Give Yourself a Boost
February 27, 2022 by MarkHaroldsen
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What do you do when you don’t seem to have the energy to do the things you need to do, much less the things you want to do?
Whether it’s for work or play, family or friends, there are times when we all could use a little more energy, especially as we age. So, here is a list of 12 proven ways to boost your energy:
1. Set exciting goals that will put your BIG dreams into action. Be sure to add a timeframe and an exciting game plan to those goals.
2. A daily “to do†list, looked over in the morning, adds extra energy to your day because you can jump from task to task, knowing what you need to do.
3. Eat more nutritious whole foods. Junk food that is high in sugar and fats can leave you feeling sluggish.
4. Drink green tea (rather than fully caffeinated coffee) to overcome a mid-morning slump. It’s a gentler energy boost, plus it has all those great antioxidants.
5. Get plenty of exposure to natural light.
6. Ease your stress by simplifying your life, putting your energy and focus into your life’s priorities. Delegate the rest as much as possible.
7. Heal yourself by being grateful and loving and letting go of anger.
8. Think positive thoughts to stimulate those good neurotransmitters called endorphins.
9. Play and exercise hard to release more endorphins and dopamine.
10. Get plenty of sleep.
11. A few minutes of yoga stretching is great for a morning or midday boost.
12. Listen to your favorite music. It might be music with a heart pounding beat or inspirational symphonic music. It doesn’t matter as long as it lifts your energy and mood.
Did you find any new ideas on that list? Try them out this week! Even if they’re all familiar, commit to trying one or two that you don’t do already and see how well it helps your energy.
Boosting Your Daily Energy
July 5, 2020 by MarkHaroldsen
Filed under blog
In these times of staying at home and there being a lack of social life we need ways to boost our energy. So, here’s 12 proven ways to boost your energy that have worked for me. Hope they help you a bit too!
- Set exciting goals that will put your big dreams into action and be sure to add a timeframe and an exciting game plan to those goals.
- A daily “to do†list, looked at or thought about in the morning adds extra energy to your day.
- Eat more nutritious foods.
- Drink green tea to overcome a mid-morning slump.
- Get plenty of exposure to natural light.
- Ease your stress by simplifying your life and mainly, or exclusively, pursue your life’s priority items. Delegate the rest.
- Heal yourself by being grateful and loving and letting go of all anger.
- Think positive thoughts to stimulate those good neurotransmitters called endorphins.
- Play and exercise hard to release more endorphins and dopamine.
- Get more sleep.
- A few minutes of yoga stretching will give you a morning boost, along with your favorite cup of java or tea.
- Listening to your favorite music. For some people it may be music with a heart pounding beat while for others it may be inspirational symphonic music.
Whether it’s for work or play, family or friends, we all need more energy, especially as we age. So, try a few of these above and add to the list with your own energy boosting actions.
Pushing Out the Negative
June 28, 2020 by MarkHaroldsen
Filed under blog
This darn pandemic is certainly creating a lot of problems, challenges, and tons of stress. For me, it’s not just the boredom, although I do miss my social life, but rather it’s the stress that has been getting to me. It has done some strange things to my sleep.
Of course, some of it is due to my age, as most of us have more trouble sleeping as we get older. On some nights, I am only able to sleep for 2 or 3 hours. Ugh! But other nights are normal. So, a couple days ago I spotted a book by Sasha Stephens titled The Effortless Sleep Method. The book is beginning to be of great help, mostly because of my change in thinking.
One section of the book jumped out at me – “The Two Negative Principles of the Mind”. Stephens said, “It is strange but true that most human beings tend to focus chronically on what they do not want. It can be difficult to spot this tendency in yourself, especially if you do not consider yourself to be a particularly negative person. But just try observing yourself for a few days. See how much of your thinking time is spent focused on what is wrong with your life. Then notice how little time you spend even noticing the good things, let alone celebrating them.” Sasha goes on to say, “If, for example, they had one bad night’s sleep along with three or four good ones, most insomniacs would focus on the one bad night. Not only does this give an inaccurate and exaggerated picture of the problem, it can actually worsen it.â€
As I write this, I have just realized that by my talking to my wife about my terrible sleep and now writing about it, what I am doing could make my sleep problems worse because I am emphasizing the negative. So, I guess I will take that risk and maybe what I am writing can help others, not just with sleep problems but addressing other challenges and changing your thinking so you spend more time on the positive stuff.
