5 Ways to turn into a morning person

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The idea of watching the gleaming rays of sunlight at dawn seems like a distant fantasy for a lot of us. What is the reason? We night owls are most probably wrapped up in a nice and cozy blanket; catching up on the sleep that we missed by staying up so late. While the comfort of late sleep cradles us, the rest of the world is already preparing to start the day all early, refreshed and energized. 

Burning the midnight oil seems like fun, but shifting your natural rhythm to become a morning person can have a lot of perks. Starting your day early, bright and active can make it more productive and exciting. Also, abstinence from hitting the snooze button can bring you some extra hours each day. You can find more time to relax and enjoy yourself this way.

If you need ways to change your routine and rise early, here are five effective tips to follow and set you up on the path to success.

Follow these 5 easy steps to change from a night person into a morning person

1. Sleep early

The first step to reset your internal clock, or circadian rhythm, is to correct your current sleep cycle. Start by going to bed early. Aim for at least 7 – 8 hours of sleep to determine your bedtime. Try to go to bed at the same time every day without any exceptions. It will most likely be difficult to fall asleep immediately for the first few days. Thankfully, your body will start to accommodate the change in your bedtime eventually.

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Create a calm and soothing bedtime ritual to help you fall asleep. You can read a book, meditate or try aromatherapy before going to bed. Make sure that the bedroom is completely dark - and that the temperature is comfortable. These factors signal your brain to fall asleep.

Weekends are no exception. Avoid staying too late past your designated bedtime because you might fall prey to your old patterns.

2. Start the day with exercise 

Starting an early day will become easier if you practice activities that boost your energy levels. This makes an early start motivating and comfortable for your brain and body. Exercise is a powerful way to tap into the necessary energy boost. The healthy activity will release of endorphins (happy hormones) and that is a wonderful way to begin your day. 

You can pick out any simple exercise of your choice such as cycling, running, cardio, dancing, aerobics or even yoga. Exercising first thing in the morning will help your whole body to wake up completely. This will effectively lower your stress levels - along with your blood pressure. Outdoor morning exercises will give you the touch of a fresh breeze to rejuvenate your mind.

Move your heavy workouts to afternoons or evenings. If you do weight training, for example, hit the workout towards early evening and explore supplements for elevated results. You can search online to get more info on Weed Smart Online Dispensary.  These heavy workouts tend to tire you out and will actually help you to fall asleep faster.

3. Let in the light 

Light plays a crucial role when it comes to your circadian rhythm. By leveraging the relationship between light and our sleep cycles, you can train your brain and body to switch to an early morning schedule. The blue hues of dawn indicate the beginning of the day. Your body will stimulate a wake-up response when it is exposed to this kind of light. Amber or orange tones indicate dusk. This means that it is time to secrete sleep hormones.

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Sleep with the blinds open. The bright sun rays will tell your body to wake up. Also try to expose your body to bright light all day or as much as you can. This will naturally tire you towards the night time and help you to achieve better sleep.

Avoid using electronic gadgets such as phones or laptops before bedtime. The blue light the screens emit interfere with your sleep hormones and keep you up for longer than you intend to.

4. Use some alarm tricks

The snooze button is the biggest foe when it comes to switching to a healthy morning schedule. You can try some of these alarm tricks to make sure that you rise early in the morning.

Place your alarm at the furthest end of your bedroom. This will help you to avoid being tempted to snooze. Prepare your body to wake up at the right time by refraining from adding a few extra minutes of sleep after your alarm has gone off. You can use a smart alarm app on your phone to achieve this. Many of these apps typically require answers to a set of questions or math problems before you can enable the snooze option. This clever feature awakens your mind at the right time.

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You can also create a special mix of songs to act as the alarm ringtone. The mixture of songs may stimulate your mind to wake up.

5. Relax before starting the day

Take time to relax and do things that you enjoy early in the morning. Rising early in the morning is easier when you feel calm immediately afterwards. Take a few moments to watch the sunrise - or enjoy a warm cup of coffee - before getting into all of the hassles of the day. This can be a powerful motivation to become a morning person for life. Many morning people would never want to sacrifice their precious early morning routines.

