This week I am talking 8 health hacks that can be used by busy humans to gain more energy, vitality and elevate the way that you are operating.
These are little things you can implement that will have a significantly bigger impact on your day to day life and free you up to maintain your energy and continue to perform.
In this episode I share:
- What I mean by the term hack
- The power of electrolytes and how to use them
- The drink you should be having at the start of the day
- What you should be doing the night before every day
- Why you should set an alarm for your bed time
- The best way to ensure you fit exercise and classes into your week
- How to set a fitness routine when you struggle with routine
- How you should be doing your grocery shopping to make life easier
- Why outsourcing is so important and how to incorporate it into your life
- The power of high protein snacks
- What you need to be doing every day when it comes to your phone
Key Quotes
“I fundamentally believe to win the day it is about winning the night”
“Once the week starts, as good as your intentions might be to go to the shops and stock up, often you’ll just find you’re relying on take away for the week.”
“It’s not just about consuming water, but it is about consuming some water with electrolytes.”
Episode Resources
Jessica Spendlove Website – www.jessicaspendlove.com
Jessica Spendlove Keynotes – JessicaspendloveKeynotes – Jessica Spendlove
The High-Performance Profile Quiz https://jessicaspendlove.com/quiz/
Jess Spendlove Instagram https://www.instagram.com/jess_spendlove_dietitian/?hl=en
Jess Spendlove LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-spendlove-64173bb8/
About Your Host
Jessica Spendlove | Wellbeing Speaker & High Performance Strategist
Jess Spendlove is an international wellbeing and high performance speaker, coach, and advisor. With over 15 years of experience across corporate leadership, elite sport and the military she is known for helping ambitious leaders and teams optimise energy, build resilience, and sustain peak performance.
As one of Australia’s leading performance dietitians and a trusted voice in executive wellbeing, Jess delivers science-backed strategies that empower individuals, teams and organisations to thrive under pressure and achieve long-term success.
Episode Transcript
The following transcript has been automatically generated and not checked for accuracy
Jess (00:08.334)
Welcome to another episode of Stay At The Top. This week, I am talking eight health hacks that busy humans, so every single one of you listening, can walk away and implement to gain more energy, more vitality, and just to elevate the way that you’re operating. Now, when you hear the term hack, I know some people will think, I love a hack and be attracted to the episode.
but there might also be the people out there who don’t like the term hack. So I thought it was important to set the scene from the start on what I mean by the term hack. So for me, a hack is just a simple strategy or a shortcut that you can use that is cost effective or free to improve your health. My health hacks are grounded in science and they are evidence -based strategies. So they’re not just,
the latest trend that I’ve seen on the internet or some BS fad, absolutely not. For those who listen and know what I’m about, I am about simple effective strategies that can seriously elevate your wellbeing, your performance and your longevity. So every single one of these strategies, I’m gonna be talking about eight today, they are grounded in science.
Jess (01:33.103)
So on that note, let’s get into the eight health hacks that busy humans can implement with ease.
Jess (01:51.855)
So to kick things off today, hack number one is to have electrolytes first thing in the morning. Now, I know some of you out there won’t be drinking any water until much later on in the morning. There are others who probably like to start their day with a coffee, but if we can approach the morning as an opportunity to hydrate,
And to hydrate as effectively as possible, we wanna be consuming electrolytes. Now, an electrolyte based drink is something that contains sodium, magnesium and potassium. But the main electrolyte I wanna zoom in on here today is sodium. Now, when we sleep, we lose about 500 ml to a litre of water each night. So we become dehydrated.
When we sleep, we each lose between 500 mL to a litre of fluids each night. Now, I’m sure all of you have noticed when you wake up in the morning that your first wee is likely the darkest one. Now, the goal is that we still wanna be going to bed as hydrated as possible. Now, I’ll caveat that by saying we don’t wanna be necessarily.
