Optimize Your Energy Levels

An Integral Study Guide to Mitochondrial Health and Optimal Cellular Respiration

Sep 04, 2022

Greetings, dear reader, and welcome to the Integral Fitness guide to optimizing your energy levels! This article, like my others, is written as a “Cliff Notes” or “SparkNotes” style study guide. It is a distillation of those elements which current research and praxis have determined to be most integral to optimizing energy levels. Enjoy!

Of course, numerouus interrelated factors contribute to optimizing energy levels. For a complete and holistic approach one must take into account the concepts that have already been covered in these previous posts linked here for convenience:

Also watch for these related future posts which also contribute to optimizing our enery levels:

The Integral Guide to Proper Sleep & Restoration
The Integral Guide to Water
The Integral Guide to Fasting
Optimize Your Movement (Physical Exercise)

In this article we will be focusing on factors specific to mitochondrial health and energy production.

Aerobic respiration constitutes the largest source of our energy, can utililze all three macronutrients (carbohydrates, proteins and fats), and is dependant upon the health and number of our mitochondria. The factors listed below have all been shown to be highly effective at improving our mitochondrial health thus leading to improved energy production as well as improved overall health and greater vitality.

Exercise

All types of aerobic and anarobic exercise improve mitochondrial health and some form of both should be incorporated into your Integral Life Practice. However, one form of exercise has been shown to be especially effective:

HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) -

HIIT seems to reverse the age related decline in mitochondrial function
Study participants, ages 18-30, who engaged in HIIT had a 49-percent increase in mitochondrial function, while an older group of HIIT participants, ages 65-80, saw a 69 percent increase.
HIIT also increased protein synthesis and triggered the growth of new muscle, helping counteract the inevitable muscle loss that comes with aging. In fact, some age-related deterioration of muscle cells was actually reversed.
the HIIT group showed the best results at the cellular level.

Example HIIT Protocols:

Tabata: 20 sec of ultra-fast rowing alternated with 10 seconds of relaxed recovery rowing, for a total of 8 intervals, or 4 minutes.
30:30: 30 seconds of high-intensity exercise followed by 30 seconds of lower intensity for active recovery repeated for 6-10 minutes.
30-20-10: in this format, work intervals are organized into 60-second increments. The first 30 seconds is low-intensity, then 20 seconds of moderate-intensity followed by 10 seconds of an all-out, high-intensity work effort. End with 10-15 seconds of rest before repeating.

Carbohydrate Regulation

See Optimize Your Insulin Levels

Intermittent Hypoxic Training (IHT)

See Optimize Your Breathing

Fasting

Research has suggested that fasting may enhance the mediators that promote mitochondrial biogenesis (creating new mitochondria) and improve mitochondrial function.

There are a variety of ways to incorporate fasting into your lifestyle. Dr. Eric Berg and Dr. Jason Fung are excellent resources in researching this topic further.

A future post The Integral Guide to Fasting will cover fasting in greater detail.

Cold Exposure

Catering to comfort in constant climate controlled environments has been linked to obesity and related disorders. Even mild, non-shivering cold exposure has been shown to:

Activate Brown Adipose Tissue (BAT, metabloically active fat tissue which increases our basal rate of caloric burn)
Improve circulation by keeping the peripheral vascular system in motion
Shrink tumors
Make one less vulnerable to drastic cold spells which is often a problem for those with cardiovascular disease, pulmonary disease and cancer
Contribute to healthy aging

Similar to exercise traing you should practice frequent temperature training. This can be accomplished through:

Cold water plunges or showers of 30 seconds to 3 minutes duration
Lowering ambient tempurature in living and working envirnoments
Spending lots of time outdoors in clothing that is light yet adequate and that lets the body do some of the work of generating its own heat

Nutrition

A number of supplements have shown to benefit mitochondrial health and cellular respiration and energy production. Use this list as reference for further research:

A potent multivitamin to ensure adequate amounts of B1, B3, B7, B2, magnesium, potassium, CoQ10, zinc, copper
Whey Protein Isolate
NAD+ and Nicotinamde riboside (NR)
Polyphenols (cloves, peppermint, cocoa powder, dark chocolate, berries, apples, beans, walnuts, almonds, artichoke, chicory, red onion, spinach, black and green tea just to name a few)
Resveratrol (red grapes, pistachios, cocoa powder, dark chocolate, berries)
Green tea
Berberine
Curcumin
Ginseng
Cinnamon
Alpha-lipoic acid

Many of the above nutritional supplements can be purchased through my Thorne affiliate account. Discounts are available for my Substack readers upon request. Simply contact me through my coaching site linked at very bottom.

Finally we must be mindful of and strive to mitigate factors that have been found to be associated with increased mitochondrial damage. These include the following:

Nutrient deficiencies
Environmental toxins - Specifically, Persistent Organic Pollutants (aka “Forever Chemicals”) which include many pesticides or insecticides, solvents, pharmaceuticals (see bleow), and industrial chemicals.
Oxidative damage - This is caused by such things as smoking, alcohol consumption, inappropriate diet, excessive or lack of exercise, lack of antioxidants
Many prescription drugs - Drug classes identified to cause mitochondrial toxicity are anti-diabetic drugs (thiazolidinediones, fibrates, biguanides), cholesterol lowering drugs (statins), anti-depressants (SARIs), pain medications (NSAIDs), certain antibiotics (fluroquinolones, macrolide), and anti-cancer drugs (kinase inhibitors and anthracyclins).
Alcohol - bears repeating as alcohol impairs mitochondrial function, which further increases oxidative stress in the cell, leading to a vicious cycle of accumulating cell damage that is more apparent with advancing age.

This information is not meant to be comprehensive but rather to be used as a foundation and study guide to support your own further research and experimentation. See link below if you’d like to consider personalized fitness & nutrition guidance.

Thanks for reading and I welcome your comments below!

INTEGRAL FITNESS – BE HEALTHY, HAPPY AND HELPFUL!

For list offerings of online fitness/nutrition coaching services see:

Integral Fitness LLC

Integral Fitness