How to get more energy to exercise

1. Change your sleep hygiene.

If you feel like you're too tired to exercise, it's a good idea to take a look at your sleep hygiene — the habits that affect the quality and quantity of your sleep, according to Swetha Gogineni, assistant clinical professor in pulmonology, critical care, and sleep medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Experts recommend a few guidelines for healthy sleep:

• Make sure you go to sleep and wake up at roughly the same time every day, including on weekends and vacations
• Limit your screentime an hour or two before bed
• Ensure your bedroom is dark, cool, and quiet
• Avoid caffeine, alcohol, and nicotine close to bedtime
• Create a routine that helps you relax and wind down, such as taking a bath, reading a book, or meditating

Most healthy adults should sleep between seven and nine hours each night. "A lot of times, we conflate our time in bed with our time sleeping, but it's important that you get those hours of actual sleep," Gogineni said.

If you still feel like you're waking up tired, talk to a healthcare provider, as this could be a sign of a disorder like sleep apnea or restless leg syndrome, Gogineni added.

2. Try having some carbs or caffeine (or both) right before you work out.

Strategically timing a snack before you exercise can help boost energy, Klein writes. At least an hour before you plan to exercise, try to eat around a gram of carbohydrate per kilogram of your body weight, which is around 0.5 grams of carbs per pound of your body weight.

According to Michael Stack, president of the Physical Activity Alliance, these should be simple, easily digestible carbs like bananas, toast, cereal, or even a sports drink.

Caffeine can also be helpful. Research has found that getting between three to six milligrams of caffeine per kilogram of your body weight — or around one to three milligrams per pound — around an hour before exercise can improve your performance in that workout.

"Most people don't need that much to start," Stack said. "In doses of somewhere between 100 to 200 milligrams, caffeine can help improve energy for any form of exercise." He added that a safer, more practical approach is to start in this range and adjust as needed; however, Stack also noted that you should make sure you're not using caffeine so late in the day that it interferes with your sleep. And, if caffeine upsets your stomach or makes you feel jittery, you can skip it.

3. Take a quick nap.

Some research has found that a 30- to 90-minute nap can improve athletic performance. However, ensure that your nap happens before 2 or 3 p.m., Gogineni said.

"The longer a nap is, and the later in the day the nap is, the harder it is to fall asleep at night, and this can often lead to people getting into a pattern of minimal sleep at night and playing catch up with naps during the day," she said.

5. Figure out your recovery strategy.

Your body needs time to recover after exercising, and if it doesn't, you'll likely feel tired. "We tend to see a lot of people, particularly when they're beginning their exercise journey, who exercise at too much intensity, and as a result, they don't recover for their next workout," Stack said.

Generally speaking, if you did an intense workout one day, you should plan to take it easy the next day. You don't have to be sedentary, but that could look like opting for something a little less intense than whatever you did the day prior.

6. Ensure you're eating enough calories each day.

Calories, especially carbohydrates, are what your body needs to make energy, Stack said. If you're exercising to lose or maintain weight, or if you're too busy to prepare nutritious meals, you might be tired because you're not eating enough.

Track what you eat for a few days and see how many calories you're consuming. Even on extreme weight-loss diets, women shouldn't fall below 1,200 calories per day and men shouldn't fall below 1,500 calories per day.

Stack also recommended trying an online calculator to determine what an ideal number of calories and carbohydrates are for you each day.

If you adjust your calorie intake and still feel tired, it could be worth checking in with a professional. "There's a sweet spot that allows you to exercise with adequate intensity to improve your health and still lose weight," Stack said. "That takes a little bit of calibrating, so working with a registered dietitian would be really helpful."

7. Be kind to yourself.

It's often easy to be discouraging, saying things like "I'm too tired to exercise," but Stack recommends focusing on the positive instead. "Reframe that to, 'If I exercise, I'll actually feel better and have more energy afterward,'" he said.

And if you skip a workout, don't give up. All-or-nothing thinking is one of the reasons people stop exercising entirely, so it's important to pat yourself on the back for when you do workout and not worry about the times you don't.

"It's important to have some degree of acceptance around the fact that you won't always feel like exercising," Stack said.