Guzzling water before we go to bed because I’m sure for those who have they will find that they’re waking up more frequently throughout the night So having a strategy on how to optimally hydrate is a really effective way to elevate how you feel each day both cognitively and physically Because our hydration has such an important influence and factor on every single physiological or metabolic function
particularly our brain which is more than 73 % water. But the next point that I really want to talk about here is that it’s not just about consuming water but it is about consuming some water with electrolytes and in particular sodium and in particular at the start of the day. Now we’ve all heard the narrative that we need to be mindful of sodium and we need to reduce sodium which
Jess (04:00.688)
That has really come from people with chronic disease, people with hypertension, people eating really high levels of sodium in the diet, but the people that I work with and the people that are in my community, these are people who eat pretty well. They eat largely whole foods, diets. They don’t necessarily consume a lot of sodium and that narrative doesn’t actually really serve them. Now the thing with sodium is it actually has a really important role in
Fluid balance now what fluid balance means is the amount of water that we retain so it’s not just about consuming the fluids But it’s also about how much we retain and how much we don’t lose so what we consume being water verse electrolytes as well as how we consume it as in drinking regularly across the day or Going long periods of time and then guzzling large volumes
will determine how much we then retain of that water. So if you’re just drinking water and you’re drinking in big amounts but not frequently across the day, you are going to be urinating out more water than what someone who is drinking more consistently and also consuming some of their water with electrolytes and in particular sodium. So one of the best health hacks that you could do to start your day,
to start your day hydrated and to also start your day retaining the water that you consume is to start the morning with a glass or a bottle of electrolytes. Now, I would absolutely love for you to give it a go. This is one of my top tips I use with my coaching clients. So I am letting you in on a top secret here today. So I am letting you in on one of my top strategies today. And when you start to implement this,
the benefits in terms of how you feel, your energy, your cognitive, your energy, your focus, your productivity, it really ripples into every aspect of your life, your digestion, also how you feel when you train, because if we’re hydrated, how you train, because if you dehydrated and you’re training at a high intensity, then your heart is actually having to work harder to pump that blood around because it is thicker.
Jess (06:21.489)
So what we call the viscosity, which is kind of the thickness of a liquid, is impacted when it comes to our blood by our hydration levels. So there’s a whole heap of information and bits and pieces there on why I want you to start your morning with electrolytes, but that is health hack number one here today.
Jess (06:45.265)
The second health hack is to get yourself sorted the night before. So whether that is to pack your clothes, whether that is for my people who train in the morning, whether that’s even just for someone going to work, have your clothes out the night before. Also pack your lunch for the next day the night before. If you’re working out in the morning, save time for future you. Also, if you struggle to get out of bed by packing it the night before, it just removes one thing that you have to do.
And also if you’re trying to create a new routine, like maybe you’re someone who wants to train in the morning before they go to work, or they’re inconsistent and they want to commit to mornings, remove this unnecessary step for yourself first thing in the morning. Set it out the night before, so all you have to do is get up, get changed, and get out the door. When it comes to food, regardless of whether you’re someone who starts work early or does shift work,
or even if you’re just someone again who is maybe thinking A, for my health or B, for budget or for both of those reasons, I wanna be taking food to work with me. But maybe this is not something that you have down pat. And if you’re relying on yourself in the morning to do that, when the morning is already maybe a little bit chaotic and you find yourself running around, maybe you’re snoozing your alarm, that type of thing, again, think about future you the night before and it will.
and your future you will thank you if you get prepared and you pack your food the night before. So whether it’s about creating a routine, if you’re doing leftovers, packing it as you’re kind of dishing out the dinner or when you finish dinner, it really is up to the individual. But I can’t emphasize enough, if you can get organized the night before, that is going to serve future you.
and it is helping set your day up and having your morning feeling prepared and planned and intentional, which really is about you being proactive and that helps you run the day rather than being reactive and have the day run you.
Jess (08:57.553)
My third health hack for you here today is a goodie. I really like this one. And it is to have an alarm for when you go to bed. Now, I know what you’re thinking. Why would I do that? Hear me out here. Most people have an alarm to wake up in the morning, which, you know, we…
Goes off and a lot of people snooze which if you’re doing we really want to try and prevent that we want to Maximize our sleep and when it goes off get us up so we don’t feel as groggy but if that’s you in the morning I Want you to reflect on the question of? Do you go to bed at a time that you’re happy with? Do you consistently go to bed at the same time or are you someone who gets sucked into watching another Netflix episode or?
Maybe if you’ve got a family, maybe you’ve put the kids to bed and that’s your you time. Or maybe you, hopefully not, but if you have a young family, maybe when they go to bed you’re checking your emails or doing work, which everyone has their own work routine and I’m not here to say anything otherwise, but we need to understand that it can be really quite easily, whether it’s emails in the nighttime or another Netflix episode or whatever it might be to get sucked into that.