Conclusion

Start with a rigid sleep schedule. Work up your way to add energizing morning activities like exercise and enjoyable activities. This can motivate you to rise early. Your chronotype (or whether or not you are a morning person) is quite similar to your families; but you can change this pattern with about two weeks of effort.

Try these amazing tips to change your chronotype. They may give you a glimpse of the amazing morning life of the world that you are missing out on now.

5 Healthy habits to improve your life

This article is written by Sparkle Purpose. Follow Sparkle Purpose on Twitter and Pinterest.

5 habits that can improve your health 

There are certain things that we never think of. We are so busy scrolling through the screens of social media on our smartphones that we never realize we have a body and we should take care of it.

You can simply take good care of your body by adding these simple habits to your daily routine.

What is a habit?

A habit is a routine or behavior that is repeated regularly and tends to occur subconsciously over time. When you do something over and over again, your mind thinks of it as an important task and it happens automatically.

How do you create a new habit? 

Adopting a habit is a challenging task, but it is not an impossible task. It begins with a thought that you want to change. Anything is possible if you have a desire to accomplish something.

Here are some healthy habits that you should adopt:

1. Wake up early

Waking up early is one of the most challenging tasks that I see people face. It’s not easy to leave your cozy bed and all your dreams - especially when it’s winter. You don’t want to leave your blanket.

If you want to be successful in your life, you need to get up earlier. We are more likely to be productive in the earlier hours of the day and we are more likely to do unhealthy or destructive things late at night.

The Bible says “He who loves to sleep and the folding of hands, poverty will set upon you like a thief in the night." (Proverbs 24:33-34)

How can you wake up earlier?

I am here to tell you the easiest way possible. I will not ask you to set an alarm for 4 AM or 5 AM in the morning.

Let’s suppose you go to bed at 1 PM and wake up at 9 AM. All that you have to do is set an alarm of 10 minutes earlier than you usually do.

This will save you 10 minutes. Do this every day. You’ll see that you are getting up earlier without any trouble. 

It may be possible that you fail at some point. That’s OK. Don't criticize yourself. Just move on and focus on the next day.

Remember that failure is a teacher. Try to learn from the mistake you’ve made and try not to repeat it again. This will help you to improve a little bit every day.

Waking up early has many benefits and it will keep your body healthy. You will see that you are being more productive and more successful in your work after a few days.

2. Exercise everyday

As you already know, exercising is very important for your physical health. Exercising has many benefits. Exercise everyday if you don’t want to go to the doctor too often.

Exercise will keep your bones, heart, lungs and all internal organs healthy.

The best time to exercise is in the morning after waking up. If you can't do it in the morning then you can do it in the evening.

I encourage you to exercise every day. Some people start exercising but they quit because it hurts at first. I know that it hurts at first. Remember that the pain is temporary. It will last for a day or for a week but quitting lasts forever. The more you sweat the better.

3. Drink fresh fruit juice

There are amazing benefits to drinking fruit juice like detoxification, weight loss, vitamin and mineral consumption and prevention of unhealthy cravings.

It can be any fresh fruit juice like orange juice, Aloe Vera juice, lemon juice, kiwi juice, cucumber juice and many more.

Try to make it a habit to stay healthy. If not every day, then try to have fresh fruit juice at least 3-4 times a week.

4. Drink water while sitting

I see a lot of people drinking water while standing. Drinking water this way can be harmful.

Since the water moves directly, the required vitamins and minerals don’t reach the liver and digestive tract. This also disturbs the oxygen levels and you risk placing a burden on your heart and lungs.

It is better to drink water while sitting. Sip on it slowly to reach maximum hydration. We should drink 2-3 liters of water every day. Drinking room temperature water is recommendable over cold water.

5. Schedule your time 

If you want to be productive, it is necessary that you manage your time well. Doing the same good things at the same time everyday will increase your productivity.

When it’s the time for lunch, you should do lunch. When it’s the time to rest you should rest.

This brings efficiency in our work because our body gets familiar with it. Your body will adapt to your schedule and prime itself for digestion at lunch time. Your brain will prime itself for relaxation if you relax at the same time every day.

Try to plan your schedule to get the best out of the day.

Thanks for reading! I hope it helps you.

