Listen to your body clock to feel more energetic

How to feel more energetic

Sit by a window at breakfast

Morning exposure to bright light helps synchronise your body clock to the world around you. This gets you ready for the day and helps you sleep at night.

Take a nap in the early afternoon

That familiar post-lunch fuzzy feeling doesn’t necessarily mean that you ate too much. You hit a biological soft spot in your alertness cycle in the early afternoon, so it’s a good time to sneak in a nap.

You might feel even more refreshed if you drink a cup of tea or coffee before you lie down, suggests Dr Jamie Zeitzer, a circadian biologist at Stanford University. That sounds counterintuitive, but the energising effects of caffeine take about 45 minutes to kick in. (If you’re prone to insomnia, don’t nap after 5pm.)

Arrive in a new time zone early in the morning

That’s if you’re travelling east: having the morning light on your face as you leave the airport can help reset your clock to the new time, suggests Dr Zeitzer. If you’re travelling west, try to arrive in the evening.

Dr Zeitzer’s strategy for avoiding jet lag: for several days before you travel from west to east, seek strong light first thing in the morning to nudge your body clock forward. If you’re heading in the opposite direction, expose yourself to bright light in the evening for a few days before your trip to delay your internal sense that it’s bedtime.