Intro
Back to the days where I was a student, I didn't know much about the myriad that natured offered and I thought coffee was the only way to work longer and stay concentrated.
Now that it's too late I learned a bit more about interesting alternative and also why it'd be good to circle around those alternative instead of heavily relying on a single method.
Quick facts about coffee and why you outh to alternate with something else
Coffee sends a message to the cells of your body : expel. Many body mechanisms now acts to release instead of absorbing.
The body releases energy, releases nutrient, increases speed.
This cannot be substained continuously day after day because the body need to replenish during other cycles.
It normally goes through several cycles during the day, the week and the month. These cycles can be considered as expelling or absorbing in nature.
When you drink coffee you prevent your system to go into some of these healthy and restoring cycles. The body however can adapt and develop a sort of resistance to coffee which is good
in the sense that one can then take coffee on a regular basis without too much risks for his health.
Alternative Chocolate in the morning is good. It gives you a strong boost. I personnaly like 50% and more cacao content.
Note that chocolate ask a lot from the liver - more than coffee. So that's why I say in the morning, where the liver
is still available to do some work. During the afternoon, the liver is less effective and is fully loaded taking care of digesting two meals: the breakfast and the mid-day lunch. A side-note: if you get headaches around 2 to 4pm, they are most likely liver/digestion related.
In the afternoon, when you sense a downfall, reach for your Yerba Matte infusion, or even better do not drink any stimulant and do a quick 30-min nap. Your body will release good chemicals into your system and you will be able to work out longer after.
After your intense work, at the end of the day - or night - replenish with revitalizing drinks such as Rooibos infusion,
Rasberry (leaf) infusions and many more to choose from. These are not stimulating, just help recovering.
I'm keeping the rocket one for the end : Matcha powder. These are young tea leaves that were grown in the shade
to increase its greeny chlorophyll content. You will pay a lot for this, but it is totally worth it. The only thing that matches the
clearness of mind this drink gives is pharmaceutical-grade stuff and highly-illicit drugs. Even though it is the same plant as tea,
the effect is different.
Help from food
Ahh!! The fun part: food. Brain needs sugar to relay information, and we can give it with dried fruits: figs, dates, grapes and papaya.
On the long-term, if you don't want to be in total nervous breakdown, consume good fat: flax seeds, organic meat, coconut oil, omega3 oil: either from non-fish sources OR from fish source and marked as tested free of heavy metal, example: o3mega from Genuine Health (in Canada).
Also avoid trans-fat at all cost. Avoid all non-organic animal fat - that includes non-organic butter. Absolutely buy organic butter
and if you can afford, organic cheese. Did you know that fat cells are the waste-dumpland of your body?
High levels of pesticide residues and toxic chemicals are found in fat cells. This does not only affect the ability of your body build healty
cell walls but also causes birth defects if you get pregnant. Healty cell-walls means that you are healthy and that your brains keeps working
correctly on the long term. Also check out the super energy-giving cookie recipe at the end of the page.
Last but not least : protein quality. How does it affects your thinking process you may ask? Very directly since the different kind of amino acids
that the body uses as building blocks for cellular function comes exclusively from the proteins you eat. The body knows the optimal ratio of
amino acids needed to build certain components and has the intelligence to change its recipe according to the kind and quantity of amino acid
available. However given enought of each, it builds with in the right proportions each components.
So for proteins, what you can do is twofold:
(i) Avoid degrading the proteins you eat (more important that you'd think!).
(ii) Make sure you eat with variety to have all 22 basic animo acids..
To avoid degrading proteins: Cook below 120 celcius1 and avoid microwave at all cost
- especially when food is in contact with plastic - also especially for meat product or anything that contains proteins.
Microwave + protein = frankeisntein proteins (bad); Microwave + plastic = eating plastic and the chemicals binded in
plastic (also bad). To eat with variety: Eat meat at least once a week (more than twice a week might not be necessary
for most persons, but everybody has different digestive enzime making each person's optimal diet unique). Balanced vegetarien
diet would be outside of the scope of my topic, but you might consider taking creatine
supplements if you are vegetarien to help you stay concentrated longer!
And Remember!
Feeling sleepy and being tired/exhausted are two different things! I remember that it took me 4 days without sleep to be completely exhausted, and that was long after the feeling of sleepiness had pass, just like hunger passes after a while. On the other spectrum, I could sleep 8 hours everynight and still be exhausted during the day.
But most important is to treat your body with love - don't overdo it.
Energy-giving cookies (excerpt from the book "Intuitive Cooking", that will be released in the futur)
- Grounded flax and sesame seeds
- Lots of dried raisins
- Barley flour (or another one) <= this is the main ingredient
