Supplements that boost your energy....

Today's Post:  Wednesday, 5-27-2015

Everything is easier and your quality of life is better if you are alert, awake, and feel as if you have reserves of even more energy.

And when you do work really hard and run your energy down, being able to recover fast and easily -- also really, really helps.

Some things that create that result take extra daily effort while others need none -- but require a good bit of time or even money to start up.

Supplements that create this effect need very little extra effort to do each day.  And you can start doing them right away.

And, some of them create very powerful effects.  Best of all, nearly all of them have other health benefits.

1.  Life often requires you to switch quickly from what you are doing to deal with an urgent need or situation and then to switch back again to what you were doing and still do it well. 

No one does it perfectly which is why making big blocks of almost always NOT interrupted time to work with challenging must do projects and the projects that will achieve your most important goals helps to get them done.

But much of the rest of the time and sometimes over and over again all day, you have to do this and it really helps to be good at it!

*Are there supplements for that?

Yes!  Recent research found that a high intake of omega 3 oils boosts that ability AND helps grow and keep the part of your brain that does it!

Jarrow DHA and Nordic Naturals Omega 3 in combination give you exactly that. 

(It does help to also eat wild caught fish like sardines and herring and wild caught salmon two or three times a week also.  And, getting vigorous exercise or at least a brisk walk most days of every week more than doubles the effect because it helps the omega 3 oils to cause your body to release BDNF which grows new nerves and brain cells.)

Lastly, and separate from the supplements, if you organize most of what you do into steps, I’ve found that when you are interrupted, you can sometimes handle the interruption and what you were doing best by thinking through how to redo the order of the steps after you finish dealing with the interruption.

I just did this today before we left for work in fact.  My wife blocked me from several steps in getting ready.  But there were many she did not block.  By simply doing these out of their normal order, we left on time despite the disruption to my normal order of steps.

2.  This kind of  redoing your actions under time pressure over and over all day can be stressful even when you handle it well. 

*Is there a supplement that both calms you down enough you feel the stress relieving effect but at the same time increases your intelligence and alertness so you can be effective at the same time?

Surprisingly, I found out recently, that answer is yes too!

Paradise herbs sells it, Lemon Balm is the herb. 

I’ve also read that taking two capsules a day helps keep your telomeres long and slows aging.

Possibly that’s from lemon balm’s calming and stress relief effect.

There are few supplements you can take before starting work that help you perform at your best that also help you rest and recover when you go home so you’ll have energy the next day too. Taking lemon balm does just that!

So, I’m delighted to find this supplement!

3.  Your body in each and every cell has power centers called mitochondria. 

Al Sears explains that in a healthy 8 year old all of them are working and healthy.  As a result they have abundant energy and can move and dance and run easily.

But most people in their nineties only have 3% of their mitochondria working and maybe not that well. As a result they move slowly if at all.  The run out of energy easily and often feel tired.  Doing things and solving problems feel like too much trouble.

What if you could have almost as many mitochondria as an 8 year old and all of your mitochondria were working well?

You’d have most or even all of the energy of a much younger person!

Might there be a supplement for that?

Indeed there are!

In fact, there are 3 three two of which are well worth taking!

At first people took a supplement, CoQ10, that replaced it in middle aged, over 25 years old, people who no longer made it in abundance.  It seems that it is essential to keep your mitochondria healthy. 

But Al Sears, MD, and others found that to keep your blood levels high you had to take quite a bit and take it something like every 3 or four hours.  For rich people with failing hearts, that could be worth it but was impractical otherwise.

*But your body converts and actually uses CoQ10 in a form called ubiquinol.  Then it was discovered that there was a way to make ubiquinol as a supplement that your body could use.

So, ubiquinol is well worth taking!  Dr Sears and others found that ubiquinol in more reasonable amounts, 100 mg of ubiquinol instead of 400 to 800 mg of CoQ10,  created both higher ubiquinol levels in the blood AND the high blood levels remained high for several hours not just a few as they do with taking CoQ10.

(Vigorous exercise enables people to stay more youthful in part because doing such exercise regularly also directly causes the mitochondria in your muscles to stay healthy and functioning! 

So doing vigorous, brief exercise most days of every week AND taking ubiquinol is the ideal for this way of having more energy!)

Jarrow makes a 100 mg capsule of ubiquinol that is in most health food stores. (I take one first thing each morning and one every day at lunch.  Younger people may do fine with 100 mg once a day first thing in the morning.

*What if some of your mitochondria get too sick to save or just die off? 

That is a direct cause of aging because it does happen. You no longer have the mitochondria. that died. And the ones too sick to save impair the healthy ones.

Might there be a supplement for that?

YES! Recently researchers at UC Davis discovered that PQQ, a natural compound in kiwifruit and other foods, when concentrated into a supplement does an incredible double because PQQ causes your body to remove the mitochondria that are too sick to save AND it causes your body to make new mitochondria.

Jarrow makes a 20 mg PQQ as well!

4.  Coffee works to wake you up; but once you have the first cup or two of the day and maybe one after lunch, if you drink more, it can cause you to feel anxious which drains your mental energy; it can keep you from sleeping well at night and then need extra the next day to make up for the missing sleep; and it can make you feel wired and give you a headache.

But what if you need more wake up than two or three or four cups of coffee a day and more does cause those problems for you, is there a supplement that can help?

I’ve found that drinking Earl Grey and Oolong and green tea helps do that because it has a gentler effect and a bit less caffeine. 

Is there a supplement too if you are too busy for making tea several times a day?

Yes! 

