This describes me 100% !!! Im feeling so helpless...to a point where I just want to cry..... :cry:
Thanks for being bold enough to challenge the incorrect answers. As I was reading through I was a little concerned with some of the responses. As I am sugar sensitive and have been described as 'pre - diabetic' I suffer with extreme tiredness after eating foods. This is lessened by taking protein rather than carbs, but it's not irradicated. You were correct, we need to see a doctor and be tested.
Please remember guys, when giving advice try to include the source of your knowledge. And for those reading advice, please remember everyone tries there best to give advice. Sometimes we have more enthusiasm than knowledge, so study to see if the answer is true. If it's worth worrying about, it's worth the research time and a trip to the GP.
Please remember guys, when giving advice try to include the source of your knowledge. And for those reading advice, please remember everyone tries there best to give advice. Sometimes we have more enthusiasm than knowledge, so study to see if the answer is true. If it's worth worrying about, it's worth the research time and a trip to the GP.
"If you feel sleepy after eating, particularly after sweet or bakery products, you are normal. Eating sugary foods causes your brain to make large amounts of the neurotransmitter, serotonin, that makes people fall asleep naturally at night.
Eating sugary foods or those made from flour, such as bakery products or pastas, causes blood sugar to rise higher than normal. This causes your pancreas to release large amounts of insulin, which drives one of the protein building blocks called tryptophan from your bloodstream into your brain, where it is converted to serotonin that makes you feel sleepy.
Many people can avoid feeling sleepy after eating by restricting foods that are high in sugar and flour. When it is important for you to be alert, eat foods that do not cause a high rise in blood sugar, such as vegetable salads, nuts, seeds, meat, fish or chicken. "
auther is Gabe Mirkin MD
I get sleepy when my blood sugar gets too low too.. so im SCREWED>> lol
Eating sugary foods or those made from flour, such as bakery products or pastas, causes blood sugar to rise higher than normal. This causes your pancreas to release large amounts of insulin, which drives one of the protein building blocks called tryptophan from your bloodstream into your brain, where it is converted to serotonin that makes you feel sleepy.
Many people can avoid feeling sleepy after eating by restricting foods that are high in sugar and flour. When it is important for you to be alert, eat foods that do not cause a high rise in blood sugar, such as vegetable salads, nuts, seeds, meat, fish or chicken. "
auther is Gabe Mirkin MD
I get sleepy when my blood sugar gets too low too.. so im SCREWED>> lol
Ive red throgh this post and i have one tip for you people out there suffering from this tiredness: applecidervinegar. To my experience this this is a thing that actually works because its spikes ur metabolism. Ive tried it myself and found this out but it drives me crazy at the same time because u cant drink it if ur allergic to apples which i am.
I had stummoch issues and the improved a bit also. Ive tried numerous things to resolve this in the past including treatment for crohns, candida diet allergy, diabetes... It seems that my digestions isnt working proberly and therefore causing pain and fatigue and also insomnia at night. Why this is i dont know but applecidervinegar made it better
I had stummoch issues and the improved a bit also. Ive tried numerous things to resolve this in the past including treatment for crohns, candida diet allergy, diabetes... It seems that my digestions isnt working proberly and therefore causing pain and fatigue and also insomnia at night. Why this is i dont know but applecidervinegar made it better
I have also had this 'sleepiness after eating' to various degrees, and it has caused me to re-examine what I am eating and drinking on a daily basis. I would definitely investigate gluten--found especially in wheat--especially for the poster who said she was getting sleepy after eating her Weet-bix. Our bodies change, and she may not be able to handle the same food now that she could when she was a child. Also check out your morning caffeine consumption--one poster said she was drinking 2-3 cups of tea in the morning and then getting tired after lunch--your 'caffeine come down' may be coinciding with the end of your lunch.
Though sleepiness is not listed as a typical allergic response to shrimp or any other food, it may well be just that.
Adrenal exhaustion and thyroid dysfunction are other things to check, as one poster mentioned. The best advice would be to find a good doctor, nutritionist and.or acupuncturist and work with them to find out where your body is out of balance.
Good luck!
Though sleepiness is not listed as a typical allergic response to shrimp or any other food, it may well be just that.
Adrenal exhaustion and thyroid dysfunction are other things to check, as one poster mentioned. The best advice would be to find a good doctor, nutritionist and.or acupuncturist and work with them to find out where your body is out of balance.
Good luck!
