I want to sleep after eating. Tired of eating: what to do if you want to sleep after lunch? Concomitant pathologies of the gastrointestinal tract

A decrease in energy levels after eating is called postprandial sleepiness. Many people have experienced it at least once: after a heavy lunch, you may really want to lie down and forget about work issues.

Today we’ll talk about why you want to sleep after eating, when to start worrying and how to overcome weakness.

Researchers have different theories, but they generally agree on one thing: this is a natural reaction and not a cause for concern. Usually I want to lie down around 1-3 pm.

Our body requires energy to survive and exist. It comes from food, which is broken down and turned into fuel. Macronutrients then provide calories to the body. The digestive system triggers all kinds of reactions and spends a lot of energy on it.

In 2017, a study was conducted in which participants were night shift workers. One group did not eat anything, the other had a snack. As a result, the second group performed worse than the first group and was sleepy at 4 am.

What happens in the body immediately after eating

After a meal—especially a sweet meal—insulin is produced by the pancreas, which then converts glucose into glycogen.

Excessive insulin secretion causes the essential amino acid tryptophan to enter the brain. Once in the brain, tryptophan leads to an increase in the production of serotonin and melatonin. These are two neurotransmitters that have a calming effect and help regulate sleep. Interestingly, about 90% of serotonin is found in the intestines, where it regulates organ movement.

Why do you want to sleep after lunch?

Causes of drowsiness:

Food allergies or intolerance to certain foods. Usually associated with digestive problems: bloating, constipation, diarrhea, as well as lethargy.
Dehydration.
Binge eating.
Increased calorie content.
A sharp jump in blood sugar.
Foods that induce sleep.
Drinking alcohol with meals during the day.

Let's look at some of them.

Research has shown that cherries (especially tart cherries) or cherry juice affect melatonin levels and improve sleep quality.

Most often, after eating you really want to sleep due to surges in blood sugar, which are caused by fast carbohydrates or simple sugars. Foods with a high glycemic index increase energy levels for half an hour. And then the sugar level drops sharply and you want to sleep.

Dehydration

Water balance controls the well-being of the body. When a person drinks little water, he feels lethargic and has headaches. Pulse and blood pressure decrease. The processes in the body “fall asleep” and invite you to rest with them. To prevent this condition, regularly drink up to 2 liters of water a day. You can drink a glass in the morning on an empty stomach, and then before each meal.

Binge eating

A heavy lunch causes a lack of energy during the day. It is usually a consequence of prolonged fasting, which occurs due to irregular nutrition. The amount of carbohydrates eaten affects the feeling of drowsiness and lethargy.

You need to be able to hear hunger signals and stop in time. Large portions and fatty foods force the body to work harder and use more energy.

Eat meals every 2-3 hours to avoid hunger and overeating.

Increased blood glucose

Another reason for sleepiness after eating has to do with the amount of insulin produced after meals. Foods rich in proteins and carbohydrates have a high glycemic load. They release sugar into the blood faster, activating insulin and causing drowsiness.

When do you eat White bread, sugar rises sharply in the body. This surge is short-lived and leads to a sharp drop in blood glucose levels, resulting in fatigue and drowsiness.

Interesting fact. More than half of people take a short afternoon nap at least once a week.

Benefits of short sleep:

increased vigilance and reaction;
short-term memory improves;
Cognitive functions are activated.

A person who sleeps regularly after lunch receives more benefits than someone who sleeps periodically.

“Sleepy foods” in the diet

Although all foods are digested almost equally, not all are equally affected.

The body produces more serotonin, which is responsible for sleep cycles, mood and fatigue. Carbohydrates help absorb tryptophan, and tryptophan helps absorb serotonin.

Tryptophan is found in foods rich in protein:

fish;
Domestic bird;
eggs;
spinach;
seeds;
milk;
eggs;
soy products;

High carbohydrate foods:

pasta;
white bread and cookies;
cakes, cookies, donuts, muffins;
milk;
sugar and candy.

Therefore, cereal with milk is good for the night.

How to overcome sleepiness in the afternoon

Don't skip breakfast. It reduces fatigue at the end of the day. If you didn’t have breakfast, you will most likely be hungry at lunchtime and will opt for a large and satisfying portion.
Eat little but often. Instead of large meals, small portions and snacks every few hours are encouraged to maintain energy levels. A fruit or a handful of nuts should be enough to prevent fatigue.
Get some sleep. A person who gets enough sleep at night is less likely to experience a significant decrease in energy after lunch.
Take a walk. Light physical activity during the day, especially after meals, reduces fatigue.
Take a nap.
Try bright light therapy. Studies have shown that bright light after lunch reduces the desire to sleep and drives away fatigue.
Avoid drinking alcohol with meals.