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Look after yourself

 

If you feel a sniffle or an itch in your throat coming along, your immune system might be down and in need of a boost. Here are great ways to give your immune system the boost that it needs.

How to boost your immune system

1. Determine the cause of your immune crash

2. Reduce stress

3. Get more rest

4. Eat healthy

5. Try a natural immune booster

Give your body its strength back.

1) Determine what is hampering your immune system

If you’re feeling a little vulnerable at the moment, it could be because of something that you are going through.

Are you facing a stressful situation at work? Try doing things that will relax and de-stress you.

Have you had one or two too many late nights? Have a few early nights to even out the balance.

There could also be a few things that you do every day that negatively affects your immune system. If you get sick regularly, it could be because of substances like cigarette smoke, alcohol or medication.

You might have been eating too much junk food or consuming too much sugar lately.

Have you been depriving yourself from natural sunlight? Are you deficient in a specific nutrient?

Lack of exercise also causes your immune system to crash.

Clean up unhealthy things.

2) Reduce stress

Too much stress will negatively affect your entire body, from muscle tissue to your immune system.

There are two main types of stress: mental stress and physical stress.

Mental stress

Mental stress releases a hormone called cortisol. Cortisol is good in small quantities because it primes your body for increased energy output.

Our cortisol levels are supposed to be the highest in the morning when we wake up and slowly taper off throughout the day until we go to bed in the evening.

Low cortisol levels lead to a decrease in energy levels. Too much cortisol from too much stress, though, can also wreak havoc on your body.

When you are stressed, your body cannot recover as efficiently because it is preparing for ‘fight or flight’.

If you are stressed out almost all of the time, your body uses less energy to heal itself. If mental stress is getting you down, use coping mechanisms like thinking about the stressful situation in a positive way.

Positivity reduces the amount of stress you will feel when doing a specific task. This will lower cortisol levels over time.

Make sure that you spend time doing something that you really enjoy like reading a book or catching up on a good TV series.

Relaxing and enjoyable activities reduce cortisol levels, speed up healing and boost your overall health.

Make time to relax.

Physical stress

Physical stress can also damage your immune system.

Exercise is really good for your health; but too much exercise, referred to as overtraining, can wear the body out at a faster rate than what it can recover from.

Increased frequency of colds and flu is actually one of the first signs that athletes are pushing their bodies too far.

This can lead to adrenal fatigue, muscle and energy loss, sleep problems (some people will crave sleep all the time, while others won’t be able to sleep at all) and decreased immune function.

If too much exercise is hampering your immune system, take a few days off and let your body recover.

I give myself a healthy rest week every two months or so to let my body recover fully.

When you get back to your normal exercise routine, you’ll see how much rest you actually needed because your physical performance will increase.

Lack of exercise can also lead to physical stress, because our bodies were made to move around regularly. Prolonged sitting times are linked to an increase in all diseases.

Staying in one position for too long will limit blood circulation.

If you sit too much at work, try taking a stroll every few minutes. The improved blood circulation and quick mental break will reduce mental stress while giving your overall moral a boost.

Taking brisk walks during your office job can actually increase your work output.

Take breaks.

3) Get more rest

Our bodies naturally go through cycles of activity and recovery.

If the balance swings too much in one direction, our health suffers.

Too much activity is as dangerous as too little. If you spend more time racing to complete the next task than you do relaxing and enjoying something, your body compensates by decreasing health.

Get some extra sleep for a few days to let your body catch up with your busy schedule. Make some time to power down and enjoy the moment that you are in right now.

If you can enjoy at least one thing every day, your day not been wasted.

When was the last time that you did something that you really enjoyed? Think about a hobby or time spent with your friends and family.

When was the last time that you got a full night's sleep?

These things are not optional. Your life depends on them. Happiness and health and heavily intertwined.

Make time for happiness.

4) Eat healthy

Over 70% of your immune system is in your gut. 

Once you correct the balance between activity and recovery, you need to make sure that your body has the right nutrients to replenish and heal itself.

Good protein sources will help to rebuild muscle, bone, nerve, and brain and organ tissue. A healthy combination of protein, carbohydrates and fats will give your body the building blocks that it needs to replenish its energy stores.