Dont worry abt feeling sleepy, its normal process. Dont treat this as a problem or disease and start looking for solution. Whats wrong if u feel sleepy, go and sleep. thats it.. Its always good have a power nap and get rejuvinated. Sleep is a bliss not a disease. Ask those ppl who are not able to sleep at all even in night. so chill and be happy. relax and enjoy the stree free state of life. :-):-)
I will try to keep this with as less scientific jargon as possible.
I was worried about this myself so did some research and experimentation on myself and the result i came upon was the following:
After interviewing alot of ppl i came to conclusion that it happens to everyone, less to the ones that drink coffee... but why?
1 - If i eat little amounts of food say a bread with something in it and a glass of juice, i will feel no sleep at all!
2 - If i eat more than a bread, example, noodles with meat, if its one dish (no grams specified) i will feel imediatly sleepy specialy if the food is hot, if the food is cold i will only experience 1/2 of the sleepyness, the hotter the food the more i feel sleepy.
You probably have noticed that sometimes when its very hot you will feel very sleepy, and if its cold then you will take longer to feel sleepy.
Your body has a regular temperature, when you eat your body will allocate resources that will increase body temperature wich is a subproduct of the digestion process and that heat will build up and add to the heat that your body already has. Some people have probably experienced sweat when they eat, and most likely due to this fact. So the bigger the temperature your body experiences the more you will feel the need to rest/sleep.
Why does it generate heat when you eat?
You are ingesting matter, something material that will have to be transformed into nutrients etc... the apropriate subproducts for your body to use, you might have already learned in your science lessons that breaking down matter or transforming that matter in something that you can use will generate heat.
Things you should not do!
- Dont lie down in bed. Why?
If you lie down in bed and if you eat too much digestion process might stop, if it stops you will prolly feel the need to vomit since some of the food in your stomach hasnt been digested and will have to be expelled either by a nice c**p in the bathroom(sometimes dierria) or by vomit! If you are not able to do this then get a small bottle of water and drink a bit every 10min.
Why does your body makes you want to lie in bed?
- Simple, if you lie down in bed and sleep it will be easier to your body to generate less heat as possible and thus cooling down faster, but like said before dont lie down in bed medics advise a nice walk around the block.
Why should you walk doesnt that generate more heat?
- Yes it does, but it will also use up energy, when you eat you are ingesting energy, too much energy in your body is also a reason for you to feel sleepy, thus why some people say that if they do exercise regularly they wont feel sleepy after a meal and people that dont tend to do exercise will feel sleepy, thats because the ones that do exercise need all energy that they can get and the ones that dont should eat less, because all food that is eaten and not used will be compressed and stored in your body for latter use. Thats a huge problem, our bodies wherent designed to do that, our ancestors used to eat alot because they did alot of physical effort, but our world is changing and we dont need to eat that much anymore since in most jobs you dont do much physical effort and when your body needs energy it will only use the best of what was stored and leave the worst there in the form of fat.
- If you do exercise your body will dissipate most of the energy that you ingest because in order for you to move the muscles of your body you need to spend energy.
Gona shut up now because i dont want to write a book here!
Sorry for the long text and if theres any errors im not english so give me a break :-)
Hope this helped.
I was worried about this myself so did some research and experimentation on myself and the result i came upon was the following:
After interviewing alot of ppl i came to conclusion that it happens to everyone, less to the ones that drink coffee... but why?
1 - If i eat little amounts of food say a bread with something in it and a glass of juice, i will feel no sleep at all!
2 - If i eat more than a bread, example, noodles with meat, if its one dish (no grams specified) i will feel imediatly sleepy specialy if the food is hot, if the food is cold i will only experience 1/2 of the sleepyness, the hotter the food the more i feel sleepy.
You probably have noticed that sometimes when its very hot you will feel very sleepy, and if its cold then you will take longer to feel sleepy.
Your body has a regular temperature, when you eat your body will allocate resources that will increase body temperature wich is a subproduct of the digestion process and that heat will build up and add to the heat that your body already has. Some people have probably experienced sweat when they eat, and most likely due to this fact. So the bigger the temperature your body experiences the more you will feel the need to rest/sleep.
Why does it generate heat when you eat?
You are ingesting matter, something material that will have to be transformed into nutrients etc... the apropriate subproducts for your body to use, you might have already learned in your science lessons that breaking down matter or transforming that matter in something that you can use will generate heat.
Things you should not do!
- Dont lie down in bed. Why?
If you lie down in bed and if you eat too much digestion process might stop, if it stops you will prolly feel the need to vomit since some of the food in your stomach hasnt been digested and will have to be expelled either by a nice c**p in the bathroom(sometimes dierria) or by vomit! If you are not able to do this then get a small bottle of water and drink a bit every 10min.
Why does your body makes you want to lie in bed?