Not to be confused with a disease: when to see a doctor

If a person is constantly tired after eating, and this affects his quality of life, he needs to consult a specialist. Let's consider possible diseases where drowsiness after eating is one of the alarm bells.

Hypoglycemia

Characterized by low content blood glucose.

Symptoms:

You constantly want to eat: the brain gives signals to increase blood sugar levels.
Nausea along with pangs of hunger.
Low blood pressure.
Dizziness.
Constant drowsiness and lethargy, regardless of food intake.
Deterioration of concentration and memory.
Mood swings.

How to prevent:

Measure blood sugar levels and record readings.
Eat more carbohydrates before physical activity.
Do not skip meals, do not allow long fasts with exhausting loads.
Do not take long (6 or more hours) breaks between meals.

Hyperglycemia

Characterized by high levels of glucose in the blood.

Symptoms:

Excessive thirst.
Fatigue.
Weight loss.
Arrhythmia.
Blurred vision.

Dumping syndrome

Symptoms:

Feeling of overeating.
Weakness.
Drowsiness.
Sweating.
Dizziness.
Profuse sweating.
Noise in ears.
Heat in the upper part of the body.

Endocrine system disorders

Symptoms depend on location. Usually present:

Increased fatigue.
Constant desire to eat sweets.
Edema.
Sudden weight gain.
Sleep disturbance.
Sudden mood swings.

Conclusion

Feeling tired or having trouble concentrating after eating is common. Weakness manifests itself from a hearty lunch, rich in proteins and carbohydrates. In most cases this is a natural biological reaction, but if it interferes Everyday life, you need to consult a doctor.

Very often after eating we feel tired and we want to sleep after eating. This especially often happens after a heavy lunch in the middle of the day. Why is this happening?

There are a couple of versions: firstly, after a meal, blood rushes to the digestive organs, as a result of which the brain stops receiving the required amount of oxygen and makes us feel drowsy.

It should also be taken into account that the digestion process takes a fairly large amount of energy from the body: it needs to identify substances entering the blood and send them through the bloodstream to all organs, cope with digestion, developing the necessary tactics.

After all, we often don’t think about what we eat and how our body will perceive foods that are sometimes incompatible with each other. Therefore, the body has to direct most energy for these processes, but the rest of the organs lack it. Even doctors advise lying down for a while immediately after eating, or at least not starting serious work right away.

The second version was recently voiced by British scientists. They found that after a heavy lunch, those brain cells that are responsible for the state of wakefulness begin to work worse due to an increase in blood glucose levels. These cells normally synthesize the required amount of the hormone orexin, which affects the processes of sleep and wakefulness. And glucose has a depressing effect on them.

Scientists have discovered channels in the membrane of neurons that synthesize orexin that are sensitive to changes in blood glucose levels. Having sensed its increase, brain cells stop sending signals about wakefulness, while when glucose levels are low, the signals go continuously, which does not allow a hungry person to fall asleep. If these cells become disrupted, a person may develop narcolepsy (uncontrollable sleep) or obesity. Fortunately, such pathologies are quite rare.

To prevent you from feeling sleepy after lunch, try not to eat heavy food, incompatible foods, and not overeat. If you have important negotiations or hard work ahead of you in the afternoon, instead of a chop with potatoes, eat a portion of soup and a healthy salad. This will help you feel energized but not hungry.

Drowsiness after lunch is due to many reasons, ranging from banal overeating to the specifics of certain foods. Often we feel a strong desire to take a nap during the day after being very tired, physical activity, due to cloudy weather or simply due to not getting enough rest at night.

The lethargy and drowsiness that we experience immediately after eating are often caused by precisely these reasons, but there are some nuances here. If a simple half-hour rest after a meal is not enough for you and your body insists on sleep, perhaps it’s not just a matter of your daily routine. In this article we decided to analyze everything in detail possible reasons afternoon drowsiness not associated with fatigue.

Dehydration

Water balance greatly affects our general condition. We have written more than once about why it is necessary to drink a lot of water. Without it, we simply will not be able to fully charge ourselves with the energy that enters the body along with the food we consume.

When dehydration sets in, we feel tired, lethargic and even dizzy: this is associated with changes in blood pressure and a decrease in heart rate. It is in this state that we may be especially attracted to daytime sleep.

Don't forget to drink a glass of water in the morning on an empty stomach and before every meal, even snacks. This way you will be able to maintain your water balance normally and will not allow metabolic processes in the body to “fall asleep”.

