The Science of Having a Good Day

How to make every day count a bit more in your favour

Have you ever glided through the day on a pair of sparkly, mint blue rollerskates—without tripping, once? I’m talking about the days when the aroma of your morning coffee lingers longer, the scent of the pastries smell extra-buttery at the cafe, and the smiles of your colleagues more adoringly bright. Ah yes… the perfect day. You stand there with a dumb smile plastered across your face, overlooking the kitchen countertop or out the window. Maybe you’re sitting on the park bench with your lunch half eaten. Everything around you is working in your favour today, your sensations are heightened, and even the beat of your step feels lighter. You think to yourself, “Nothing can possibly ruin my day.”

I’m sure we can all look back and pinpoint a day like this. The question is: How do we have more of them?

Is it just luck? Or are there practical steps we can take to create more enigmatic days like this?  

Your Energy Levels are a Starting Point

Fundamentally, our energy levels are directly correlated with our level of motivation, mood, emotional stability, and productivity. Contrary to popular belief, sleep isn’t the only cure for energy. Many people mistakingly assume that getting 8 hours of sleep a night is the prelude to an energetic and refreshed day. I’ve certainly believed that for a long time. So to my pleasant surprise, when I went on a two-day bender a few weeks ago, I could crush my day on 4 hours of sleep as opposed to 8. In fact, I sometimes feel groggier with more sleep than less. 

Why is this?

First of all, let me explain the night-out situation. People assume that having a great time out drinking and dancing is negative for your overall well-being. I’m about to tell you this is all a load of crap. Spending your night like this instead of sitting in front of a screen is good for you in the following ways:

1. Being socially active naturally raises your dopamine levels. Dancing in close quarters, hugging, and taking selfies— may raise your oxytocin levels temporarily and make you feel more relaxed and closer to your friends.
2. Dancing for 3-4 hours to your favourite tunes… I don’t know about you, but I can never achieve that at the gym. It gets your heart rate up, spikes your dopamine, and makes you feel purely ALIVE.
3. Tequila. If you’re going to drink, don’t reach for your glass of chardonnay- leave that for a girl’s night or a classy dinner. Stick with low-calorie hard liquor like tequila. A bartender recently told me you don’t get hangovers from tequila because you’re body either processes it as energy or excretes it as waste. I can definitely attest to both of these statements(I won’t go further into the latter).

The next day, I actually felt pretty eager to get out of bed. I’m happier, energetic, and rejuvenated from a spontaneous night of dancing.

Second, the quality of your sleep is more paramount than quantity. One major thing that can obstruct your quality of sleep is light and temperature. Because our bodies follow a natural circadian cycle, when it detects light, it automatically assumes its time to rise. Although you may not be aware of it, you might find yourself waking up more often—thus, disrupting your full sleep cycle. Our bodies are naturally supposed to be at a cooler temperature during our sleep. Think about it, to use heat means to use unnecessary energy during our idle hours. When your body is cooling, it signals to your body that it’s okay to relax and fall into a deep sleep.

We all know by this point the difference between poor quality sleep and good quality sleep. It can dramatically affect everything from our productivity to our confidence. Having quality rest and good energy levels is step 1 into having a great day.

Thankfully, besides sleep, there are other ways to get our energy levels up.

The first one I want to discuss is natural supplementation.

Maca: This cruciferous plant is known as the Peruvian Ginseng. It’s said it was used by ancient Aztec warriors to help them prepare for strenuous training and war. Maca contains a lot of natural antioxidants and vitamins, but most poignantly, it’s great for balancing hormones and stimulating higher energy levels. It’s great to take if you’re experiencing hormonal symptoms from menopause or menstruation, lack of libido, and low energy levels.

I personally love taking 1 pill with my morning water as soon as I wake up or 30 minutes before my jogs. There’s always been a soft spot in my heart for maca, and it tastes deliciously nutty and naturally sweet in its powdered form. I love mixing it in oatmeal with a touch of honey or throwing it into a smoothie.

Matcha: I might be slightly biased, but I adore matcha for several reasons. First of all, I love the flavour of high-quality matcha. Second, its health benefits are unparalleled. In terms of energy, matcha is great to take as a substitute for coffee. Especially on mornings when I haven’t had a great sleep, I love taking matcha instead of my usual joe in the morning to avoid jittery or nervousness. A big bonus is that matcha is great for digestion and moving things along (if you know what I mean). Having optimal digestion frees up your body’s energy in digesting and eliminating, to focus on other important tasks like thinking and socializing. Constipation, or being backed up affects my focus and mood. Coffee only energizes you temporarily, but it makes you more tired later on, and you have to keep drinking it to sustain its effects.

