Do you find yourself falling asleep at work and requiring multiple cups of coffee or sugary drinks to keep yourself functioning until the end of the day?
Well, you’re not alone.
However, consuming large quantities of caffeine (more than four cups of coffee) a day may cause side effects like insomnia, anxiety and stomach issues.
And even if you just like one cup of coffee to start your day, the energy-boosting effects usually wear off after only a couple of hours, often leaving you more tired than you were before.
So what’s the solution?
Minus the fact that sleep is one of the best remedies, I’m not so sure that your boss will appreciate you catching your 40 winks during work hours.
Fortunately, there are some great ways to keep yourself awake and productive from start to finish.
Eat nutritious food
This may sound obvious, but it’s not always easy to identify which foods are best when there are so many health magazines contradicting each other.
Ideally, you should look to snack on foods packed with iron and good fats as they’ll give you a natural buzz.
One (reliable) study found that having a high-fibre breakfast can provide your body with a great boost in alertness.
For best results, you should mix these kinds of foods with ones containing high protein.
For instance, avocado, wholegrain toast and poached eggs contain good fats, fibre and protein.
Or if you’re in a rush, low-fat peanut butter on toast is a solid alternative.
Throughout the day, ditch the chocolate bars and munch on celery and carrot sticks with hummus.
And for dinner, try adding more spinach, beans and lentils into your dishes to give yourself a much-needed iron boost.
Drink water
Ditching coffee for water is one of the smartest things you can do.
Being dehydrated can cause fatigue, confusion, heart palpitations and fainting.
This is largely down to the fact that the human body is made up of 60% water.
Water is key to helping your body flush out waste and aid the bloodstream in transferring nutrients like oxygen and carbohydrates to various body parts.
So if you ever find yourself having cloudy thoughts, the chances are that your body is dehydrated and your brain isn’t receiving the necessary oxygen and carbohydrates it needs.
In fact, one study revealed that a loss of just 1-2% of the water in your body can cause fatigue and confusion.
Chew gum
Providing you’ve eaten, chewing gum can keep your mouth busy, which in turn, keeps your brain doing the same as well.
Constantly chewing will keep the circulation circulating and will activate certain regions of the brain.
Just make sure that you don’t chew too loudly or do it during a meeting, as this may annoy other colleagues.
Get jiggy with it
Find yourself a dance partner and shake around the office.
If you spend most of your day in a static position, just moving and dancing around can get the endorphins flowing around your body again.
Mundane activities like looking at a screen all day will send your brain into auto-pilot, so it’s important to keep yourself moving around.
Sniff rosemary
Probably one of the strangest ways to stay awake and active, but those who sniff rosemary or rosemary oil are said to feel more alert.
And if that doesn’t convince you, sniffing it has also been known to make you feel more relaxed too.
If you do decide to try this tip, I’d probably recommend doing it in private to avoid receiving some strange looks!
Prioritise the easy stuff
While this top tip may not keep you awake, it can help you manage your workload more effectively throughout the day.
If none of our remedies works for you, perhaps it’s time to tweak the way that you organise things throughout your day.
For example, if you work more efficiently in the morning, prioritise the big tasks which require the most brain power.
Then once the afternoon rolls around, you can focus on the admin tasks like replying to emails or completing any general data entry.
The chances are, if you work regular 9-5 hours, your body will probably start to shut down after lunch as you may have eaten too much or you struggle to return to work mode.
Bear this in mind and you can manage your time a lot more effectively.
It will definitely please your manager, who will appreciate the higher productivity levels.
Keep your workplace bright and cheerful
While muted colours may look modern and stylish, they’ll probably make you fall asleep.
Instead, try injecting some yellow, light blue and green shades onto your walls and open the blinds.
This way, your eyes and brain will always be challenged and won’t get bored of looking at the same monotonous dim lighting and colours.
Are you still with me?
If you’ve made it through this blog, well done!
Ultimately, nobody is the same, so you should test the water and see what works best for you.
And if all else fails, maybe consider becoming a freelancer – where you can take a nap whenever you please!