"Sleepy" products

Some foods contain large amounts of tryptophan, an amino acid that stimulates the production of the sleep hormone melatonin. If your lunch or snack consists of these foods, you may want to reduce the amount, move them to an evening meal, or eliminate them from your diet altogether.

Almond, walnuts, pumpkin seeds and bananas, in addition to tryptophan, contain magnesium and potassium, which relax muscles and provide us with a feeling of pleasant relaxation after eating. Some herbal teas, such as chamomile or mint, are best drunk in the evenings or before bed: the fact is that they have a calming effect on us and cause drowsiness.

To stay alert during your lunch break, it would be better to drink plain water, strong coffee, green or black tea without sugar.

Binge eating

The feeling of heaviness that occurs after overeating causes us irresistible desire lie down to rest and digest food. If we eat rarely and in large portions, the body gets tired and requires rest in order to deal with a thousand new calories.

Don't let yourself go hungry, try to eat often and in small portions. Spaced out between meals will help you stay in control and prevent you from overeating, which provides excess weight in the future and causing us to take a nap during the day.

A sharp jump in blood sugar

Fast carbohydrates and foods with a high glycemic index instantly charge us with energy, which, unfortunately, is exhausted very quickly, first sharply increasing and then, conversely, decreasing blood sugar levels. You may feel tired and sleepy due to large changes in glucose levels that enter the body with harmful carbohydrates.

Confectionery and flour products, sweet snacks and drinks containing sugar and even sweet fruits and vegetables: all such products are fast carbohydrates with a high glycemic index. Watch your diet and give preference to vegetables, foods rich in fiber and slow carbohydrates: foods that provide a long-lasting feeling of fullness and vigor.

How to overcome sleepiness?

Afternoon naps have many pros and cons. Some rightly believe that rest after eating is a normal requirement of a healthy body, and a half-hour nap after lunch will not harm us in any way: for example, in some countries there has been a siesta for a long time.

Other people, on the contrary, prefer to drink a big cup of coffee instead of feeling a “sleepy hangover” and feeling exhausted for a long time after a short rest.

There is such a thing! You almost always eat a hearty meal before you go to sleep. There’s even a phrase like this: “after have a delicious lunch I'm supposed to sleep." Those who eat in portions and on a schedule do not encounter such problems. So what's the deal? The fact that all the blood flows to digestive system Or is it a whole range of health problems?

As scientists recently discovered, drowsiness can be caused not only by poor oxygen supply to the brain, such as a rush of blood to the stomach. The point here is also the “hormone of vivacity” - orexin, which is produced by a special part of the brain and is the main regulator of the “sleep-wake” regime.

A high content of orexin in the blood causes a surge of strength - a person wants to move mountains, eat a bull, love the whole world. This hormone sends animals on the hunt, replacing their languid wallowing in the shade with running around in search of food. The level of this hormone either increases or decreases throughout the day, in accordance with circadian (i.e., associated with the alternation of night and day) rhythms.
Regulation of the amount of orexin is determined not only by external, but also by internal factors. In the process of saturating the body, leptin is released - the hormone of “satiety” - and this is what suppresses the production of our hormone of vivacity. Glucose in large quantities can also block the body’s activity. Therefore, do not be surprised that even coffee makes you want to sleep if you poured four tablespoons of sugar into it.

Sleeping after eating is a state of a healthy body, so there is no need to fight it. If possible, it is better to rest after lunch for 20-30 minutes. In most cases, this time is enough to return strength and vigor. But what to do if you want to sleep after lunch, and there is an important and responsible event ahead that requires complete composure and concentration?
First, you can postpone lunch. Secondly, you can replace fatty or carbohydrate-rich foods with something lighter, preferably containing a lot of protein. Cottage cheese, eggs, vegetable salads, and fruits are perfect. The feeling of hunger will subside, and you will be able to deal with important matters and have lunch a little later.
As the gastroenterologist said, you want to sleep when you eat proteins, so for lunch it is better to eat vegetables, soup, and so on. But for dinner there is just protein food: meat, fish, legumes.

Or?

Drowsiness that occurs after eating may be the result of the nervous system. We are talking about its vegetative part: the very one that, unnoticed by us, regulates the functioning of the entire organism. It consists of two components, the functions of which are largely opposite: the sympathetic and parasympathetic parts of the nervous system. Sympathetic activates muscles, improves reaction - in all its glory its work can be seen in runners standing at the start, or in a person who was suddenly frightened by something and is experiencing stress. The parasympathetic nervous system, on the contrary, relaxes the muscles, slows the heartbeat, and as a result the person calms down.

