5 easy ways to increase your energy when living with seizures

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5 easy ways to increase your energy when living with seizures

Jo Knight • January 9, 2021

5 easy ways to increase your energy when living with seizures

Exhaustion doesn’t just stop you doing the things you want to achieve, it also affects those around you. You often just want to sleep when you could be joining loved ones in spending time together.

You deserve to have more energy, and your family and loved ones deserve to have a you with more energy. Imagine taking these easy action steps, even if one at a time, and waking up to a future where you can create the kind of memories you and your family want to have. Imagine achieving all those things you have been wanting to do for ages. Because you have the energy to do so!

When feeling tired and exhausted all the time you just want someone to give you more energy, magically. Although I can’t quite do that, I can give you these 5 easy steps you can make, without needing lots of energy or effort, and that will help increase your energy levels.

1: Get more morning light

All of our energy levels, whether feeling awake and alert, or feeling tired and sleepy, are determined by our body-clock. And our body-clock is determined by light levels. So get more daylight, and less night time light!

This can be as simple as changing where you sit - getting outside for 10 minutes in the morning with a cup of hot tea or coffee. Try and get your light within the first hour of getting up, if not as soon as you can afterwards. If you live in a wet and dreary place, and getting outside in the morning really doesn’t appeal, then get yourself a SAD light, and sit in front of it whilst you eat your breakfast.

2: Block the night time light

Make sure your bedroom has good blinds or curtains to block out light from outside, but also make sure it is not full of light sources such as digital-clock displays, tablets, kindles, TVs, telephone lights, TV remote lights. Even if it requires a roll of tape to cover all those little indicator lights, make sure your bedroom is designed for sleep, and dark! Especially if living with seizures, you may be more sensitive to light at night.

And if you want to continue watching TV or looking at screens before bed then get yourself a pair of amber glasses to block the especially stimulating blue light – read more about this and where you can get a cheap pair of glasses to try, in our great Free Guide.

3: Eat more magnesium rich foods

Magnesium is essential for the body to be able to make energy, but it also gets used up by stress or when muscles are active such as during seizures. Eating foods rich in magnesium, such as a handful of nuts or seeds, adding canned beans to a soup or curry, snacking on houmous, and including green vegetables in meals, can help provide the body with the building blocks it needs to make energy. And dark green vegetables don’t have to include cabbage and sprouts, it can be rocket and watercress salad leaves, broccoli, fresh herbs, mangetout, pak choi, green peppers, anything green!

4: Tweak your breakfast

It doesn’t have to be major changes with this, but it is the one meal that has the most impact on your health and your energy levels. So, it is worth getting it right. Even just adding a protein rich food before your breakfast will make the world of a difference. For instance, eating a handful of nuts, leftover chicken, or a hard-boiled egg, before your cereal/toast can make a big difference to energy levels throughout the day. For more information on how to improve this further, sign up and get our Free Guide.

5: Lower inflammation

There are many ways to achieve this, but I have listed 3 simple ways to start lowering inflammation and unwanted immune activity. This is because a really active immune system is one of the biggest drains on our energy. It just sucks it out of us. Just think sniffling with the flu or hay-fever, or fighting childhood viruses such as chickenpox – none of these will trigger memories of bouncing with energy, instead you’ll remember everything feeling like a massive effort and just wanting to curl up and sleep. (This inflammation can be happening without you realising, so these are all good tips to improve health, energy and inflammation).

Start by taking Vitamin D. Studies have shown this vitamin tends to be low in epileptics, and it is always lower in the winter months when we are not making our own from sunshine. Check with your pharmacist that this doesn’t interact with your medications, but 2000IU to 3000IU a day is a good dose to maintain from September to May.

Secondly, eat fish a couple of times a week, preferably oily ones such as trout, salmon, or mackerel. If you are not keen on the flavour, then try adding lots of flavour from herbs or spices, or mixing them into a fish pie, fish cakes or something strong tasting like houmous or curry.

Lastly, cut the inflammatory foods like sugar and alcohol. Although sugar can make you feel better in the moment, overall it will be sapping your energy and increasing inflammation in the body and brain.

Are you wanting 1-2-1 support this January to feel more energised and healthy, then explore our offer which ends midnight tomorrow. Click below.....

If you found this article helpful, then please spread the word and help other women living with this difficult condition

Can gut health affect seizures?

By Jo Knight • August 29, 2021

The bacteria in the digestive system are known as the microbiome. This microbiome has been shown to produce bi-products (or metabolites) that can influence inflammatory pathways for good or for bad.

Part 1: Surprising reasons for brain inflammation

By Jo Knight • August 20, 2021

When someone is diagnosed with epilepsy the first thing they commonly want to know is “what caused this”. The majority of epilepsy is actually idiopathic – of unknown cause. And this can be one of the hardest things to deal with emotionally when receiving an epilepsy diagnosis. As human beings we like logic and to understand the why of something, especially when it comes to our health. But a neurologist will also look for causes of brain injury or inflammation. And even if we never know the specific cause of brain inflammation, it can be useful to think of seizures as being a sign of inflammation. Allowing us to take an approach to health focused around reducing inflammation and providing nutrients for brain healing and repairing. One thing I have come to realise though is that the body is brilliant at disguising and coping with inflammation, especially if we have lived with it for a long time that it has become our norm. Below is Part 1 in our discussion of reasons for brain inflammation that may surprise you.