- Simple, if you lie down in bed and sleep it will be easier to your body to generate less heat as possible and thus cooling down faster, but like said before dont lie down in bed medics advise a nice walk around the block.
Why should you walk doesnt that generate more heat?
- Yes it does, but it will also use up energy, when you eat you are ingesting energy, too much energy in your body is also a reason for you to feel sleepy, thus why some people say that if they do exercise regularly they wont feel sleepy after a meal and people that dont tend to do exercise will feel sleepy, thats because the ones that do exercise need all energy that they can get and the ones that dont should eat less, because all food that is eaten and not used will be compressed and stored in your body for latter use. Thats a huge problem, our bodies wherent designed to do that, our ancestors used to eat alot because they did alot of physical effort, but our world is changing and we dont need to eat that much anymore since in most jobs you dont do much physical effort and when your body needs energy it will only use the best of what was stored and leave the worst there in the form of fat.
- If you do exercise your body will dissipate most of the energy that you ingest because in order for you to move the muscles of your body you need to spend energy.
Gona shut up now because i dont want to write a book here!
Sorry for the long text and if theres any errors im not english so give me a break :-)
Hope this helped.
Odds are however, there is nothing wrong with you. Many people do get tired after eating, it depends on your physiology, what you eat, your age, and even the temperature of the meal.
Just be wary of self diagnosing how tired you are after meals.. You will probably only notice when you are tired, and chalk not being tired up as a fluke.
Don't make a mountain out of a molehill and don't be a hypochondriac..
Just be wary of self diagnosing how tired you are after meals.. You will probably only notice when you are tired, and chalk not being tired up as a fluke.
Don't make a mountain out of a molehill and don't be a hypochondriac..
I'm not sure at all what this means, but it is also what I'm trying to find out. Recently my brother has been describing to me and my family that after he eats he gets extremely tired and usually has to sleep afterwards. Most web posts say it could easily be something harmless but there is a chance it could be something dangerous so you should have a doctor look at it just in case......... The problem being, my brother is one of the extremely stubborn people who will not get medical help unless it's something chronic. So my problem is what do i do? It's not like my mom can make him go to a doctor ( he's legally an adult). So if anyone DOES have a clue, please it would be greatly appreciated!
Hello Concernedsister
I'm also 50 and have been plagued with this crash after a meal curse for years.
I have learned to eat a high protein breakfast such as eggs.
I eat protein/fruit smoothies around 10am
I eat diced fruits with chopped almonds and cinnamon several times a day from small containers I pre-pack
I eat diced raw veggies on anything I eat for supper in the evening
I often eat from the small containers to monitor my portion control
Still on Saturday when I don't work I make a snack trip to the kitchen. I eat some tuna salad or chicken salad with two or three chips dipped in guacamole. As soon as I sit down to my study the sleep need crashes. I have to close my eyes for 15 to 30 minutes till I recover. When I recover I'm fine.
If I want to avoid this crash I have to resolve to eat my fruit portions with nuts, berries and smoothies during the day when I need high energy!
I'm also 50 and have been plagued with this crash after a meal curse for years.
I have learned to eat a high protein breakfast such as eggs.
I eat protein/fruit smoothies around 10am
I eat diced fruits with chopped almonds and cinnamon several times a day from small containers I pre-pack
I eat diced raw veggies on anything I eat for supper in the evening
I often eat from the small containers to monitor my portion control
Still on Saturday when I don't work I make a snack trip to the kitchen. I eat some tuna salad or chicken salad with two or three chips dipped in guacamole. As soon as I sit down to my study the sleep need crashes. I have to close my eyes for 15 to 30 minutes till I recover. When I recover I'm fine.
If I want to avoid this crash I have to resolve to eat my fruit portions with nuts, berries and smoothies during the day when I need high energy!
I have found that almost every day between 11am and 2.30pm I can be suddenly and completely overcome with the desire to sleep. It started about 3 years ago when I turned 40. At the time I took no exercise, was 40 lbs over weight and just put it down to my being a slob. In the last 12 months I have tried everything - lots of different exercise, different diets, you name it I gave it a go and nothing works.
Now when I feel it coming on I get up and walk around a bit until it goes away. I live in the North of Scotland and this works well in the winter (the cold wakes you up a treat!) but in the summer it can be hit and miss. Sometimes I just have to wait until it goes away. C'est la vie!
Now when I feel it coming on I get up and walk around a bit until it goes away. I live in the North of Scotland and this works well in the winter (the cold wakes you up a treat!) but in the summer it can be hit and miss. Sometimes I just have to wait until it goes away. C'est la vie!
