why do people get tired after they eat?
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It’s called postprandial lethargy. Part of the evolutionary reason it exists is to guarantee the animal will stay put for a while and digest at least some of the meal it just had, since energy was spent to get it (remembering, humans were hunters) and need to at least break even. Also, digesting food is a taxing process.
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More blood gets diverted to the g.i. tract for digestion and nutrient distribution. It reduces blood flow to the brain/extremities just enough to make us feel sleepy/ low energt
When you eat your insulin and blood glucose rise. At some point your insulin will rise high enough that it will push your blood glucose down. Sometimes insulin rises too high, and pushes blood glucose down too far.
When your body senses low blood glucose, it assumes there is low energy availability – so you get tired in order to preserve that energy.
Whether or not you get tired after eating depends on what you eat. You probably won’t get tired from a few slices of cheese and deli meat. But if you have a couple slices of bread, or some crackers, you may get a crash soon after.
About 5-6 peanut M&Ms will send me towards a snooze in the late afternoon.
Digesting food takes energy. You need energy to be awake. If you stuff your gut, your body will prioritize digestion.
I am reading two theories: one about oxygenated blood allocation, and one about evolutionary processes related to insulin and blood sugar. Which of these processes is most responsible?
This is way more pronounced when ingesting sugar/carbs – the body’s insulin response (sugar crash and all that) is the main reason people get drowsy in the afternoon – because they drink pop, eat bread in their sandwiches etc at lunch
Semi-related: I’ve had some cardiac patients who took nitroglycerin with every meal because their heart(s) was so bad. Ie. Digestion was too demanding on the heart so they took a vasodilator…
Maybe more than ELI5 but we have a part of our nervous system that takes care of everything in our body we don’t have to think of – called the autonomic nervous system. The more famous part of that is the SYMPATHETIC nervous system which we know as our “flight or fight” response. It boosts our adrenaline, primes our muscles for quick action, increases our heart rate, dilates our eyes for wider vision, etc.
The opposite of that is the PARASYMPATHEIC nervous system which is called our “rest and digest” response. Essentially the opposite of the above; slow our heartbeat, relax the muscles, lowers your BP. Food in our stomach activates our parasympathetic system.
Well imagine a bunch of people transporting energy to different sites. They all start from the main site. But now the main site needs to convert food to make energy and nutrients. So all the people don’t go to the different sites but stay at the main site to help keep the energy in one place.
This is why you feel tired after eating. Because digestion takes a lot of energy at the beginning, so the body slows down blood flow to other organs, including your brain, making you feel tired.
Also this is why they say “don’t shower or swim after eating” because blood flow is redirected to cooling/heating your body rather than digesting.
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