I find that to spend more time on the positive things of my life and to ignore the negative, it helps to write down specific goals that I want to reach. It makes is much easier to keep my brain thinking on the positive side. Let me give you a list of questions that I have asked myself over the years. They help me come up with specifics which helps me be more positive.
- Do I want to substantially raise my level of contentment and fulfillment?
- Do I want to become a better person?
- Do I want to be known as a person of great accomplishment?
- Do I want to be in great physical and mental shape with ideal health my entire life?
- Do I want to live a very long, active life?
- Do I want to make a fortune – a million dollars, $10 million, or even 100 million dollars? (Just think of the great good you could do with that money.)
- Do I want the greater choices and possibilities in my life that making my own fortune would give me?
- Do I want to leave the world a better place than I found it?
- Do I want to be a big help to others as I help myself?
- Do I want to travel and experience the entire world and its cultures? (I will continue this one when the pandemic has let up–I’ve already visited 92 different countries!)
May I strongly suggest that you make up your own list. I think if you do you will be pleased with how it helps your life.
17 Proven Ways to Boost Your Energy Levels
December 1, 2019 by MarkHaroldsen
Filed under blog
If you have high energy levels, life is so much more enjoyable and, of course, you can get a ton of stuff done. I’m not just talking about work stuff either. With high energy levels there’s tons of fun things and experiences that you can enjoy. As we age, our energy levels begin to drop, but there are many ways that you can lift or boost your energy and that makes life so much more fun and interesting.
Whether it’s for work or play, family or friends, whether you’re young or old, we could all use a little bit more energy. So here is a list of proven ways to boost your energy levels.
- Set big and exciting goals to put your BIG dreams into action. Be sure to make a list of those big dreams and to put a time frame on those goals.
- Take a good look at your list of goals, either the night before or the morning of, so you wake ready and focused which will give you with lots of energy that day.
- Eat more nutritious foods — lots of fruits and vegetables.
- Drink green tea to help overcome that mid-morning slump.
- Get plenty of exposure to natural light.
- Ease your stress by simplifying your life and mainly, or exclusively, pursue your life’s priority items.
- Heal yourself by being more grateful as well as loving more and letting go of all anger.
- Thinking good thoughts and increasing your positive self-talk can stimulate good neurotransmitters called endorphins.
- Play and exercise daily as that releases more endorphins and dopamine, which will boost your mental and physical energy.
- Keep moving, even if it’s just walking. My fit bit was a fantastic gift. It got me walking at least 5.000 steps a day at first then I began getting 10,000 steps a day and now I consistently get 20,000 steps in a day. That is about 10 miles, but I break up those steps during the day and it doesn’t seem like 10 miles. it always surprises me that doing all that walking gives me even more energy.) My all-time best steps in one day was 40,111. Not bad for 75-year-old dude!
- Get lots of sleep, but not too much, and take a nap when needed.
- Take time for a few minutes of yoga stretching and a bit of meditation for a morning boost.
- Listen to your favorite music. For some people it may be music with a heart pounding beat. To others it may be inspirational symphonic music.
- Socialize with energetic friends and family.
- Go visit new and different places such as new states, cities, or countries, but it also works to just drive or walk through a different neighborhood.
- Drink lots of water. Dehydration drains energy.
- Talk to yourself using positive affirmations. Some of my favorites are:
- I am strong and worthy.
- I’m upbeat and positive
- I have lots of stamina and energy. (I use that one a lot before and during my tennis matches.)
Okay, and here is one last one that may seem strange, but it works. Take huge breaths, exhaling slowly and do a it many times. I do it 100 times without stopping, which takes only about 10 minutes and the reward is a very calm and energy filled mind and body. It also works to help you go to sleep at night which helps with item number 11.
This and all the above will give you lots of energy throughout your day!
Adding Years to Your Life
March 22, 2019 by MarkHaroldsen
Filed under blog
I have been writing this weekly blog now for many years and, as those of you who have followed my blog know, the main theme is me being a coach and a leader directing people to make their own fortune. And, of course, the key or formula to making millions is pretty straight forward, as you no doubt have seen in my writing and, hopefully, have implemented and gained big profits from over the years.