Make sure to include lots of fruit and vegetables in your daily diet. They are packed with micro nutrients that we need like vitamins, minerals, phyto-nutrients, trace elements, fiber and anti-oxidants.

Try to eat at least 5 different servings of fruit or veg every day. If 5 servings is too much for you to handle right now, eat as many as you can and build up slowly towards your 5-a-day goal.

It is better to have an apple and a banana today instead of nothing because the idea of 5 whole fruit and veg intimidates you.

Maintain gut health.

5) Try an immune booster

Green tea

A hot cup of green tea with a squeeze of lemon juice can do wonders for your immune system.

The antioxidants in green tea will regenerate your body on a cellular level while the amino acid, L-theanine, will protect the mind by helping it to relax.

If stress is disturbing your immune system, L-theanine will ease its effects.

Green tea is anti-bacterial – and so is lemon juice. This can help fight against the germs that are building up in your throat.

Glutamine

Glutamine is one of my favorite amino acids.

It is one of my top ways to speed up recovery when I actually get sick. 

Exercise and stress decreases our natural glutamine levels. Supplementing with it helps the body to speed up recovery.

Glutamine can also increase sleep quality because it increases the levels of the neurotransmitter GABBA (gamma-aminobutyric acid).

GABBA is needed to relax and have a good night’s sleep. You can find this supplement at health or supplement stores.

A good multi vitamin

A good multi-vitamin can help you to make sure that you are getting the micro nutrients that your body needs.

Although supplements should never replace a healthy diet, a multi-vitamin can help you to make sure that your body gets all the right vitamins.

Choose natural remedies when you can.

By cutting out unhealthy habits, reducing physical and mental stress, prioritizing rest and eating a healthy diet; you will give your immune system the raw materials that it needs to recover.

Remember to also replenish fluids by drinking enough water and make time to enjoy your everyday life. Stay Strong!

Exercise improves mental health

Exercise for the sake of your mental health.

Exercise will help you to improve your mental health. Here's how.

Mental health benefits of exercise

1. Exercise gives you a sense of accomplishment.

2. Exercise releases happy hormones like endorphins, serotonin and dopamine.

3. Your brain needs blood flow for oxygen and nutrients.

4. Exercise provides the perfect, healthy escape.

5. Physical activity improves sleep quality.

Exercise for yourself.

1. Exercise gives you a sense of accomplishment

One of the challenges that many people face when they struggle with mental health is an overwhelming sense of worthlessness or failure.

Exercise improves your mental health because it gives you a sense of accomplishment – it gives you a reason to be proud of yourself.

Exercise will give you a goal to work towards. The human brain thrives on challenge. When you have something that you want to achieve, like becoming more fit, you have another reason to wake up in the morning.

Exercise causes a positive chain reaction.

2. Exercise increases the release of happiness hormones like endorphins and dopamine

Exercise leads to the release of endorphins in the brain.

Endorphin release during exercise is often referred to as the runner’s high.

Endorphins do two major things in the brain: They are a natural pain killer and they make you feel happy by triggering the release of dopamine.

Dopamine is known as the happy hormone. It is also known as the reward hormone.

Depression occurs when the brain does not release enough dopamine.

Exercise is a great way to boost your dopamine levels naturally every day.

Exercise to be happy.

3. Movement increases blood flow to the brain

Exercise helps the body to increase blood flow to the brain.

This is very important because the brain needs blood flow to function properly.

When you exercise, your body increases the amount of oxygen in your blood. Your brain needs oxygen to work at its best.

The increased blood flow also allows the brain to regulate its hormonal and chemical levels better. It is able to get rid of the chemicals it doesn’t need while allowing for faster transportation of the nutrients that it does need.

Mental function declines without exercise.

4. Exercise gives you a mental break from the rest of your life

Many of us work or study really hard.

This puts a lot of pressure on our minds to perform at their best all of the time.

Exercise gives us a mental break where our minds can relax and enjoy the endorphin release with extra blood flow.

When you exercise for long enough, you start to look forward to your exercise sessions because they become your special ‘me time’ where you can think about the rest of your day and reflect on life in a positive way.

Exercise is a great coping mechanism.

5. Physical activity helps you to sleep

Sleep is very important for your health.