and all of a sudden we lose track of the time. We lose track of the time and we’ve stayed up an hour or an hour and a half longer than what we wanted to and then we’re already on the back foot for the next day. The other thing with that which people are probably aware of, the other thing with that is that when we are on any screen in the night time, whether that’s we’re watching TV, we’re on the computer, we’re on the iPad, we’re on the phone,
we are exposing ourselves to blue light and when we’re exposing ourselves to any light, not just blue light, it can be any light, it can be light from light globes or lamps or anywhere that we’re getting light in the evening, that is blocking melatonin production, which is our sleepy hormone, which we trigger and that starts to prompt us getting tired and getting ready to go to bed. So by having an…
Jess (11:13.65)
So by having an alarm that is a trigger for you to go to bed, that is going to help prevent you watching that extra Netflix episode or getting sucked into being on your phone or if you’re working late at night, that type of thing. So it really just serves as a circuit breaker so when you hear it go off, that you’re more prompted to stick to the routine or the schedule that you have set for yourself.
Now obviously there’s an element of you having a boundary, but by having that circuit breaker there and hearing it, you have to consciously make your decision to either stop or keep going. Whereas it’s quite easy when we’re just watching a show, we get sucked into the next episode because you know, it kicks off straight away. Or it’s quite easy if we’re doing, you know, work late at night because that’s what works for our flow or our rhythm or just the live stage that we’re at.
can be really easy to get sucked in. So I am a big fan of promoting an alarm before going to bed, particularly if you’re someone who, like I said, struggles to go to bed at the same time or you wanna go to bed earlier or you wanna create more of a consistent routine. And I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, I fundamentally believe to win the day, it is about winning the night. So let’s not focus on setting the alarm in the morning, let’s focus on setting an alarm at night.
to start to create that behaviour the night before.
Jess (13:47.028)
Okay, so health hack number four is to book all of your exercise classes at the start of the week or to have them as reoccurring time. So we are just removing decision fatigue. Now I know there’ll be my people listening who are really good with routine and they’ve got their set weeks and they just follow that and they found that rhythm that works for them.
But I also know there’s a lot of people who don’t have that. They maybe want that, maybe just based on their life phase that they’re at, maybe their work circumstances have changed and they just haven’t found this consistent rhythm. And one of the things that can fall over is how often we’re exercising or training. Now, by booking our classes or whatever movement we’re doing for the week,
at least at the start of the week, we’re seriously reducing decision fatigue. We know as the days and the week goes on, we get more tired and if we’re relying on things like dedication and willpower, then that isn’t what’s going to serve us because as we get tired, as we have other things that pop up, last minute that might seem like more of a priority, then that might take the place. Whereas if we’ve made the commitment, it’s in our diary, it’s blocked out.
then we made that commitment to ourselves. We’ve created a system and a structure and we’re going to do our absolute best to stick to that. Now, this also helps remove the guesswork, which I think is really important. And as I said, it’s not about thinking the night before and making that decision. What you want to do is just to start to create a rhythm and a system and a routine that works for you. Now, again, depending on the life phase that you’re at, it might not be possible for you to commit to the same
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, whatever it might be schedule. But what you might need is a few variations of that. And this is really what I talk about when I talk about creating consistency and the inconsistency because exercise and movement is undeniably a sustainable high performance strategy. It is one of the best ways that we can elevate how we feel performance function every single day now.
Jess (16:10.293)
It reduces stress, it improves mental wellbeing, but it also sets us up for later on in life. It significantly can, if we’re regularly moving, it significantly can reduce the risk of certain chronic diseases. So finding ways to get movement in our day delivers so much value now and for future use. So.
It really is finding a rhythm that works for you. And one thing that I have so many people tell me is that they thrive on a routine. But there are a few different types of people out there in the world. There are those who can easily find a routine and they can execute it. And that’s great for them. But there are a lot of people who struggle with that.
There are a lot of people who struggle with that, which can be for a number of different reasons. So if you’re someone who thrives on routine, but you don’t currently have one that works for you right now, or if you have struggled in this area, but you want to create something that feels more supportive, that feels easy for you to implement and stick to, that considers your life and your goals.
This is a big part of what my new group program launching late in May. We’re getting close when this episode comes out. So if that is sounding like something that you want, that’s something that’s going to be supportive, something that’s going to help every other area of your life feel easier, feel elevated. If this is time for you to start prioritizing yourself and pouring into your own health and wellbeing and not just pouring into everyone else like you typically do.
then I’d love for you to check out the details in my show notes, join the waitlist and see if it’s a good fit for you.
Jess (18:06.102)
Health hack number five, which is in a similar, health hack number five is.
