How do I get more energy? 7 ways to build energy that lasts

You wake up tired. Around three in the afternoon your energy drops away. You drag yourself through the working day, squeeze in a training session if you manage at all, and by the evening you are too tired to do anything else.

Maybe you feel tired and flat more and more often. Or you feel you no longer have energy for the things you normally enjoy.

So you start looking for ways to get more energy.

Maybe you ask yourself: how can I get more energy? More coffee. Another supplement. Training after all, or an evening on the couch instead.

But what if the problem is not that you make too little energy, but that your body struggles to spread it, use it and recover it?

Energy that lasts is not only about how fit you are. It is also about how well you can switch between effort and recovery, how you breathe, how much mental space you have and which choices you make every day.

So the question is not only: how do I get more energy?

The more interesting question is:

How do I learn to use my energy better?
‍

1. Move your body

More energy through exercise

When you have little energy, moving is probably the last thing you feel like doing.

Still, moving regularly is one of the foundations of a body with energy.

Not because every session has to give you energy straight away, but because your body adapts to the load you give it.

Strength training can make you stronger. Conditioning can improve your endurance. Sport-specific training can help you move more efficiently.

But training well does not simply mean doing more.

It means giving the right stimulus and then giving your body the room to adapt.

That is why in personal training I do not only look at how much weight you can lift or how many repetitions you can do. I look at how you move, how your body responds to load and what you need to move forward.

It is a myth that you have to be completely empty after every session to make progress.

In fact: sometimes doing less is exactly what you need in order to do more.

If you are wondering how to get more energy, training regularly and at the right dose can be an important part of it. Not to drain yourself further, but to make your body stronger and better able to handle load.

2. Use your breathing to switch gears

Your breathing is moving all the time.

During effort your breathing changes. When the intensity goes up, your breathing rate goes up. When you recover, your breathing changes again.

That sounds logical.

Still, many people expect their breathing to be the same at all times.

Calm. Deep. Through the nose. Always.

That is not how the body works.

Your breathing during a sprint is not meant to be the same as when you are sitting on the couch. And your breathing just before an important presentation does not have to be the same as when you go to sleep.

Your breathing has to be able to adapt to the situation.

That is also why breathwork coaching is not about learning one perfect breathing technique.

We look at your breathing pattern at rest and during effort. At breathing rate and breathing volume, but also at the physical conditions for breathing well, such as your posture, your rib cage and your diaphragm.

From there you learn to match your breathing to what you need at that moment.

• Activating when you have to perform.
• Staying efficient when the load goes up.
• Shifting back down when your body is allowed to recover.

So the goal is not to breathe calmly all the time.

The goal is to be able to breathe flexibly.

If you want to know how to get more energy, it is worth looking beyond sleep, food and training. The way your body deals with effort, tension and recovery, and the part your breathing plays in that, matters too.

3. Understand the difference between effort and recovery

More energy does not always mean pushing harder.

This is probably one of the biggest misunderstandings about energy.

When people feel low on energy, they often try to go harder.

Another coffee.

Another session.

A bit more work.

One more task.

But your body does not only need to be able to activate.

It also needs to be able to recover.

When you keep asking a lot of yourself without enough recovery, it can get harder and harder to actually come to rest.

You may be physically tired, yet notice that your head is still switched on.

You sit on the couch, but you are already busy with tomorrow.

You go to bed, but your body still feels like it has something to do.

Sometimes you notice you cannot relax, even when you finally have the time for it.

Then the answer is not automatically yet another way to activate yourself.

Sometimes you have to learn to shift back down.

That may sound contradictory when you are looking for ways to get more energy, but more energy does not mean being active all the time.

It is exactly the ability to switch between effort and recovery that lets you use your energy better.

‍

4. Make recovery part of your training

Recovery is often seen as something you do once your training is over.

But recovery is part of training.

A training stimulus gives your body a reason to adapt. That adaptation then happens in the period where your body can recover enough.

So sleep, food, rest and how you spread your training load are not side issues.

They help decide what you get out of your training.

A good training plan is therefore not only about the question:

When am I going to train?

But also:

When do I give my body the room to recover?

Training more is not automatically training better.

When you structurally build up more load than you can recover from, overtraining becomes a risk. The goal is not to drain yourself further and further, but to find the right balance between load and recovery.

The right balance between load and recovery is what makes your body stronger and better at recovering.

5. Getting more energy through nutrition

Nutrition obviously plays a part when you want to know how to get more energy.

Your body needs energy and nutrients to move, train and recover. But here too: more is not automatically better.

The question is not only what you eat, but also whether your eating pattern fits what your body asks of you every day.

If you structurally have little energy, it is worth looking at the whole picture: your training, sleep, recovery, stress and nutrition.

6. Look at the mental energy you use every day

You can have a good training plan, eat well and sleep enough, and still feel like you are constantly behind.

Energy is not only physical. Thoughts may not cost calories the way a training session does, but constant worrying, checking, planning and pushing yourself can absolutely affect how you experience a day.

This can show up as mental fatigue. Your body may not be completely spent, but your head feels full.

Maybe you are mainly mentally tired.

Maybe you recognise this:

You actually have time to relax, but you feel guilty for doing nothing.

You are tired, but you feel you still have to train.

You have a free evening, but in your head you are already busy with everything tomorrow will ask.

Or you keep raising the bar for yourself, because you think you are only allowed to be satisfied when everything goes well.

This is where coaching comes in.

In ACT, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, we do not look at how to switch off every negative thought.

You do not have to.

Instead, you learn to let thoughts and feelings decide less about what you do.

Sometimes taking care of yourself means you go and train.

And sometimes it means you do not.

The difference is in choosing consciously instead of reacting automatically.

So when you are looking for how to get more energy, it is also worth looking at how much energy you spend every day on things that do not actually take you further.

7. Train your ability to switch

So when I look at energy, I do not see one knob you have to turn up.

I see a system that has to be able to switch.

From rest to action.

From tension to focus.

From effort to recovery.

From thinking to feeling.

From performing to letting go.

That is also why I do not see personal training, breathwork coaching and ACT coaching as three separate worlds.

Your body, your breathing and your behaviour influence each other all the time.

A strong base starts with learning to listen to what your body needs.

From there you can train with purpose.

Learn to use your breathing when the situation asks for it.

And look into which thoughts and patterns make you cross your own limits.

Getting more energy is therefore about learning to regulate your whole system better, rather than ticking off a list of energy tips.

Look at your behaviour and your patterns as well.

Which choices give you energy, and which ones structurally cost you more than they bring?

And learn to feel when to push and when to let go.

Because energy that lasts does not mean feeling energetic every single day.

It means your body and your head get better and better at handling what life asks of you.

Sometimes that asks for strength.

Sometimes for focus.

Sometimes for rest.

And sometimes for doing nothing at all.

Energy is not always something you have to find.

It is something you learn to build, use and recover.