It can be hard to get good sleep when your brain is drained but your body has plenty of energy to spare.

Exercise increases sleep quality by increasing the body’s physical need to recover.

As sleep quality increases, your brain can recover better every night.

Very often a lack of physical activity reduces our ability to sleep well, which negatively affects our brain health.

A small amount (20-30 minutes) of exercise every day will help your brain to recover better because of improved sleep.

I used exercise to improve my own sleeping patterns and it worked out wonderfully.

Sleep improves with movement.

Start a new exercise plan slowly

If you've decided that you want to start an exercise routine to boost mental health, start slowly. Give your body time to adapt. The worst thing that you want is an injury. That will stop you from building the habit.

Also make sure that you drink enough water and give your body plenty of rest between exercise sessions. Stay Strong!

Unexpected benefits of water

Drink enough water.

Have you ever asked yourself why we need so much water? We all know that drinking water has many advantages. One of them is the fact that it helps with the proper functioning of the body. 

Do you know what happens if you don't drink water? Or what if you only drink water? Let’s find out.

The human body is made up of 75% water

The majority of the human body is nothing but water.

An adult human body is composed of 45% to 75% water. In infants (babies less than 1 year), it is around 75% to 78%.

Benefits of Water

1. Filters the blood

2. Makes your face glow

3. Lubricates the joints

4. Maintains the digestive tract

5. Prevents heart disease

6. Slows the aging process

7. Improves sleep

8. May help with kidney stones

Water keeps you healthy.

1. Water filters your blood

Water helps to filter your blood with the help of your kidneys. Kidneys contain millions of small filtering units called nephrons. Nephrons act like a tea filter.

They filter the blood to pull out things that you don't need (and can cause harm if left in the blood for too long). They pull out toxins and separate it them into urine which can be excreted safely.

Water cleanses your body.

2. Water enhances the glow on your face

Since water acts as a filter for blood, pure and clean blood produces new tissues and cells. The skin looks quite radiant and fresh. The skin tone looks fairer and even with adequate consumption of water.

 

Stay hydrated for the sake of your skin.

3. Water lubricates the joints

Machines need lubrication. Your body is also like a machine in that it requires lubrication. Without this lubrication, joints and other parts of your body (blood vessels, brain and heart) start to break down.

Drinking water helps the lubrication of joints. If you are suffering from any kind of joint pain, drinking water is the best natural remedy if you are dehydrated. It should be one of the first things that you try.

Always remember that it is best to be seated while drinking water. Drinking water while standing can limit joint hydration.

Every body part needs water.

4. Water improves the digestive tract

If you have digestive problems like irritable bowel syndrome, diarrhea, gas, gastritis, constipation or loss of appetite; it could mean you are not drinking enough water or not eating healthy food.

Drinking enough water everyday can solve these problems. Your body needs water to convert food into nutrients. Imagine trying to put dry dust into your blood. Hydration helps the digestive system to eliminate stools as well.

Water keeps your tummy healthy.

5. Water prevents heart diseases and slows the aging process

Drinking water decreases blood pressure by helping the kidneys to filter out excess sodium. It also lowers your stress levels by giving your body the blood circulation that it needs to regulate hormones (like the stress hormone cortisol) properly.

This slows down the aging process and lowers the risk of developing heart diseases.

Proper hydration will prolong your life.

6. Water gives you better sleep

Drinking a glass of water right before bed can make you wake up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, but hydration is still good for sleep. 

Toxin build-up, stress and other health issues caused by dehydration will keep you up much more than the risk of getting up to pee.

Make sure that you don't go to bed dehydrated. Even drinking half a glass of water can help you to have a healthier and better sleep.

You need water to recover.

7. Water may help with kidney stones

Water is an absolute must for people with kidney stones. It is a natural remedy for kidney stones as it should help to dissolve, flush or break up the stones.

Drinking excessive water can move the stone out of the body with urine.

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Habits that can take you to the next level

Three 5-minute hacks to improve your health right now

You can become healthier in 5 minutes.

Health refers to how well your body functions. Every decision that you make will impact your health. This includes every food choice, every emotional response to a situation and everything that you do in your spare time.