But you may have noticed that I wander off the financial theme from time to time. The issue of “great health” has filled many of my blogs. Maybe it’s just me, but the older I get and the more money I make, the more I can’t help but take a hard look at the health issues. They are so very critically important to all of us.
I mean, think about it … if you make a billion dollars, does that money keep you from kicking the bucket or having terrible health? Oh sure, you can go to the best doctors in the world with all your money but there is a lot more to good health than going to the doctor. So, yes, money is important but without good health money doesn’t mean near as much as when you have millions AND great health.
In my daily planner I have two pages with two lists of good advice and healthy habits that are frequent reminders to me to take the best roads to great health and longevity. The first list, which I put together back in 2002, has the title “20 Ways to Add 20 Years to Your Lifeâ€. Now, I want to share that list with you, hoping that it becomes a good reminder to take great care of your health:
20 Ways to Add 20 Years to Your Life
- Eat salmon often, not beef, and take one gram of fish oil daily
- Eat unrefined whole wheat bread.
- Be wise don’t supersize. Replace protein with lots of fresh fruits, vegetables, and small salads.
- Exercise 3 to 5 days a week, even if it’s just taking long walks, but always remember that it’s food that’s the big factor for weight control vs exercise.
- Scientific studies have proven that mice that are fed a lot fewer calories than the control mice lived much, much longer and had healthier lives. It can and does have a similar effect on humans.
- Be happy. Smile a lot to other people and even to yourself in the mirror. That smile helps release the good brain chemicals of dopamine and serotonin.
- Get a good night sleep. Go to bed and get up at consistent times.
- Learn to love cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli, and other vegetables.
- Use olive oil instead of butter.
- Laugh, dammit. Laughter releases those good brain chemicals which helps you relax and even boosts your immunity.
Okay, I know I said that the title of the list that I have in my planner and I look at several times a week was “20 Ways to Add 20 Years to Your Life ” and I’ve only listed 10. Well, the other 10 will be covered in my next post, plus I’ve got another note on a few signs and habits to give you longevity.
Getting Back Those Sweet Dreams with P.A.s
April 18, 2014 by MarkHaroldsen
Filed under blog
So how well do you sleep at night these days? Remember when you were a teenager—no problem sleeping then! You’d usually crash out as soon as your head hit the pillow. There was no waking  up in the middle of the night for unknown reasons, no worries keeping your brain from turning off, no waking up for a trip to the bathroom which also woke your worried mind. There was just deep wonderful uninterrupted sleep!  Boy, those were the days!
99% of my readers are definitely not teenagers so it’s likely that, like me, you have experienced many nights of restless sleep—lots of tossing and  turning and waking up worrying about some problem or unknown outcome. The good news is that you are not alone and there are things you can do to help reduce these disruptive moments.
When I wake up in the middle of the night my mind can so quickly go into a highly negative mode and I just lay there being a big time worry wart. I have discovered that most of us humans, especially  as we age, have brains that seem to automatically lower our natural  mental defenses and logical mature thinking to a very weak state when we  are tired, hence the worried state of mind. To get  back to sleep one can try some of the old methods such as counting sheep but a much better method is to first work on changing that worried mental state. Once the worry is reduced, sleep will come much more readily. But how do you do that?
It’s actually quite simple. Turn the chatter filled with fear filled questions and negative thoughts into inner talk that is filled with positive, supportive statements. Use your P.A.s! PA’s (positive affirmations) can be repeated in your mind the same way those worries and doubts are being echoed over and over. Keeping your positive thoughts generalized and not at all focused on the situation that is worrying you will keep you from taking a “but what if?†detour. So you put aside thoughts of the things that are worrying you and say something like, “I feel relaxed and very, very sleepy,” over and over in your mind. Don’t let anything else creep back in. Repeat the PA and imagine how it feels to be that relaxed and sleep and pretty soon you will actually feel that way, your mind will agree that this is true and you’ll quickly be back in sleep mode. Try it. It’s amazingly simple and effective!
There is more you can put into your arsenal to insure a good night’s sleep and a relaxed well-rested state of mind. We will go into another very effective method next week but in the meantime, sweet dreams!