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. Some functions now acts to release instead of absorb. It releases energy, release nutrient, increases speed.
This cannot be substained continuously day after day because the body would normally go through serveral 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. Note that 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.
After your intense work, at the end of the day - or night - replenish with revitalizing drinks such as Roobios infusion, Rasberry (leaf) infusions and many more to choose from.
Help from food
Ahh!! The fun part: food. Brain needs sugar to relay information, and we can give it : dried fruits: figs, dates, grapes, dried 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. If you cannot afford non-organic butter, dont eat butter. 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. 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 : proteins quality; how does this affects your thinking process? Very directly as the different kind of amino acids that the body uses as building blocks for cellular function comes 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 it's recipe according to the kind and quantity of amino acid available.
So for proteins, what can you do is twofold:
(i) Avoid degrading the proteins you eat (more important that you'd think!).
(ii) Make sure you eat with variety.
To avoid degrading proteins: Cook below 120 celcius1; 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). If you are vegetarien, it's harder but possible. Talking about "variety" for vegetarien would
be outside 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 mid 2013)
- Grounded flax and sesame seeds
- Lots of dried raisins
- Barley flour (or another one) <= this is the main ingredient
