Have you noticed how often low energy gets diagnosed as a nutrition problem when it's actually a rhythm problem? You're eating reasonably well, you're not training for an ultramarathon, and yet by 3pm you're reaching for whatever will get you through the next hour. In my clinic that pattern comes up constantly — and the fix usually isn't another supplement.
Why vitality is a system, not a single habit
On me&my health up I spoke with David Lindsay, a keynote speaker on vitality and human performance whose backstory reads like a stress test. He played representative rugby league, had two knee reconstructions by 21, took up professional arm wrestling, then snapped his arm in Greece. The plate they put in to repair it hit a nerve, and his arm went paralysed — while he was working as a gym manager and personal trainer.
What he did next tells you most of what you need to know about him. Once he got some movement back, he didn't stop at relief. He walked into a kung fu school, then tried jiu-jitsu, kickboxing, freestyle wrestling and submission wrestling, and eventually competed in MMA. A wrestling coach pointed out that he had something to teach, and that became the work he does now — coaching everyone from Olympians and first-grade footballers to CEOs and stay-at-home parents.
Out of all of it came a five-step system for improved vitality that you can use the moment you finish reading: snap, nap, tap, clap and recap. What I like about it is that it isn't aspirational. Every step is something you can do in the next ten minutes.
Snap: change your state on purpose
Step one is to snap into action, and it rests on routines and rituals. David's point is that your state isn't something that happens to you — it's something you can trigger deliberately, the way a fighter walks out to the same song every single time.
Music is his first lever. He was literally caught mid-dance before our recording because he'd queued up a playlist to get himself ready. The useful detail is that it cuts both ways: a playlist to lift you when you're flat, and a different one to settle you when you're wired. Most of us spend serious time commuting. That's free territory for deliberately setting your state rather than letting the day set it for you.
His second lever is posture. The way you sit, stand and move shapes how you feel, how you act and how you perform. Think of the hunched-over-the-phone posture most of us default to, or the rounded shoulders of a long day at a desk, and then contrast it with sitting tall and taking up space. It sounds almost too simple. It also works, and it's free.
Nap: recovery is a skill, not a reward
We are not designed to work around the clock, and David notes something I see constantly with clients working from home: the day stretches. You start at seven because you're already there, you intend to finish at five, and the edges blur until there's no real end to it.
"Nap" doesn't necessarily mean sleeping. It means a genuine break: turning away from the screen, taking a deep breath, getting outside, rehydrating, eating something that will still be working for you in two hours. David's warning about lunch breaks is a good one — don't load up on caffeine and a high-sugar, high-fat pastry, or you buy a spike and then pay for it with the 3pm slump.
He pairs this with the Pomodoro technique, which gives recovery a structure. Set a timer for around 20 minutes. No phone, no email, no interruptions — a mental sprint on one task. When the timer goes, get up, move, drink water, speak to someone. Then do it again, with a longer break every fourth round. He makes the point that your mind trains like a muscle: you wouldn't walk into a gym and bench 100kg cold, so don't expect 40 minutes of unbroken focus on day one.
There's a related trick worth stealing. David uses what's known as the Zeigarnik effect — the mind's tendency to keep chewing on unfinished business. Open loops at work follow you home: did I send that email, did I lock up, did I reply to that call? His answer is a simple end-of-day checklist. Close the loops on paper so your brain can stop holding them, and you'll actually recover.
Tap: stepping back is a strategy
This is the step that earns its place. In grappling, tapping isn't quitting — it's recognising that the current approach isn't working before something breaks. If someone has your arm in an armbar, you can resist to a point, but if you don't tap, you lose the arm.
What happens after the tap is the whole point. You go back to your coach and ask how they got you there, how to escape it, how to reverse it. Next time it's harder for them. Eventually it isn't an issue at all.
Applied to work and life, tapping means stepping back, analysing honestly, realigning and then re-engaging with a different strategy. It also means asking for help — going to your manager or your coach and saying plainly that you're stuck. David is emphatic that a tap isn't a failure to be hidden. You pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and snap back in.
Clap: celebrate effort, not just outcomes
Step four is to clap, and the nuance matters: you're not only celebrating wins, you're celebrating time, effort and dedication. David draws it straight from sport, where a teammate who drops the ball gets picked up rather than kicked while down, because the team knows everyone is working for each other.
Businesses are teams with different vocabulary — bosses and managers instead of coaches and trainers, employees instead of players. And as he puts it, he'll do more for a mate than he'll do for himself. Recognition isn't a soft extra. It's what makes the effort sustainable.
Recap: continuous, never-ending improvement
The fifth step is the one that turns the other four into a loop. After every match and every fight, you sit down, watch the tape and take notes. What worked? Celebrate it. What didn't? Work out why, and what specifically needs improving.
David's coaching instinct here is excellent: as a coach, you don't hand people solutions, you ask questions so they arrive at their own. That's what creates ownership. And once you've recapped, you're straight back to the ritual — snap into action again.
Key takeaways
- Snap: build a ritual that changes your state on command — a playlist for lifting or settling, and a deliberate check on your posture.
- Nap: treat recovery as part of the work. Step away from the screen, get outside, rehydrate, and eat food that doesn't spike you.
- Use the clock: try 20 minutes of single-tasking followed by a real break, with a longer break every fourth round.
- Close your loops: an end-of-day checklist stops work following you home and lets your mind properly switch off.
- Tap early: stepping back and asking for help is a tactic, not a weakness. Then change your approach and re-engage.
- Clap and recap: acknowledge effort as well as results, then review honestly and go again.
Bringing it back to the whole picture
What struck me about David's system is how closely it maps to what I work on with clients from the nutrition and lifestyle medicine side. Energy isn't produced by one input. It comes from the interaction between how you sleep, how you move, how you eat, how you recover and how you think — and if one of those is leaking, the others can't compensate for long.
That's the approach at me&my wellness: holistic, evidence-informed and built around what will actually hold up in your real week rather than an ideal one. Snap, nap, tap, clap and recap is a good place to start, because none of it requires anything you don't already have.
Want to go deeper on this? Book a free 30-minute discovery call with Anthony at meandmywellness.com.au