I am a student, work part time, am athletic and a very informed eater. I've tried SO many things to minimize sleepiness after meals, esp mid day and although I have never eliminated it, from personal experience a few noticeable things have made a positive difference.
One thing that makes it worse is disturbed/poor sleep from the night before. If I don't sleep well, I seriously struggle to stay awake the next day after lunch which cafn last for up to two hours. If I sleep well, then it's more of a drowsiness which lasts up to an hour after meals, annoying, but not so debilitating.
Another big thing, I enjoy exercising (running, professional dancing, weights) vigorously almost every evening of the week. Frankly, without exercise, I just don't sleep well which makes post meal/lunch sleepiness a real chronic problem. Over-exercising (any extreme) also causes sleep and concentration problems for me.
I've tried elimination diets, which had very little result except to drain my mental energy. The only thing that really helps is to enjoy frequent moderate sized meals with a variety of food choices. I notice that complex carbs (whole grains) noticeably helps me to endure the day for longer without that post meal "crash".
Sometimes a crisis, i.e. an assignment deadline or conflict, stimulates me so that I can drive right through the post meal drowse, but come 5-6pm and my mental energy just "dies". Once I've pushed myself during the day, then that's it - I have to relax - exercise... Also, I really have tried to discipline myself to do stuff in the evenings after an intense day. Inevitably, my productivity drops the next day and the two hour, post lunch sleepiness returns. I'm gradually accepting that I have only a certain amount of productivity in any given day and try to achieve a work-life balance so as to avoid the extremes that cause that sleepiness. Still, if anyone else has any other answers...
EUREKA EUREKA!!! :)) I have been strugling with this problem, I must say it got much worse, since lifting weigths back in college days in A2, Michigan...... Last few years I have been back at home in Turkey (country one :)) . Traditionally, we drink black tea w one or two cubes of sugar in tiny glass cups whole day long (I use couple cubes of sugar per cup).. 10-15 cups a day.. Recently, I started writing some stuff in Starbucks and been drinkin black coffee wo sugar till lunch at about 2pm, having breakfast by 9 am... And I started having increadible drowsiness after lunch... BTW, a few months ago i had my blood glucos level checked w suguar loadin and it came out normal... So my coclusion is that those couple cubes of sugar were keeping my blood glucose levels up and relatively steady which in turn prevented a peak after havin lunch... Havin a huge peak is the main problem. İf u dont drink tea, have sugar cubes w u and eat couple of them every 30 min or so.. Optimize for urself.. I hope that would solve ur problem too...
I have only been filling like I have been so drowsy after meals since my doctor started taking me off Clonidine. I have a Codman infusion pump and my doctor added 25 mcg's per cc/ ml and I get 1/2 cc/ ml per day. I was on 75 mcg's per cc/ml or 37.5 mcg's per day and on Feb 6, 2013 I was reduced to 50 mcg's per cc/ml or 25 mcg's per day and I am totally exhausted and lethargic all the day long and if I eat anything, and it doesn't matter what or how much I eat, I start falling asleep with so much drowsiness that I can only stay awake to drive or do anything. Sometimes I don't even realize I've fallen asleep. I never had this before and now I am worried.
Yes, there is something wrong with you but you can fix it!! What are you eating? When are you eating it? and are you over eating? If you eat healthy and the right portions during your active part of the day not after 6pm then you should feel energized!! But if your eating loads of carbs; you will get sleepy fast!! But also check with your doctor you may have a gluten allergy!!
I have checked my blood sugar levels and they are normal, I have been in the process of getting off Clonidine. My doctor and I narrowed it down to that. It doesn't matter whether I eat or not, unless I drink 18-24 cups of coffee a day, I can't stay awake. On March 4, 2013 I had my blood drawn and I am still waiting on the results. I am a male so its not hormonal but my doctor did a testosterone check anyway. I didn't start going through this until February 6, 2013, my infusion pump doctor had ordered a reduction of Clonidine and it was supposed to be reduced from 37.5 micrograms per day to 25 micrograms. Again on March 6, 2013 I was reduced from 25 micrograms to 12.5 micrograms a day and I am still fighting to stay awake. If I don't drink coffee, which I hadn't drank for years, I will pass out. I am really starting to get worried.
Nappiness = low energy, so have some fruit for breakfast, and don't burn more carbs than you eat. If I have only half the recommended amount of carbs (150 grams), then I will probably need a nap during the day - unless I let my metabolism slow down to conserve energy. Or if I have like 250 grams of carbs but am too mentally or physically active, then I'll probably need to go to bed early. And timing is also important, for example, if my supper is low-carb and then the next day I wait too long before having breakfast, I'll be fine only as long as I don't eat a meal that's too energy intensive to digest. This is an answer, not a question by the way, even though it sounds like I'm whining - I'm writing this while digesting a large one. Sweet - I think I just killed two birds with one stone - cure for laziness = eat regularly and don't waste energy thinking so much!?!
You must be quite young n healty... People in this tread are discussing having drowsiness especially after a high carbo meal.. So, problem is not as simple as first law of themodynamics... ;)
Dammit why won't it let me edit my post, I wanted to explain my hypothesis better: The speed of metabolism is iodine and selenium dependent, so if your intake of those is high, then the faster the body processes food and uses the energy from it and therefore the faster it might run out. If that's not enough to cause sleepiness - if you happen to be coming out of a fasting state (ie: sleep), or exercise, both of which increase insulin sensitivity (opposite of insulin resistance), less insulin is required (even though lots is released), escorting glucose into cells too efficiently and therefore resulting in low blood-glucose. Normally that would trigger the glucose release from the liver except that the liver never got restocked with glucose because what you thought was a high-carb meal only re-fueled your starving cells instead and then you ran out - so your body enters a state of shock at the fact that it can't supply enough energy to your vital organs, and knocks you out instead. Then again maybe you're not relaxed enough to digest your food, or there's too little sodium to absorb the glucose from the intestines, so glucose doesn't enter the bloodstream fast enough to prevent the hypoglycemia caused by all the insulin that your body released - which is dependent on the carb content of your last meal instead of how much glucose actually entered the bloodstream (food intake triggers the first phase of insulin release, before the body actually measures your blood-glucose level and releases more insulin if required). I'm sure the parasympathetic nervous system is connected (via the thyroid or something), as well as other things that people mentioned, but I'm no expert and therefore cannot complete the whole "puzzle". But I just go with what works, and what works for me is if I have a lot of carbs after a fasting state - which excites my system away from excessive "rest and digest", and also fuels me for many, productive, hours.
You have a big troble. It causes by T-virus. If you slept, you will turn into a zombie. Keep awake and lock yourself in some where no one can access.
WoW.. KRSB, I am impressed with the level of your knowledge on digestion system. And thank you for sharing. However, as i said be4 u are not having the problem posted here... Hope u never will.. ;)
What? yes I do, or I did anyway, unless my new hypothesis is correct - which I haven't posted yet because I thought I'd test my hypothesees before posting them, for a change. But if it's "eureka" then maybe I'll just boast instead of post - as a punnishment for your pestilence, mwahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Are you feeling rested in the mornings when you get up? If not, you are fighting the need to rest more all day. Once you stop for lunch, your body says "ok, now I can go back to sleep" . Make sure you are getting a good nights sleep for awhile and see if it improves. I have this same problem and it almost always comes down to better sleeping habits. Of course, always check with a physician who is willing to thouroughly check you out for other causes.