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Do you push yourself so hard at the end of the year with deadlines, Christmas parties and family shopping that you crash out on Christmas day? Do you spend a large part of the holidays ‘catching up’ on recovery only to feel fully refreshed and recharged ready for the first day back at work?

This concept has never really made sense to me. Why do we work so hard and push ourselves so far throughout the year that we spend a large part of our holiday time feeling flat and fatigued?

Follow the tips below to make sure you don’t burnout before Christmas and to ensure you have the energy you need to make the most of the time you have with family, friends and loved ones:

1. Fill up on Fluids

And I don’t mean just alcohol! We tend to drink more alcohol during the festive season so we need to drink even more water than usual to ensure we stay hydrated. As a general rule try a water chaser after every alcoholic beverage.

The most common cause of daytime fatigue is mild dehydration. Even minor dehydration can make you feel fatigued, lose concentration or cause headache. Water helps the blood transport oxygen, and the level of oxygen in the bloodstream is greatest when the body is well hydrated. This leads to increased energy levels. If you are properly hydrated, your heart also doesn’t have to work as hard to pump blood throughout your body.

2. Pep Up with Protein

So many Christmas gifts contain candy canes, Belgian chocolates and cookies. While these do taste great, they are not the best foods for sustained energy release.

If you are feeling lethargic or peckish between meals try a protein snack instead. Meals that tend to make you more alert contain protein, are low in fat, and limit the amount of carbohydrate. Protein contains tyrosine which is converted into the alertness neurotransmitter, dopamine.

3. Move Baby Move

Don’t use all of those deadlines and hangovers as a reason to skip your regular exercise. And if you really do need to miss a session or two add strategic movement – get up off your backside and take a walk around the office every 90 minutes.

As soon as you begin to move a cascade of chemical and physiological equations occur that immediately boost energy. Building strategic movement into your day is a proven way to instantly increase energy levels, improve blood flow and deliver oxygen and glucose to the brain and muscles. It is vital to switch on your energy hormones and triggers the sympathetic nervous system that helps keep you alert and sharp.

4. Be Mindful

Everyone wants everything at the same time leading up to Christmas. It can be difficult not to be pulled into a million directions at once and it’s easy to start feeling overwhelmed. Try focusing on one thing at a time so you can stay in control and get more done.

When you’re calmly focused on a single task, your brainpower is multiplied. Whilst it may seem more productive to multi-task, in fact it dramatically reduces efficiency. Try removing yourself from distractions and work in forced isolation to solve problems and boost creativity.

5. Take a Breath

If you feel stressed it’s time to take a deep breath, literally. The way we breathe has a powerful effect on how stressed we feel.

One of the physiological changes that occurs with the stress response and the kicking in of the automatic nervous system is a switch from slow, abdominal breathing to faster, shallower, chest breathing. By consciously taking a few deep breaths we take in more oxygen and send a message to our brains that we are coping with the stressor and this helps to reduce a number of the emotional symptoms of stress.

6. Think Positively

How many times have you heard or said these statements in the last month, “I’m exhausted, I have more work than I can handle, why do I have to do everything?” Constant negative thinking decreases our ability to perform.

Our thinking patterns directly affect the body and how it functions. When you replace your negative thoughts with optimistic thoughts instead of resentment, anxiety and worry – you will start to feel an increased sense of wellbeing. This results in better quality sleep, improved productivity, reduced muscle tension, anxiety, and fatigue.

7. Look in the Rear View Mirror

Goal setting is a lot like driving a car. While you definitely need the majority of your focus out the front windscreen looking at the road ahead, every now and then you also need to take a look into the rear view mirror to see what’s behind you. Now is a great time to take stock of the achievements and wins you have accomplished in 2010.

It is easy to become obsessed with soaring faster, higher and stronger that we forget to celebrate our successes along the way.
I’d like you to grab a blank sheet of paper and complete the same activity. Write down all of your achievements over the previous year.

• What has worked well in your personal and professional life?
• What positives have you drawn out of your relationships?
• What wins have you had with your health and fitness?
• What have you learned this year?
• What have you enjoyed doing more of this year?

While there is loads of research highlighting the benefits of adopting an optimistic future, it is also essential to every now and then take a glance in the rear view mirror and remember where you’ve come from. Happy reflecting!

No-one wants to get caught sleeping on the job but new research shows taking naps during the day can make you a more efficient worker. Siestas or Nanna-naps can help you live longer, stay more active and look younger.