Many people are intimidated by the idea of health. It often feels like you need to make big sacrifices or get really uncomfortable if you want to improve your health. While the big decisions really are great for health, the small decisions are, too. Here are simple ways to get better in 5 minutes or less.

How to improve your health in 5 minutes

1. Write in a gratitude journal
2. Do jumping jacks for as long as what feels comfortable
3. Take some time to relax before falling asleep

Small things make a big difference.

1. Write in a gratitude journal

Keep a journal wherever you go. Find 5 minutes every day to jot down a list of things that you are grateful for. 

You can do this any time, but I like to do it when I am stressed at work because it counters the negative effects of stress that we encounter at work.

Our brains are wired to look for negative, stressful things. If we didn't pay attention to these things, we would never deal with them and our safety would be compromised. Cortisol, the stress hormone, actual gives you the energy to finish a stressful situation.

The problem comes in when we stress too often. Cortisol stays elevated and we feel stressed out the whole time. This leads to an increase in anxiety, muscle tension, inability to sleep and lack of motivation because of burnout.

Gratitude, on the other hand, trains our brains to focus on the positive things that we have in our life. This puts us into a state of peace. Your body needs to alternate between stages of stress and peace. Too much stress will burn you out.

Gratitude will help you to feel better and remind yourself that your life isn't going as bad as what you think it is.

Mental health plays a large role in physical health.

Gratitude is good for you.

2. Do jumping jacks for as long as what feels comfortable

The idea of exercise can be quite intimidating. A few minutes a day is much better than nothing at all.

Jumping jacks are quick, easy to do, don't require much space and don't take much time to get your heart rate up. 

You can do them any time of the day, but I recommend that you do them during the times that you feel the most tired. This is because you can use exercise to tell your body when to produce more energy and when to relax.

There are so many benefits of exercise like disease prevention, improved motivation, reduces anxiety, an improved immune system and increased energy levels. 5 Minutes a day is a really good start.

See how easy it is to start exercising when you break it down into smaller goals. 

Try doing jumping jacks for as long as what feels comfortable and you will feel your mood improve instantly. Do it for a few days in a row and you will start feeling motivated to do even more.

Start small to win big.

3. Take some time to relax before falling asleep

Many people struggle to get a good night's rest. There are many ways that you can fall asleep faster and improve your sleep quality.

All of them help you to get away from a stressful state and fall into a peaceful state of relaxation. The more relaxed you are before falling asleep, the better you will sleep.

Relaxation has many benefits like lowered blood pressure, improved digestion, maintenance of blood sugar, improved blood flow to muscles and other tissues, reduced muscle tension, reduced chronic or prolonged pain, better sleep quality, higher energy levels and less fatigue, less stress hormone activity, lower heart rate and a slower breathing rate.

Give yourself 5 minutes to relax and feel at peace with yourself when you first climb into bed. This will help you to enter into a state of relaxation much quicker. The more often you do it, the easier it will become.

Relaxation improves your health.

Try to do all three of the 5-minute health hacks every day. That will total 15 minutes daily. Let me know how you get on with these ideas in the comments below. Stay Strong!

Day 4 (96 hours) into my fast

These are the results of my fast so far - 4 days into it.

Fasting disclaimer

The information on this page is not intended as medical advice in any way. I simply share my own, personal experience with fasting for anecdotal reasons. If you want to fast for an extended period of time, I recommend that you check in with a medical practitioner before attempting to do so.

See the results below.

How much weight can you lose on 4 day water fast?

I weighed 69 kg (152 pounds) at the end of day 4. I weighed 68.5 kg (151 pounds) at the end of my third day of fasting. I weighed 73.5 kg (162 pounds) right at the beginning of my fast. This means that I went down from a 5 kg (11 pounds) loss to a 4.5 kg (10 pounds) loss.

I am glad about this because it means that my body has absorbed more water and my blood pressure is starting to rise after falling so low initially.

Most people lose an average of a pound of fat for every day of fasting. You can find the reference to that fact on the results page from my first day of fasting (linked below).

I am not fasting for weight loss. I am doing it in an attempt to heal my asthma and allergies. My symptoms have almost completely disappeared and I haven't taken an antihistamine since before I started my fast.

Fasting helps your body to heal.

Should you exercise before a fast?

