Causes of Feeling Sleepy After Having Lunch & Ways to Avoid it

Causes of Feeling Sleepy After Having Lunch

It is common for people to feel sleepy after having lunch in the afternoon. Some people feel so sleepy after lunch that they just are not able to focus on the work at hand and their productivity significantly declines. Feeling sleepy after having lunch may also prove to be dangerous especially for people working in factories and working around hazardous equipment as they may doze off unknowingly which may result in some serious accidents.

The question is why we feel sleepy after having lunch? The answer to this question is multi-fold. To begin with, it is natural for the body to take a break and rest after being up and running for about seven hours, which does cause us to feel sleepy. This urge to sleep is fueled by the food that we eat which makes the body that much more sluggish.

At around lunchtime, the body is in a resting phase of the circadian rhythm of the body. This resting phase collides with the homeostatic phase which is the time we are awake and the body wants rest. A combination of these two makes us sleepy after having lunch.

However, the extent to which an individual feels sleepy after having lunch is variable with some people not having that much of an urge to take a nap than others.

Causes of Feeling Sleepy After Having Lunch

Ways to Avoid Feeling Sleepy After Lunch

Many people try many different things to get rid of the drowsiness after lunch. Some of the ways that are most preferred are:

Taking a cup of coffee after having lunch can help. The caffeine present in coffee takes away all the sleepiness that may be present.

Another way to get rid of sleepiness after lunch is to just move about the room and do some work or the other. If there is no work, then simply talking to someone may work in allowing you to get rid of the feelings of sleepiness after lunch.

Getting a goodnight’s sleep is also essential to prevent any daytime sleepiness especially after lunch. It is best to sleep at a particular time and get up at a particular time everyday. This can be done by maintaining a sleep-wake calendar and it helps a great deal in getting rid of sleepiness after lunch.

Team PainAssist
Team PainAssist
Written, Edited or Reviewed By: Team PainAssist, Pain Assist Inc. This article does not provide medical advice. See disclaimer
Last Modified On:January 8, 2019

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