I haven't seen the most obvious answer. EXCESSIVE sleepiness after a meal is a symptom of diabetes. Google it.
I have had this same problem of excessive sleepiness after eating for years. Like others have posted, if I take a short nap - 15 - 20 min., I'm much better. I've played with this and found that lying down without sleeping doesn't help - I have to actually fall asleep for a short period. It seems that something about a sleep state "resets" my brain or metabolism. If I don't sleep, the grogginess and brain fog will continue for hours. If I make myself go out for a walk, I feel like I'm drunk and exhausted - I actually stagger and my legs feel like lead, and I have trouble breathing. I kept records of what I ate and noticed a pattern. For me, meals with wheat are what seem to cause the most problems. If I eat wheat several days in a row, the problem will get worse each day, until I am literally physically ill from fatigue. Some other carbohydrates, such as beans, cause a milder form of the same problem. I don't think this is celiac disease because I have no digestive problems.
I noticed that when I was in Japan and ate Japanese food every day (plenty of white rice but no wheat), I did not have this problem. So I don't think it is a simple matter of blood sugar out of whack, at least for me. I ate fish three meals a day in Japan, small amounts of pickles, and green tea with dinner - I never felt better. When I was in Italy (bread and pasta every day), I could barely function.
This problem showed up shortly before menopause, and became progressively worse after menopause. I have some degree of hypoglycemia since my early twenties. I developed asthma and allergies to pollens, and several food allergies and sensitivities, all after menopause. I continue to find new foods I'm allergic to, so I think I have a "hot" immune system.
I have no idea of how or if menopause is related to all these things, but I think there is some connection.
Through keeping a food diary and noting how I felt and the time of symptoms appearing, I managed to come up with ways to manage the sleepiness after eating issue. What worked for me may not work for you; the sleepiness problem probably has different causes or triggers for different people. But the methodology of the food diary and observations of symptoms should provide some ideas of what to change in your life for some with this problem. You can vary one thing at a time and note the effect. Sometimes, the effect shows up right away, and other times, the effect shows up hours or a day or two later.
What worked for me:
- Eliminate wheat from my diet, specially at times of the year when my pollen allergies are most severe - the two together seem to gang up on me and overwhelm me.
- Eat a breakfast that has enough of a good quality protein to last for several hours. Egg, yogurt, tuna, etc. work for me. No wheat and very little if any other grains (eliminate ALL cereals.) Fruit (an apple or berries) seems to be ok, but the protein/fat is the critical thing.
- Drink enough water - a couple of glasses in the morning, then a cup at intervals throughout the day. I think a lot of people (me included) are dehydrated and don't realize it.
- Eliminate all soft drinks; cut waaaay back on coffee and other caffeinated drinks - these dehydrate you. Soft drinks are full of c**p no human was meant to ingest; caffeine is robbing Peter to pay Paul - gives you a lift, but then you crash.
- Cut out all the junk food - since most of them have wheat in them, I needed to do that anyway.
- Eat nuts and fruit for snacks
- Eat several small meals a day; every meal has a protein; never get too hungry, and never eat too much. The goal is to keep a steady state of energy throughout the day. The amount of protein is not large: a boiled egg, half a tin of sardines. I'm a small woman, so bigger people may need more.
- Eat green leafy vegetables and colorful veggies and fruits at lunch and dinner. Sea weeds if you can get them. I try to eat many different kinds of vegetables and fruits. I follow the dietary guideline of 9 fruits/veggies a day - not too hard if you make a salad.
- If you can afford it, organic food is probably a good idea.
- Get some exercise outdoors if possible every day - just a half hour brisk walk is enough. Get sunlight on your body. If you can't get sunlight, take a Vitamin D3 supplement.
- Get enough good quality sleep at night. Make sure your sleeping room is dark and quiet. You may only think you are getting enough good sleep. Investigate the possibility that you have apnea; tell your doctor and get treated. If your life is so stressful that you can't sleep - well, that's another conversation, but you probably already know what you have to do.
I've thought about this problem a lot, and read as much as I could to educate myself (an ongoing process.) My hypothesis is that our modern ways of living and eating are not something our ancient bodies were meant to do. We can (mostly) get away with it when we're young, but as we age, our bodies start to rebel. So if we consider how our long-ago, pre-agriculture ancestors lived and ate, and try to recreate that diet and lifestyle, we may help our bodies as we age. For hundreds of thousands of years, our ancestors fed themselves by hunting, fishing and gathering plant foods. Grain as a food is a relatively recent development. Sugar, preservative chemicals, food dyes, and other heavily processed additives to food, plastics, etc. are things our bodies never encountered until very recently. So maybe the corrective is to eat like a primitive human.