So, after eating, the action of the parasympathetic nervous system reflexively predominates in a person. This makes sense: under its influence, the blood supply to the muscles decreases somewhat, but blood flows to the digestive tract: after all, the food eaten must be somehow absorbed, and for this, the organs involved must receive more blood. In other words, our body cannot simultaneously be stressed and digest food normally, so it has to choose one thing. So immediately after eating, the body experiences a strong influence of the parasympathetic nervous system - this allows it to digest food. And in order to protect you from possible stress (after all, when it occurs, you will have to activate the sympathetic nervous system, which does not contribute to digestion at all), your brain gives you a feeling of relaxation and peace, along with the desire to take a little nap. This is especially noticeable after a heavy meal.

However, this is just one theory - perhaps drowsiness after eating can occur for other reasons. There is new research revealing the role of blood glucose levels and the associated production of the neurohormone orexin in this process. Chronic lack of sleep, which many residents of large cities face, also plays a certain role. Under these conditions, the body tries to snatch maximum sleep, and the time when a person has eaten and is relaxed is excellent for this.

In addition to tryptophan, almonds, walnuts, pumpkin seeds and bananas contain magnesium and potassium, which relax muscles and provide us with a feeling of pleasant relaxation after eating. Some herbal teas, such as chamomile or mint, are best drunk in the evenings or before bed: the fact is that they have a calming effect on us and cause drowsiness.
To stay alert during your lunch break, it would be better to drink plain water, strong coffee, green or black tea without sugar.

Probably each of us knows the old humorous saying: after you eat, you can sleep. Indeed, after lunch you want to sleep, even if it was not very dense. Why is this happening?

Previously, it was generally believed that this was related to the temperature of the food: that after, for example, hot soup, you would want to sleep more than after eating a sandwich. They thought that the body became warm and comfortable, and it was in this state that it was most accustomed to going to sleep.

But this theory collapsed immediately after its inception, because those surveyed claimed that they felt sleepy no matter what they ate. But scientists have noticed that the degree of drowsiness is influenced by such factors as calorie content and the amount of food eaten.

Causes of drowsiness after eating

So, let's figure out why you want to sleep so much after eating. There are a number of factors that regulate our body's reactions to certain foods. Among them:

Age;
Times of Day;
Amount of food eaten;
Calorie content of foods;
General condition of the body.

It turns out that food processing is an incredibly energy-intensive process, so the body has to devote all its strength to completing it. This is the main reason why you want to sleep after lunch. Consequently, he tries to put us to sleep in order to redirect energy to what is necessary, in this moment, action.

That's why after eating you really want to sleep. So maybe we need to sleep after the meal, since that’s how we are designed? Let's figure it out.

Sleeping after eating: harm or benefit

The debate on this topic lasted for decades, and there was always someone who put forward a theory that was more incredible than the previous one. But the days of baseless speculation are long gone, and now we have all the technology that helps scientists confirm or refute various hypotheses with almost 100% confidence. After conducting clinical studies, they finally found out why you want to sleep after eating.

The University of Manchester took up this problem and finally answered the question: is an afternoon nap harmful or beneficial?

The answer is clear: sleeping, and even lying down immediately after eating food is strictly prohibited. There are several reasons for this:

So, if you have a question: is it possible to sleep after eating? - the answer is categorical: no.

World practice

Many countries have tested the practice of introducing afternoon naps for employees of large companies. Employers have noticed that employees experience a lack of energy, lose concentration and, thereby, reduce their productivity.

Options for extending breaks, redistributing the load, and other methods that would help return the employee to work were considered. But then someone remembered that napping during the day was beneficial, and introduced an afternoon nap into the daily routine.

Unfortunately, the result did not live up to expectations, because most employees did not have enough allocated time to get quality rest. In addition, it took them a long time to come to their senses and get ready for work after waking up.

Everyone agreed that they were terribly sleepy at work after lunch, but most agreed that sleeping in the middle of the workday didn't make them feel more alert. Moreover, some workers began to complain of discomfort and heaviness in the stomach.

After examination, it turned out that by falling asleep or simply taking a horizontal position, we independently slow down the process of digesting food, stretching it out over a longer period. Without realizing it, people were prolonging the digestion cycle, forcing their gastrointestinal tract to work longer and harder than it should. This is why you should not sleep after eating.

Sleeping during the day is good for your health, but not on a full stomach.

What to do if you want to sleep after lunch?

Don't let yourself lie down;
If possible, take a walk;
Distract yourself with an interesting, but non-monotonous activity;
Change the type of activity;
Physical activity speeds up the process of food processing and has a beneficial effect on the digestion process. Force yourself to get up and tidy up your workspace, call a friend, or just chat with colleagues.