Performance coach Andrew May joins TODAY to highlights the benefits of the midday nap. Watch the video here.

Research
Recent research pinpoints that regular napping is not just beneficial for toddlers. Research from the Sleep and Performance Centre in Washington and Harvard Medical School highlights a 20-minute nap significantly improves performance on repetitive cognitive tasks, memory and creativity. Regular naps have also been shown to dramatically reduce the likelihood of long-term fatigue and even burnout.

Benefits
Benefits to the body include better heart functioning, hormonal maintenance, and cell repair. It is believed naps help you live longer, stay more active, and look younger. They recharge the brain resulting in greater alertness, improved memory retention and creative insight. Napping can make you a faster typist, better dancer and improve motor skills and coordination. Effects on mental health include improved mood, decreased stress and greater psychological balance. Power naps increase memory by almost 20% during the remainder of the day

How long to nap?
Professor Leon Lack from Flinders University in South Australia led a study into the effectiveness of power naps. He says it’s the length of sleep that is crucial to our post-nap performance.

“Ten to fifteen minutes of sleep seems to be the optimum period in terms of improving mental operations, performance, reaction times and subjective feelings of alertness,” he says. “And that improvement in performance and alertness seems to be maintained for up to two and sometimes three hours after the nap. Interestingly, the five-minute nap just didn’t produce the same amount of improvement, while longer naps of 25 to 30 minutes led to subjects being somewhat drowsy and less alert for up to an hour after the nap.”

Generally, naps are best taken 6 to 8 hours after waking time. So if you’re an early morning person (gazelle) nap between 1pm and 2pm and if you are more of an afternoon/evening person (bear) nap between 2pm and 3pm.

Napping tips
1. Keep naps to 20 minutes or greater than 90 minutes to avoid sleep inertia
2. Ensure you have a quiet, well ventilated room
3. Clear your mind, breathe slowly and deeply to help switch off and relax
4. If you’re going to nap at work -make sure you have permission!
5. Best to nap 6 to 8 hours after normal wake up time
6. Use naps to recharge, refresh and reinvigorate the body and the brain

Andrew May

www.fliptheswitch.com.au

Benefits of napping

Siestas, nana-naps, power-naps – call them what you will, but they have major benefits to brain function and wellbeing. Benefits to the body include better heart functioning, hormonal maintenance, and cell repair. It is believed naps help you live longer, stay more active, and look younger. They recharge the brain resulting in greater alertness, improved memory retention and creative insight. Napping can make you a faster typist, better dancer and improve motor skills and coordination. Effects on mental health include improved mood, decreased stress and greater psychological balance. Power naps increase memory by almost 20% during the remainder of the day

Researchers tracked 23,681 Greek men for 6 years. Those who napped 3 times a week had a 37% reduced risk of dying from heart disease

How little, how long?

Professor Leon Lack from Flinders University in South Australia led a study into the effectiveness of power naps. He says it’s the length of sleep that is crucial to our post-nap performance.

“Ten to fifteen minutes of sleep seems to be the optimum period in terms of improving mental operations, performance, reaction times and subjective feelings of alertness,” he says. “And that improvement in performance and alertness seems to be maintained for up to two and sometimes three hours after the nap. Interestingly, the five-minute nap just didn’t produce the same amount of improvement, while longer naps of 25 to 30 minutes led to subjects being somewhat drowsy and less alert for up to an hour after the nap.”

Generally, naps are best taken 6 to 8 hours after waking time. So if you’re an early morning person (gazelle) nap between 1pm and 2pm and if you are more of an afternoon/evening person (bear) nap between 2pm and 3pm.

Will napping make me feel groggy?

Have you ever fallen asleep on a lazy Sunday afternoon watching your favourite footy team, then woken up an hour or so later and felt like you’ve been whacked across the face with a wet fish? Well, that’s probably because you almost have. . .

A full sleep cycle lasts between 90 and 100 minutes, so waking up after 40 to 60 minutes will put you in phase 3 or 4 of the sleep cycle, also called Slow Wave Sleep (SWS). This groggy feeling is called sleep inertia and in terms of brain activity, is the polar opposite of wakefulness when the brain’s electrical activity is busily multitasking and operating on many frequencies. During SWS, we have almost completely tuned out the external world and our entire brain rhythm synchronizes into a slow, uniform pattern.

