Why do I feel so tired after food?
I often feel tired after I eat – why is this and what can I do about it? Thanks, Bryce.
Hi Bryce. The old adage you are what you eat isn’t quite correct; instead, you are what you eat, absorb and assimilate. There are a number of factors that can affect our ability to digest and utilise the nutrients from food including stress hormones, caffeine and medications such as antibiotics to name a few.
Stress is particularly important to consider when it comes to digestive function, as too many people spend their days in Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) dominance – a constant state of ‘‘fight or flight’’, with high circulating levels of adrenaline. This can have a devastating effect on our ability to effectively produce stomach acid and thus can result in reflux, digestive discomfort or lethargy after eating.
Ask Dr Libby
Email your questions for Dr Libby to ask.drlibby@fairfaxmedia.co.nz. Please note, only a selection of questions can be answered.
One in five women in Australia experience Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), and of course food plays a major role in this, but so does the relentless production of adrenalin. From your body’s perspective, if it thinks you’re preparing to fight/ take flight, it diverts blood flow away from what it considers nonvital processes such as digestion. All resources go into saving your life from the danger your body perceives you are in, due to the high levels of adrenalin.
If you are feeling tired almost immediately after eating/within the hour afterwards, it’s usually just because of vasodilation— widening of the blood vessels supplying your intestines— as part of the normal parasympathetic response or ‘‘rest and digest’’ response to the food entering your stomach.
The body wants to maximise nutrient absorption into the bloodstream as well as maintain