How to Be Productive When You’re in a Food Coma

The Busy Person’s Siesta

Food Coma Is Not The Only Option After a Heart Meal

Have you ever found it difficult to concentrate because you were too hungry, only to discover after your meal that you could barely keep your eyes open? If you answered “yes”, you’re not alone. Sleepiness after a meal is so common, that the term that describes it — “food coma” — was added to the Oxford Dictionary in 2014. In fact, after the age of 40, 77% of men complain of sleepiness after meals. There are no readily available statistics for women, but they are not immune either.

When you’re on vacation, food coma may be part and parcel of your day, but in the middle of a workday, it can disrupt your productivity. Trying to force your eyes open during this slump is usually futile. You simply end up dragging yourself through your work at a snail’s pace.

Contrary to what many people think, food coma is not due to blood leaving your brain for your stomach. And though there are dietary changes that you can make, the proper food balance is not always easy. Given these challenges, what might you do to be productive when you’re in a food coma?

In my book, “Tinker, Dabble, Doodle, Try: Unlock the Power of the Unfocused Mind”, I outline a plethora of things that you can do. Below, are a select few that you can try today.

Take a 10-minute nap: Rather than fight through the slump, you may actually want to cave to it in one of several ways, depending on what your next goal is. If it is clarity of mind that you are seeking, then consider taking a 10-minute nap. According to sleep researcher Nicole Lovato, this will likely reactivate “wake-active” brain cells to keep you on task. Other studies have also shown that if you nap for less than 30-minutes, you improve your ability to learn and amp up your performance as well.

Take a 90-minute nap: If you need to be more creative after lunch, it may be worth your time to invest a full 90 minutes in napping rather than trying to be creative with a sleepy brain. This allows you to get into deeper REM sleep, and you will wake up with your brain having had a chance to shuttle around and recombine memories and ideas in novel ways.

Engage in positive constructive daydreaming: Half the battle of trying to stay awake is the effort it takes to go from sleepy to being awake. But what if went from sleepy to daydreaming instead? It’s a smaller leap, and there’s a way that you can do it that can be restorative too.

When you plan time for daydreaming, turn your attention inward as you imagine something playful or wishful like floating on your back in a pool, or playing poker with your friends. When you do, especially if you are doing something low-key like walking, knitting or gardening, you will allow your brain to recycle the energy it needs to properly attend afterward.

Participate in rough-and-tumble play: If you’re working from home, it may be time to take a break to play with your kids. Aside from napping with them, you might think to engage in rough-and-tumble play. A little play-wrestling, for instance, will improve your attention, and revitalize your day so that you can get back to work more fully charged. Of course, you’d have to avoid throwing up if you’re too full, but you can assess if you can pull this off.

Move your body: You may think to go from sleepy to complete inaction, but what if you were to build more action into your day? You can literally give your ideas some legs by going for a walk outside. (It’s even better than walking on a treadmill.) It will likely make you more creative if you don’t stick to straight lines in your walking routines too. When you walk, your mind becomes more exploratory, and you make connections between ideas that you would not otherwise make.

Doodle on that conference call: You may be really relieved that nobody can see your head on your desk as you participate in a conference call, but what if you could do that and remember more? In 2009, psychologist Jackie Andrade and her colleagues found that doodling improves memory by 29%. When you take your brain off high-alert, especially if you’re already dragging, doodling will help you keep it more flexible, like a sponge. It will absorb more information.

All of these methods will keep you out of the nether region of food coma. For years, many cultures have valued the siesta, which itself can be quite restorative. These methods are the working man’s siesta — a form of not resisting or just relenting to the flow, but interacting with it, so that you can emerge from your food coma revitalized, more creative and ready for the rest of your day.

To learn more nifty ways to harness your brain’s special capacities when in “downtime” mode, get a copy of Tinker, Dabble, Doodle, Try: Unlock the Power of an Unfocused Mind (Balantine Books, 2017)

How to Be Productive When You’re in a Food Coma was originally published in MAQTOOB For Entrepreneurs on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.