I noticed that when I was in Japan and ate Japanese food every day (plenty of white rice but no wheat), I did not have this problem. So I don't think it is a simple matter of blood sugar out of whack, at least for me. I ate fish three meals a day in Japan, small amounts of pickles, and green tea with dinner - I never felt better. When I was in Italy (bread and pasta every day), I could barely function.
This problem showed up shortly before menopause, and became progressively worse after menopause. I have some degree of hypoglycemia since my early twenties. I developed asthma and allergies to pollens, and several food allergies and sensitivities, all after menopause. I continue to find new foods I'm allergic to, so I think I have a "hot" immune system.
I have no idea of how or if menopause is related to all these things, but I think there is some connection.
Through keeping a food diary and noting how I felt and the time of symptoms appearing, I managed to come up with ways to manage the sleepiness after eating issue. What worked for me may not work for you; the sleepiness problem probably has different causes or triggers for different people. But the methodology of the food diary and observations of symptoms should provide some ideas of what to change in your life for some with this problem. You can vary one thing at a time and note the effect. Sometimes, the effect shows up right away, and other times, the effect shows up hours or a day or two later.
What worked for me:
- Eliminate wheat from my diet, specially at times of the year when my pollen allergies are most severe - the two together seem to gang up on me and overwhelm me.
- Eat a breakfast that has enough of a good quality protein to last for several hours. Egg, yogurt, tuna, etc. work for me. No wheat and very little if any other grains (eliminate ALL cereals.) Fruit (an apple or berries) seems to be ok, but the protein/fat is the critical thing.
- Drink enough water - a couple of glasses in the morning, then a cup at intervals throughout the day. I think a lot of people (me included) are dehydrated and don't realize it.
- Eliminate all soft drinks; cut waaaay back on coffee and other caffeinated drinks - these dehydrate you. Soft drinks are full of c**p no human was meant to ingest; caffeine is robbing Peter to pay Paul - gives you a lift, but then you crash.
- Cut out all the junk food - since most of them have wheat in them, I needed to do that anyway.
- Eat nuts and fruit for snacks
- Eat several small meals a day; every meal has a protein; never get too hungry, and never eat too much. The goal is to keep a steady state of energy throughout the day. The amount of protein is not large: a boiled egg, half a tin of sardines. I'm a small woman, so bigger people may need more.
- Eat green leafy vegetables and colorful veggies and fruits at lunch and dinner. Sea weeds if you can get them. I try to eat many different kinds of vegetables and fruits. I follow the dietary guideline of 9 fruits/veggies a day - not too hard if you make a salad.
- If you can afford it, organic food is probably a good idea.
- Get some exercise outdoors if possible every day - just a half hour brisk walk is enough. Get sunlight on your body. If you can't get sunlight, take a Vitamin D3 supplement.
- Get enough good quality sleep at night. Make sure your sleeping room is dark and quiet. You may only think you are getting enough good sleep. Investigate the possibility that you have apnea; tell your doctor and get treated. If your life is so stressful that you can't sleep - well, that's another conversation, but you probably already know what you have to do.
I've thought about this problem a lot, and read as much as I could to educate myself (an ongoing process.) My hypothesis is that our modern ways of living and eating are not something our ancient bodies were meant to do. We can (mostly) get away with it when we're young, but as we age, our bodies start to rebel. So if we consider how our long-ago, pre-agriculture ancestors lived and ate, and try to recreate that diet and lifestyle, we may help our bodies as we age. For hundreds of thousands of years, our ancestors fed themselves by hunting, fishing and gathering plant foods. Grain as a food is a relatively recent development. Sugar, preservative chemicals, food dyes, and other heavily processed additives to food, plastics, etc. are things our bodies never encountered until very recently. So maybe the corrective is to eat like a primitive human.
From all the messages above it seems that nature is playing a very cruel trick on us all. Anyone who says they KNOW the reason we get tired after eating is obviously clouded from the truth. I have been to doctor after doctor, tried small portions of vegetables, trying exercising 3-5 time a week. Always the same thing - ready to keel over and die after eating anything at lunchtime!
I have the same problem, and just found out that I have Insulin Resistance (IR). In normal people, when you eat your blood sugar levels rise, and in response to this increased blood sugar, your pancreas secretes insulin to remove the excess sugar and convert it to energy. In IR people, the insulin resists binding to the sugar thus leaving sugar in the blood while your pancreas keeps on secreting insulin. IR can be reversed with co-operating strictly with an eating plan (lifestyle change). I thought i didn