Food Comas and How to Prevent Them
Everyone knows the following phenomenon. That plate of pasta carbonara was much-needed and delicious, but now you just want to go to sleep. Annoying, because you’re still sitting at the table with your friends.
The feeling that, after your meal, you can barely lift your arms because of exhaustion is the well-known after-dinner dip. How does it happen? And more importantly: how can you prevent it?
Carbs carbs carbs
If you’ve eaten a lot of carbohydrates (hello, quattro formaggi pizza), your body breaks them down into a form of sugar. That sugar provides energy, but it also triggers insulin, which stores the remaining sugars for later. An insulin spike can cause fatigue and sends the hormone tryptophan to your brain. That also makes you tired, because your body uses tryptophan to produce the sleep-inducing substance serotonin.
Finally, your intestines, stomach and other organs also release hormones during the digestive process. These hormones help with digestive juices and blood circulation. The more blood is drawn down towards your stomach, the more tired the rest of your body feels.
And now?
To prevent this, it’s important not to eat too much, and especially not too many carbohydrates. Dishes with plenty of protein and complex carbohydrates are better. Your body takes longer to break them down, so a spike is less likely to occur. What’s more, it doesn’t convert everything into sugar, but also into fibre, minerals and vitamins.
Probably not the advice you wanted to hear—sorry. You’re probably still going to finish that plate of pasta anyway; we would too. To help the digestive process a little in this case, don’t give in to your sleepiness—instead, go for a short walk. It also immediately helps with any bloated stomach. A win-win, then.
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