Now makes a green tea extract and taking two capsules is almost as good for alertness as a small cup of coffee; but in addition to the lower caffeine and gentler effect, it has something called theanine that both wakes you and makes you alert AND calms you at the same time! 

Best of all, there is some evidence green tea extract also helps prevent many cancers!

I currently do have one small cup of coffee each morning; but the first thing I do is to take two capsules of green tea extract.  That way by the time the coffee is ready, I’ve already got some caffeine into my blood stream and helping me wake up but not stressing me.

5.  Are there other supplements that give you energy that you can take?

Yes!

a) When your mitochondria turn glucose into energy they use a compound called ATP.  The enzymes that enable your mitochondria to do this all need magnesium and  most Americans are deficient in it!

If you eat 6 to 10 servings of vegetables each day including one to three servings of dark green leaved vegetables and or eat several kinds of raw nuts if you aren’t allergic you can get enough or close to enough magnesium for this. And, doing so had tons of other health benefits.

But what if you don’t do that or haven’t started doing so yet?

You can take two to four 200 mg capsules a day of magnesium citrate.  (Now makes that one.) 

Because I have acid reflux that prevents full digestion of minerals, I take four capsules a day.

People who have an abundant intake or magnesium are less likely to have migraines and those that have them have fewer of them.  Since migraines really mess up your energy and productivity that’s an important reason to consider taking magnesium also.

The three extra benefits of magnesium are that it calms you somewhat; AND it helps prevent or lower high blood pressure when you have enough magnesium; and it helps prevent constipation too.

However, if you take magnesium as a laxative AND take magnesium supplements too, you can overdose on magnesium.

Milk of Magnesia doesn’t have the aluminum that many other laxatives have that is likely to cause Alzheimer’s if taken often.  But it is one of the highest in magnesium.  So if you need a laxative and want to use it while taking magnesium supplements, take ONE dose with some laxative containing senna and then stop!

The better news is that if you eat fruit and nuts and vegetables and beans and lentils and exercise and take magnesium the chances of you ever having constipation approach zero!

b) Your energy is also based on healthy nerve function.  Besides omega 3 oils and exercise there are many ways to healthy nerve function.  But one of the most critical is B12 and the methyl form is what the body uses best. 

People over 60 sometimes don’t digest foods well enough and are then deficient in B12.  People, who take heartburn or acid reflux drugs are usually deficient in B12 because those drugs turn down the acid you need to digest B12 well.

And, Metformin for lowering high blood sugar is an unusually good drug. It works.  It seems to help people lose a bit of extra belly fat on top of the lower blood sugar readings.  And taking Metformin may even have anti-cancer effects according to some research.

Considering that virtually all other blood sugar lowering drugs have side effects like heart attacks and death from diabetic low sugar coma and permanent kidney damage, that makes taking Metformin plus health habit upgrades the right solution to type 2 diabetes and high blood sugar.  But taking Metformin also depletes.

Vegan and close to vegan eating styles that have people eating a LOT of vegetables, 6 to 10 servings a day and no wheat and hardly any other grains are incredibly healthful -- except for some supplements you should take to ensure you have enough, at least 15 mg a day of zinc is one for example.  AND, if you don’t take vitamin B12 or eat wild caught fish or organic liver or eggs from pasture fed chickens or cheese from cows fed only grass, you MUST take B12 or be deficient with seriously bad results.

So if you have low energy or feel more confused and foggy than you once did OR if you are in ANY of the categories just listed, your nerves and brain may well work better or well enough people and your doctor don’t think you have Alzheimer’s disease,

take at least 1,000 mcg of chewable or under the tongue lozenges of methyl B12.

Now makes a methyl B12 in 1,000 mcg sizes.  And for those who have been deficient and need to boost their level more quickly at first, they also make a 5,000 mcg size.

If you have been deficient for any of these reasons, and take the chewable or under tongue methyl B12, you may even feel the difference after just a few days.

*But here is the best news.  I remember reading long ago that President Kennedy needed extra energy to fight the disease he had, Addison’s disease, if I remember correctly; stand up under the work load he had as President of the United States; AND live the lifestyle he wanted to live.

He found shots of B12 worked to do that.  Suppose you had days where you wanted to have extra  energy or were running out of gas when you needed not to. 

Have you had days like that?

 I know I have.

Here’s the news:  I recently read a report by a researcher on B12 who took a chewable 1,000 or 5,000 mcg B12 to get extra energy on those kinds of days.

I’ve not yet tried it myself.  But it very well might work because by chewing the methyl B12 tablet and having it go into your saliva in your mouth, it goes directly into your blood. 

That’s why it works for people who don’t digest it well.

c) If you are male, having enough testosterone will improve your mood and energy.  And there are many supplements that do that including holy basil which also has the NON-steroid, natural anabolic ursolic acid.

We did a post on many others:

Three sets of ways to boost your testosterone….Thursday, 3-12-2015. 

See:  www.iehealth.blogspot.com under April 2015.

d) There are also many supplements that help ensure you have enough thyroid for adequate energy.  But if you feel unusually tired AND are gaining weight , it may pay you to get that tested if you aren’t taking a drug with those side effects.

That said, taking the amino acid tyrosine first thing in the morning helps avoid that and studies show it makes you more stress resistant and resilient too.  So it too is a good energy supplement. 

(It also helps to take a multi-vitamin plus mineral with 150 mcg of iodine each day AND never ingest any MSG.  Tyrosine helps because your body makes thyroid from it.)

Conclusion:  So, if you already sleep well and use the mental strategies for more energy but still need a bit more energy, these supplements will help!