I fasted for 36 hours and 44.5 hours before I felt like I couldn't continue anymore. I exercised like normal leading up to these two fasts. On this current fast, I didn't exercise for 5 days leading up to my fast and I've already fasted for more than double of my previous fasts.

I think that this is one of the many reasons why I was able to go on for so long without giving up. My theory is that exercise placed an energetic drain on the body, and that you will then enter into your fast with sub-optimal energy levels. This then decreases the amount of energetic strain that your body can take before it depletes its sugar stores and finally moves over to fat for energy.

Should you exercise during a fast?

I would definitely exercise during a shorter fast (24 hours or less). Our bodies are much stronger than we realize. If we started to deteriorate so shortly into a fast, the human race would not have been able to survive before the farming era.

Should you exercise during a prolonged fast (2 days or more)?

The documentary that I linked to on my first day's report shows fasting clinics that encourage their patients to exercise - and they fast for very long periods of time (up to 40 days at a time).

I haven't done any exercise so far. I am currently waiting until I feel strong enough (and have enough energy) to do so.

I chose to rest until I am ready.

Energy levels during a fast

My energy levels have been better than the first three days. They aren't at their normal levels yet (I need to motivate myself to write this blog post). I get winded easily and find myself needing to catch my breath often.

The weird part is that I get a little energized whenever I move around. I have energy similar to a caffeine buzz when I drive somewhere in the car or when I walk around for whatever reason. It is very possible that a little exercise would coax my body further into ketosis and therefore give me more energy. I might try this theory tomorrow and see what happens.

Fasting for better eyesight

I am actually fasting for my allergies and asthma, but I only noticed today that I haven't had any eye strain at all since the beginning of my fast (4 days ago). It seems that my eyes are stronger and can take more screen time during a fast.

This effect might be similar to the fact that fasting protects healthy cells from chemotherapy. Fasting most probably protects the cells in the eyes from damage in a similar way.

Does sleep return to normal during a fast?

I slept horribly the first night of fasting. I slept deep and fully on the second night. I didn't sleep so well on the third night. I supplemented with magnesium and I slept much better afterwards. This lady who documented her 54 day water fast with daily videos also had some nights where sleep was amazing and other nights where good sleep was hard to come by.

Similar to her notes, I find that I sleep better when my electrolyte levels are in the right balance.

It's okay to stress your body occasionally.

Emotional benefits of fasting

I have definitely felt more relaxed and at peace yesterday (day 3) and today (day 4). Previous mental stresses and anxieties have gone away. I have much less anger and frustration towards the people around me. At the same time, I am much less worried about what other people think about me.

This guy had the exact same emotional effect during his 21 day fast. He explains that he didn't worry about what people thought about him anymore. It was like a mental enlightenment that came to him. This feeling of less anxiety was so strong, in fact, that he unblocked a lot of people that he was worried were giving him nasty comments.

A few things happened today that would usually elicit a small sense of fear in me. I didn't feel emotional distressed at all.

There is this one person (different scenario) that gives me a dirty look whenever they see me. It used to really frustrate me and it used to give me real negative thoughts about them. In the last two days, though, it didn't bother me at all - literally not one bit. I actually smile at them now and want to greet them as warmly as possible.

I feel as if I've matured emotionally over the last two days. Small things don't bother me anymore. It is almost as if fasting has given me some mental clarity and a brand new perspective (and I'm only on day 4!).

Why does such a strong sense of calm and relaxation take over us during a fast? Dr. Mindy Pelz explains that certain brain chemicals are released during a fast that greatly benefits the mind.

1. Growth hormone can increase by up to 1300% from 12 hours into a fast
2. Ketones that heal the brain are created 13-15 hours into a fast
3. BDNF (brain fertilizer) and serotonin increase dramatically from 24 hours into a fast
4. Inflammation reduces throughout the body at 24 hours
5. GABA production (which initiates a sense of calm) goes up from the 36th to 48th hour
6. Neurons regenerate at this time as well
7. Dopamine receptor sites are re-calibrated from around the third day of fasting.

Fasting is good for your brain.

Check out my experience from my first day of fasting.

Learn about my second fasting day.

Read about my third day of fasting.

Here are the effects 24 hours after I end my water fast.

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