've learned alcohol disrupts your body's ability to absorb nutrients alcohol disrupts your sleep it impacts your brain chemistry it whether we realize it or not the next day we have a low level of anxiety maybe it's just anxiety thinking to yourself like why did I do that again or why did I drink and it increases our dehydration so when you're dehydrated you've got low energy when you got low energy you're in a bad mood it causes inflammation it majorly interferes with our
metabolism because when you are drinking something your body has to focus all of its energies on removing the toxins from your body so of course that's going to impact your energy the next day of course it is this I did not know like I know you're going to say like wait you're a health expert how did you not know all this stuff because I didn't want to hear it CU I was like la la la la la I'm not perfect I didn't want to hear it but once I heard it I couldn't un hear it
and realizing what it does to leaky gut and your your gut brain access like I'm blown away at how many things I was ignorantly blissfully staying ignorant because I didn't want to hear these things because it was like I I really don't want to give it up and alcohol as you probably know can trigger anxious thoughts now I wouldn't say that were was true for me I I didn't have all the negative downsides that a lot of people have that gets them to give up alcohol anyways I don't want to intimidate you with any of
that talk I just want you to know that if you have low energy don't discount that one because remember how I said all these are interrelated wow that last one that bonus one alcohol it impacts every single one of the previous seven that I just gave to you so consider it something to consider and if you want to know more about it um you know and kind of like a no judgment kind because maybe it's just about cutting back for you right some people that's all they need to do is just cut back or just
learn how to control it better and if that's you I want to give you like a a no judgment kind of easy way to look at some of those possibilities so check out the episode that I did most recently about alcohol and how much is too much and how much can we consume and still be healthy all those things those are the seven things eight now that I do to keep my energy High which keeps my mood high and it's helping me to live powerfully I realized you know I'm not a perfect person I'm not
trying to be perfect but if I can just do like little tweaks and get excited about those tweaks I can just keep getting better at any age you can be 75 and watching this or maybe you're you know 65 or 55 or 35 or 25 just set a goal for yourself to just get a little bit healthier doing that is going to improve your energy and your mood just just becoming a better person put you in a better mood and it's better for the planet it's better for everybody around you too hey I love you
I mean it and I'll talk to you soon okay lip gloss my lip Li gloss is popping I forget how that song [Music] goes my lip gloss is popping I don't remember any other lyrics oh yeah that's right what you know about me what what you know about me they say my lip gloss is popping my lip gloss is cool my lip gloss oh my gosh it's so funny I forgot this song [Music] n [Music]