Magnesium: Magnesium helps your body muscles relax and reduces cramps. It’s a great idea to supplement with magnesium if you’re prone to getting body cramps (like me!), had intensive exercise regimens, or have trouble relaxing. 

Let’s Get Physical: Intensive Sports

I already mentioned dancing on bar tables, but what if you’re not that type of person? That is perfectly understandable. However, I recommend if you want to skyrocket energy levels, find one high-intensity activity you can stick by and do almost every day. When I say high intensity, I mean that type of physical activity that knocks the wind out of you.

Running

Swimming

Tennis

Badminton

Powerlifting

Football 

Soccer

Ice hockey

Boxing

Basically, anything that gets your heart beat up into the 100s and facilitates rapid oxygen /C02 exchange. This lowers your resting heart rate, increases the rate of detoxification, and gets the blood pumping to your brain faster. Plus, it tires you out— making the quality of your sleep better.

Strength training, yoga, and pilates are great— but they won’t do the job of high-intensity cardio for your energy levels. In fact, strength training can actually make you more tired throughout the day because your muscles require energy and more time to recover. I’ve definitely felt winded after a glute day. Any exercise that’s too relaxing, like yoga or golf, can also serve the opposite effect you want. 

Self-Induced Motivation

Motivation is fickle, but on the bright side, that means it’s easier to influence. We may wake up feeling not motivated, but there are ways we can increase our natural motivation. The ones I’m about to go over are the

• 5-minute rule
• Environment reset
• Planting rewards

The 5-minute rule is easy- it’s much easier to convince yourself to do something for 5 minutes instead of an hour. If you’re having a day where finishing that task feels less probable than running a marathon, convince yourself that you only have to do it for 5 minutes and you can stop after the 5 minutes is up. Get your mind into the action, and the rest will follow. This works 70-80% of the time. Our mind loves the reward, but not the execution. By getting ourselves closer to completion, the more heightened that sense of “reward is around the corner” feels. In this case, reward=accomplishment.

Environment reset: If you’re not feeling motivated sitting on your couch, the chances of you becoming motivated on your couch are slim. Do an environmental reset by removing yourself from an unmotivating environment to a new one. We’re ending somewhere, and beginning somewhere else.

Planting rewards: If none of the above work for you, try motivating yourself to at least get through something by planning a reward for yourself at the end of the task. Maybe it’s buying a beautiful bouquet of flowers for yourself after the house is cleaned. Or having your favorite meal, wine, and bath night after you get through this grudging workday. Providing yourself with a sense of “aha this is worth it”  can actually help you sustain longer in your long-term goals.

Triggering the Domino Effect

We’ve all experienced the domino effect in its positive and its negative. One event happens that causes you to feel a certain way, which then tumbles into a series of events that follow the same emotion. 

Event A: You wake up and realize you forgot to turn on the dishwater the night below and there are no clean cups for your coffee. 

Emotion A: You feel annoyed.

Event B: You rush out the door and forget something you need for work. You stomp up to your floor again to retrieve it.

Emotion B: You feel frustrated at yourself.

Event C: On your way to work, a random homeless man starts yelling profanities at you. 

Emotion C: You feel attacked.

Event D: You get to work, and you’re late for a meeting.

Emotion D: You feel flustered.

Event E: You find out something important hasn’t been done and it’s going to obstruct your part of the work.

Emotion E: Ugh can this day get any worse?

It seems a first glance in this scenario, that this day is just completely not going in the right direction. But upon close examination, 50% of the events can be controlled for. And that part you can control is how you react to an event. When we’re frustrated, our first instinct is to go fast. We want to rush to get to the next destination because whatever emotion we find ourselves marinating in is extremely uncomfortable and annoying. The truth is our need for speed actually drives up more opportunities to make careless mistakes which leads to this vicious self-induced domino effect. The earlier you can regroup and stabilize your emotions, the less derailing this “domino effect” gets. Take a moment to slow down.

For me, mornings can be mentally deranged. I know this might sound a bit dramatic, but I can’t seem to wake myself up at the crack of dawn naturally anymore. Waking up in the morning is met with resistance most days.

And though it’s tempting to run out of the house, I make the conscious effort to still put on the coffee and slowly sip it, rather than chug it and rush out. And yes, this might mean I’m not always on time at work. But I’d rather show up to work in a decent mood, than a negative one. Just a few minutes to yourself can help you ease into whatever’s is coming next. This is especially important when you’re anticipating a lot of chaos throughout the day, whether it’s work, school, kids, or all.

Using others to Energetically Recharge

Even in the depth of my depression, the one thing that could dramatically shift my energy levels came from others. Whether it’s turning on my camera to get on a Zoom call to interview a really interesting individual, or meeting a friend for a coffee date. These activities naturally raised my energy levels and probed me to become more motivated for the rest of the day. Most of the time, we’re in our own heads and when we’re feeling lethargic, the chances of negative thoughts floating into our headspace increases. This again triggers you to feel even moodier and worse. Talking to someone demands that your concentration is taken away from yourself, from how yucky you’re feeling, to focus on what the other person is saying, thinking, and reacting. What if I’m an introvert?