Sleep Inertia can be minimised by either shortening (20 minutes) or lengthening (greater than 90 minutes) the nap to avoid waking up in SWS. Otherwise, it can be quickly dispelled by physical activity, noise or other sensory stimulation (such as a shower) or, for those who must, with a shot of caffeine.

Do naps interfere with nighttime sleep?

No, as long as your nap lasts less than 3 hours and is completed at least 3 to 4 hours prior to your normal bedtime. Light sleepers or people with insomnia are advised to nap 7 to 8 hours before bedtime.

Working under fatigue

When you’re sleepy, you are seven times more likely to make an error. Some of the worlds greatest disasters have been directly attributed to fatigue including Chernobyl, Exxon Valdez and the Challenger space shuttle disaster.

Sleeping on the job

Airline pilots and air traffic controllers already have sleep breaks built into their work routines. A culture shift encouraging napping is starting to take place in the US, where high profile corporations including Google, Pfizer, Proctor & Gamble and Saatchi & Saatchi have added Energy Pods to their work spaces.

In Australia, leading companies including Salesforce, the Australian Institute of Sport, PWC and subsiduaries of BHP have also invested in Energy Pods.

Napping tips

1. keep naps to 20 minutes or greater than 90 minutes to avoid sleep inertia
2. ensure you have a quiet, well ventilated room
3. clear your mind, breathe slowly and deeply to help switch off and relax
4. if you’re going to nap at work –make sure you have permission!
5. best to nap 6 to 8 hours after normal wake up time
6. shift workers can use a late afternoon nap to help stay alert during the night
7. use naps to recharge, refresh and reinvigorate the body and the brain
8. book a session in our Enery Pod!

The Energy Pod

I’m really excited about our newest arrival at The Performance Clinic.  We have just received the latest recovery technology called an Energy Pod.  Looking like something out of The Jetsons or from the movie Gattica, the Energy Pod harnesses science and NASA technology to help keep you alert, energised and power through the afternoon slump.

Research conducted at Harvard highlights a 20-minute nap significantly improves performance on repetitive perceptual and cognitive tasks. The Energy Pod is designed on a 20-minute cycle to allow five minutes for falling asleep and fifteen minutes of naptime. According to their research, fifteen minutes is the optimal nap time during the afternoon to recharge the batteries.

How does the Energy Pod work its magic?

• A room within a room
  The spherical shape of the Pod’s upper body provides you with a semi-private acoustical and visual environment.
• Cool to the touch
  The Pod’s upholstery breathes and remains cool. It is durable and stain resistant, and its internal fibers maintain their shape despite hours of daily use.
• Ergonomic perfection
  The Energy Pod inclines forward to allow for easy entry, and then reclines to allow for optimal positioning. The slight elevation of the feet promotes blood circulation, while the elevation of the knees takes pressure off your lower back.

At the timer’s expiration, the occupant is gently woken with a combination of lighting and vibration. The nap is purposely kept to 20 minutes to ensure there is no experience of ‘grogginess’, known as sleep inertia, on waking. While an Energy Pod combines the latest technology to give you an energy boost and minimize fatigue, people have been enjoying the benefits of napping for thousands of years.

(main sources: School of Medicine, Flinders University, SA; Metronaps, )

More and more people are finding holidays stressful.

A recent survey by American Express revealed 40% of British holidaymakers find travel stress unbearable, with the same number claiming a visit to the dentist is less stressful than having a break. The Germans have coined a word for our inability to relax: Freizeitstresse, or “free time stress”.

Aren’t holidays meant to be a time out to recharge, refresh and rejuvenate? Stick to the following tips to ensure your upcoming break is more fun than a trip to the dentist.

1. Plan your break. So many people plan their working days to the last second but fail to give any thought to their time off. Pack early, ensure a good night╒s sleep before you leave and arrive at your destination feeling refreshed, not zapped.

2. Leave work in the office. Don‘t take reports or proposals to finish by the beach. Be disciplined and leave work in the office. Turn off technology and take time out.

3. Prune your schedule. Adrenaline junkies are notorious for getting back from holidays feeling tired and fatigued. Don‘t spend every waking moment scheduling activities, leave some margin to just chill and have time out. Try going slow for a while, you might just like it.

4. Learn to relax. Set up boundaries that force you to relax and try doing something else a little bit new in this day and age turn off your mobile phone for a while and ditch the watch!