Okay, moving on to health hack number five. So this one is grocery shopping online. Now, if doing the grocery shopping is a punish or something that you’re not consistent with, or you constantly find that towards the end of the week, you’re running out of things, then this could be a really great way to improve this area, but also save you time.
and also potentially save you money. So if you’re someone who when they do their shop or their midweek shop and they’re going in and they’re not planned and they’re just grabbing anything that’s there or if you’re going in a little bit hungry and you’re getting tempted by the smells and the smells and the specials, then this could be a really great way for you to just get what you need, save yourself time and also…
put a really great health hack in place. Admittedly, this is something that I do very regularly, if not weekly. And this is a byproduct of a few things. One, it’s just the time factor. And two, it’s also because where I live, I live right in the city and there isn’t actually…
there isn’t actually a lot of shopping centers close by. So even though they might not be that far away, parking is quite challenging and it’s always just honestly a frustration whenever I do go. So, and it is often a frustration trying to find a parking spot then having to walk with all the groceries. So.
Jess (19:50.549)
Doing the grocery shopping online has really simplified that process for me. And for anyone following me along on Instagram, I was recently in Thailand and at the lounge before coming home, I did my grocery shop. And that honestly is a game changer. Having your groceries turn up as you turn up is just one less thing. Particularly if you get home on a Sunday like I did, you’re going back to work the next day.
And you know what it’s like, whether you’ve had a busy weekend, whether you’ve had a lot of commitments, whether, I don’t know, a spanner’s gone in the works and you haven’t gotten around to doing your grocery shopping. Once the week starts, as good as your intentions might be to go to the shops and stock up, often you’ll just find that you’re relying on Uber Eats or Takeaway or whatever it is for the week. So the grocery shop online can be a game changer. Now, the one thing I will say is this does mean you’re relying on other people and they might…
they might not take as much care with exactly what they’re choosing. So you will need to test out different like supermarkets or providers. I’ve definitely tested them all out and I’ve got some that I prefer over others. But the other thing you can do there is you can just purchase your own fresh produce, figure out what’s gonna work for you and from where, and then you can purchase things that are not necessarily up to the individual, maybe more like the…
laundry stuff or the cleaning and maybe anything packaged that you might be getting. So that can be a really great way to get the best of both worlds there. The six health hacks, similarly still talking about nutrition is when you have a busy week considering what else you can outsource. And in particular, I’m talking about meals here. So as I…
As I gave the example with the grocery shopping online, if we don’t get that shopping on the weekend or at the start of the week, we are then really on the back foot and probably buying most of our food across the week, which most people don’t want to be doing, whether that’s from a cost point of view. Obviously, when we’re buying foods, it’s different to us making it and having full control over what goes into it. So.
Jess (21:59.094)
One really great thing you can do is to think about, okay, well, I’ve got a busy week or a busy few weeks or the back end of my week, which normally I find myself ordering meals. Well, maybe I’ll do my shop for the start of the week. And then for the back end of the week, I’ll be proactive and I’ll order some meals. So some of my favorite companies that I personally use and recommend are Hartley Health, which are really good for ready -made meals.
and also dynamic, who I also really like for their ready -made meals, but also their pouches. I’ve got these pouches which serve two people, which is really the protein. And then you can be responsible for whether you have that with some rice, some vegetables, some salad. So there’s still an element of preparation. And I find that’s a really good sweet spot that a lot of people like to be in. And it’s just outsourcing and controlling and being intentional with.
probably the portion of the meal which is the most difficult which is the protein.
Jess (23:06.456)
Now my seventh health hack is high protein snacks. So one is high protein snacks. Now this is a huge opportunity for a lot of people to improve with their nutrition and in particular their snacks. So some of you might need one a day, some of you might need two. That’s totally up to you and what your life looks like and your appetite and your energy budget and all of that. But if you can focus on having a snack,
that is high protein, that has at least 10 grams, ideally 15 to 20, but at least 10, then what you are doing there is you are stabilizing your appetite, you’re giving yourself nutrients that are the most satiating, which means the most filling, and in particular, if you do that in the afternoon, because we know that lunch and dinner is typically the biggest gap across the day,
that is going to help you stabilize your energy in the afternoon. It’s gonna help you manage your appetite, which will help you stabilize your blood sugar levels. And it will also have you getting to dinner feeling hungry but not starving. Because what I see a lot of people doing who don’t get this spread across the day, like what I’m talking about, and in particular, missing that higher protein afternoon snack, they tend to have a really large dinner, which is twice the size of lunch.
or they’ll have their dinner and then they’re snacking around it before and after, or maybe they’re craving sweet foods. So it could be one of those, it could be a few of those. So if you intentionally insert a high protein afternoon snack in the afternoon, which might look like something like a soy yogurt, it might look like a high protein dairy -based yogurt, it could be a smoothie with either whey protein or a plant protein, it could be things like tuna.
