A sleep therapist has highlighted the importance of including three key food groups in your breakfast to combat fatigue. Heather Darwall-Smith emphasises that a morning meal rich in protein, slow-release carbs, and fibre is essential to ‘fuel you properly’ with a healthy breakfast.
She explained that a protein-based breakfast helps prevent energy crashes later in the day. In an interview with the I, she advised: “Our cortisol levels are rising the moment we wake up, so the temptation can be to get moving and rush out the door.
“But sitting down and having a protein based breakfast puts those brakes on immediately.” Additionally, Darwall-Smith recommends delaying your caffeine fix until after your day has truly begun.
Coffee works by dulling the adenosine receptors in the brain, which can lead to a crash once the caffeine’s effects wear off. The sleep expert, who is also a psychotherapist, shares various strategies to tackle tiredness in her book ‘How to be Awake (So You Can Sleep Through the Night)’, reports Surrey Live.
One tip includes soaking up natural light first thing in the morning to help regulate your sleep-wake cycle.
She explains: “Our eyes have cells which are recording the light, and they count how much light we’ve got across the day. Getting natural light as soon as we can is really useful for telling us we are awake.”
Darwall-Smith suggests that soaking up natural light first thing in the morning should aid in feeling more alert and attuned to the day ahead, despite it possibly being challenging initially.
It comes after a doctor recommended cutting one drink from your diet after he did the same – and it changed his life.
Dr James Kinross PhD told The Doctors Kitchen Podcast that he had given up two things in order to better operate as a doctor.
Of these two, one of the most surprising was the removal of fizzy drinks from his diet, a popular type of ultra-processed food (UPF) that he said can cause “all sorts of harm” and which he said could change the gut microbiome.
Dr James said that despite the obvious health benefits of not fuelling himself with a drink high in sugar, he found it “so so difficult” to give up. He explained: “I gave up fizzy drinks. Another major thing that I’ve observed in my own life is I have to think very carefully about the fluids I drink, what I’m going to drink, what I’m going to bring to work.”