Contrary to popular belief, introverts aren’t drained through interaction with people, they are drained through having to have ‘meaningless’ conversations. This means that introverts can do well at social/networking events on the condition that they find one or two people that they can find a meaningful connection with.

Introvert or extrovert, we can all find at least one person we know who can make us feel better.

Spend time with your Passions

Your passion is the work you look forward to doing. It’s the thing that will always have your back through thick and thin; something you can lean on to light you up even in the darkest times. A palace where you find solitude, solace, and build towards mastery. The majority of us go through the day met with a variety of resistance and stress from our jobs, relationships, families..etc. Though it’s tempting to end the day in front of the TV, this isn’t a ‘proactive’ form of escape. It doesn’t make us sleep any better at night, or make us feel better and more energetic the next day. I recommend incorporating even just an hour of doing something you’re passionate about into your day. I’ve seen people find lots of success in escaping through music, playing instruments, learning a new skill (like knitting), writing, reading, and athletics. Even spending time with something we like can take a bit of effort to begin. When we’re tired, we naturally want to take the path of least resistance. So how do we program ourselves to consistently practice our passions?

Schedule it: Set aside at least an hour daily to work on something you’re passionate about. Choose a time when schedule conflicts are rare and not right after something very stressful. Personally, I’ve been writing less in the morning because my wake-up time is inconsistent. Instead, I’ve been carving out some time after work, the gym, and dinner to curl up on the couch, with the tv playing in the background. Then, I write. Why do I love writing so much?

First— I have a natural aptitude for it, and I love the fact I can put in a little bit every day, and it can turn into a completed, well thought out piece by the end of the week. It’s not uncommon for me to be able to produce a mini-book in 5-7 days.

Remember, an hour a day means 7 hours a week in pure writing time. That’s 364 hours a year, which is the equivalent of writing for 24 hours straight, 15 times.

Get Lucky

Alright tiger, you came here to learn how you can keep having more “lucky” days; days where you feel like you can conquer the world. The truth is, a lot of our lives are uncontrollable variables. You can’t control whether a stranger spits on you on the street, or whether your boss is in a bad mood today. The one thing you can control is your own routine, your perception, and your belief that you have the power to turn things around.

I’ll give you an example. The other day, I was having the worst day at work. It wasn’t like anything was particularly wrong,  but there was just all of a sudden heaps of work that was thrown on my plate out of nowhere. I came home drained and exhausted, I could feel my eyes droop to the floor. All I wanted to do was to hide under my covers. I had RSVPed a week prior for this event going on that same night, but after asking around all day, no one could go with me. I had two options. Stay home and hide under my covers. Or get my butt in the shower and to the party, alone.

I decided to wing it and go to the party after all— showering, putting on some makeup, and throwing on a sizzling red pantsuit. When I entered the shower, I imagined it was the morning again and I was just “getting ready for the day.” That’s exactly what it felt like as I threw on a slinky, toeless pair of black heels and strutted my way over to the hotel. It was packed in the lobby so I ducked quickly into the restaurant next door where two of my friends worked and had a peaceful, quiet pre-cocktail before I had to venture back into the madness. So the night wasn’t off to an A+ but instead of complaining and standing around awkwardly near the bar, I put myself in a situation where I knew I would be comfortable and taken care of. After my salted plum margarita (which was delicious by the way!), I was pretty tipsy already (the drinks do the job), I headed upstairs to the nightclub where the main event was being hosted. Anyways, long story short instead of staying half an hour that I anticipated, I stayed until 2 am. I had a total blast and even made friends. 

I tell this story because often we know if we take a chance, good things will come out of it. There’s always friction in making uncomfortable decisions, you wonder “What if it doesn’t work out.. What if it’s boring..what if people judge me.”In reality, that’s just as likely to happen—but then again, what if?

You have the power to turn your whole day around. But it requires a bit of risk. It requires you to sometimes get out of your pajamas to do something you know would potentially nourish you inside out. This isn’t partying obviously for everyone, but sometimes making that phone call to a friend, your mom, going for that walk, taking yourself to a nice dinner..etc.

When you shift your perception of why things are “happening to you”, to what are you doing to facilitate that situation, you’ll begin to realize a much more fulfilling life and more “lucky” days. It takes strength, self-compassion, and practice, but I believe you can get there. I hope from the bottom of my heart, to whoever is reading this that you start having more fortunate and happy days. Days where you’re skating on sparkly, mint blue rollerskates. No tripping.