Anything like that would be a really great option to get an adequate amount of protein, satisfy yourself, be pretty easy and pretty cost effective and it will have you feeling so much better in the afternoon when it comes to like I said your energy, your appetite, your focus and also just how you’re feeling towards the end of the day. And the other thing it will also help set your sleep up for success. So sleep and how you feel in the
Jess (25:29.049)
the next day, sorry, it will also help set your sleep up for success. Now, there’s a whole different, it’ll also help set your sleep up for success because you’ll be able to have your dinner a few hours, just scrap that salmon, just have it finishing, it helps set your sleep up for success.
Jess (25:52.473)
Now moving on to the last health hack, which is enforcing a boundary when it comes to your phone. Now, so many of us can be better with this, myself included, and I’ve been playing around with quite a few different options here.
The last health hack is enforcing a boundary when it comes to your phone. Now, what this can look like is you setting or creating a structure or a boundary, which is you don’t check your phone before or after this time. Now, that is relying obviously on yourself to stick to that and that can be really challenging. But the great thing is there’s so many different ways that we can actually go about doing that. So.
One thing is we can obviously switch our phone off or we can flick it onto aeroplane mode if we’re wanting to get into deep work. But the great thing is also that a lot of smartphones now have like the do not disturb mode where you can go into the focus and you can set up different times and different days where you are not to be disturbed. Now, the great thing about that compared to aeroplane mode is that it can still allow.
certain people to call through. So if you need to have your parents or your partner or your children or whatever it might be, you can obviously have them in there so they can get through. But otherwise you’re not available to be disturbed. Now that can be really helpful for a lot of people. One, it can be for work and if you want to get into deep work. The other thing can be obviously if you want to create a boundary around getting to bed and not being on your phone and if people tend to call you late at night.
no one tries to contact me at night that knows me very well they know I’m a morning person and honestly if it’s after like about 6 30 or 7 o ‘clock you’re not going to hear from me if you message me or call me you’ll hear from me the next day so that’s just what works for me. The other really interesting thing is even if you switch your phone off on aeroplane mode or you have it on do not disturb and this is more around work that research has actually shown re –
Jess (27:57.114)
Research from the University of Texas has actually found that even the presence of a smartphone, even if it’s turned off, can reduce cognitive capacity and impair concentration. So it’s nearly like our brain just knows that it’s there and it’s kind of tempted to look and, you know, it’s that addiction and the dopamine and all of the things that we know about the phone and why we’re drawn to it. So if you can move your phone into another room, so I’m recording this at home.
and my phone is in a different room because even if I have my phone on my desk, I know this fact or this, I know this fact and I’ll even observe it on myself. If the phone’s there, I can just nearly feel like I’m looking out the corner of my eye at my phone. So I’d really encourage you to do that, but particularly around not being on your phone or social media first thing in the morning and last thing at night.
in terms of setting our day up, our focus up, our productivity, allowing us to wind down, not having that blue light blocking the melatonin that I touched on before. This would be a really great health hack for you to put into place to elevate how you feel, perform, and function. So just to quickly recap, we’ve got the eight health hacks for busy humans that I’ve covered off here today. One is electrolytes first thing in the morning. Two, we wanna pack our clothes and or our food the night before.
Three, we wanna have an alarm to go to bed, if that’s something we struggle with. Four, we wanna book our exercise classes at the start of the week or have a reoccurring setting, sort of remove that decision fatigue. Five is grocery shopping online and the benefits of that. Six was if we have a busy week or a busy period, thinking about meals that we can order just to be proactive in that space as well. Seven was high protein snacks, one or two of them a day.
and the last one was enforcing a boundary with our phone. That’s all for this week guys. I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode. If you have, I would absolutely love for you to share it with a friend or share it on social media. I’ve had quite a few people messaging me on Instagram and LinkedIn lately telling me how that much they like the podcast, which honestly means so much. It’s great to know there’s people out there getting a lot of value from it. If you haven’t subscribed, please do that. That will mean that you don’t miss an episode when it’s released each week.
Jess (30:21.083)
And otherwise team, I will be back again next week sharing more tips, tactics, sharing more tips and tactics grounded in science that are not only gonna help you reach the top, but of course what we want is to sustainably sit, is to sustainably stay there. I’ll catch you all again next week.