The Best Breakfast to Boost Alertness and Energy

This sugar-free recipe helps people wake up, shake grogginess, and face the day more productively

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Key ingredients in any recipe for daytime alertness, energy level and an upbeat mood include good sleep and lots of physical activity. No surprise there. But a new study finds a lesser-known yet important ingredient that can spice up your mornings: Eating a healthy breakfast high in complex carbohydrates and low in sugar.

“If you sleep longer or later, you’re going to see an increase in your alertness. If you do more physical activity on the day before, you’re going to see an increase,” said Raphael Vallat, PhD, a neuroscientist and sleep researcher at the University of California, Berkeley. And, he said, “A breakfast rich in [complex] carbohydrates can increase alertness, so long as your body is healthy and capable of efficiently disposing of the glucose from that meal.”

(Diabetics need to be particularly careful with their diets, since their bodies struggle to properly process and regulate glucose. People with metabolic syndrome should also watch their carb intake carefully.)

Brain fuel

Plenty of existing evidence indicates the importance of a healthy breakfast, which jumpstarts physical and…