Evaluation of the gastrointestinal patient.

Approach to the patient with unintentional weight loss. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.

What is inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)? Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Diagnosing and treating shortness of breath.

Functional gastrointestinal disorders: Irritable bowel syndrome, dyspepsia, esophageal chest pain, and heartburn. Diagnosis of delirium and confusional states. Approach to fever or suspected infection in the normal host. This is a natural dip in our rhythm, that correlates with natural peaks and valleys of sleepiness, attention span, and alertness. Naturally, humans get sleepy around the 2-3pm hour, typically after eating lunch. 85(2): 426-30.Īmerican Journal of Clinical Nutrition. This internal clock helps regulate your body’s natural sleep and wake cycle. Don’t sit or lay down after eating, take a fast walk, and you’ll feel reinvigorated and ready to get back to the task at hand.Īmerican Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Lighten up on the high-glycemic carbs, and you’ll feel less sleepy after eating a meal. It’s better to eat 5 small meals a day rather than 3 larger ones if you’re prone towards postprandial somnolence. Eating a large meal will only make the problem worse. Keep the quantity of what you eat in check too. Scientists suspect that this hormone can contribute to post-meal sleepiness, explaining why we can feel sleepy even after a lower-carb, higher-fat meal.

Make it a practice not to sit around after eating a meal. Cholecystokinin (CCK) is a hormone that stimulates the digestion of fat and is released when we eat high-fat meals. A brisk walk activates your sympathetic nervous system so that you’ll feel invigorated rather than drowsy. This helps to reduce the amount of insulin you secrete after a meal, so you’ll send less tryptophan to the brain to be converted to serotonin.Īnother way to avoid feeling sleepy after a meal is to take a brisk walk before getting back to work. When you eat carbs early in the day, choose ones that are high in fiber from whole foods like vegetables and whole grains rather than potatoes, white rice, pasta, desserts and foods made with white flour. Sometimes fatigue is a symptom of an illness that needs treatment. Fatigue can be caused by a medicine or linked to depression. Since eating a meal containing high-glycemic carbohydrates triggers a spike in insulin, avoiding these foods at breakfast and lunch when you want to stay awake will help. Causes By Mayo Clinic Staff Most of the time fatigue can be traced to one or more lifestyle issues, such as poor sleep habits or lack of exercise. When it does, it increases brain serotonin levels, and you become sleepy. This insulin spike makes it easier for tryptophan to cross the blood-brain barrier and get into the brain. If you eat foods containing tryptophan along with high-glycemic carbohydrates, it causes an insulin spike. Serotonin is made from an amino acid called tryptophan that’s in some foods, especially foods high in protein. Serotonin is a brain chemical that has a number of functions, one of which is to bring on sleep. The other hypothesis has to do with the effect eating has on a brain neurotransmitter called serotonin. After you eat a meal, the parasympathetic nervous system dominates over the sympathetic to make it easier for the food you’ve just eaten to digest. It slows you down and makes you feel sleepy. The sympathetic nervous system hypes you up and motivates you to stay active, while the parasympathetic system has the opposite effect. There are two branches of the nervous system – the sympathetic and parasympathetic.

There are two theories as to what causes sleepiness after eating and both theories partially explain the symptoms. It simply means feeling drowsy after a meal.

This problem is so common there’s a medical term for it – postprandial somnolence. What causes sleepiness after a meal, and how can you prevent it? Sound familiar? A significant number of people feel sleepy after eating a meal, and for some this feeling lasts for hours. You just want to crawl into a corner and take a nap rather than returning to work. People with postprandial somnolence may experience the following symptoms after eating: drowsiness or sleepiness low. You’ve just eaten lunch, and you feel your eyes getting heavy and your brain becomes foggy. Postprandial means after eating, while somnolence means sleepiness. Shop Cathe Fitness Equipment & Accessories.

Sleepy after eating