Afternoon Exhaustion

March 17, 2005 9:08 AM

Every day I leave for work feeling energetic, spend the morning the same, but by afternoon I am exhausted. (more inside)

By about Wednesday all I want to do after work is collapse on the couch. My work isn't physically demanding, and isn't at all stressful. I get about six hours of sleep on weeknights, and I eat a healthy lunch every day. Is this fatigue normal? How do you keep your energy up during/after a boring day in the cube?

posted by leapingsheep to health (25 comments total)

I'm the same way. I think for me its the central and elemental boredom at the heart of any office job. While it can be fun here and there, mostly it just feels like I am wasting my life, one grimy tick of the clock after the next. This often makes me feel some combination of depressed and helpless and, well, sort of anxiously scared at the passing of time. It's hard to approach my creative projects at home after work because I've spent eight hours being.. very... booored. And it just leaves me drained.

But I recognize this as mostly my fault for not doing anything about it and being very comfortable in my deeply rooted existential boredom.

Woe.
posted by xmutex at 9:13 AM on March 17, 2005

So, sorry, I don't have any suggestions, but I'm right there with you, sister/brother.

And caffeine only makes it worse.
posted by xmutex at 9:13 AM on March 17, 2005

Do you sleep more on the weekends? If you feel the need to sleep in, you probably need more sleep regularly.

Also, what are you eating for breakfasts, snacks, and lunch? It could be a blood sugar problem.
posted by carmen at 9:17 AM on March 17, 2005

Do you eat a healthy breakfast every day? Do you stay hydrated throughout the day? Try a bananna or an Emergen-C after lunch and see if the B-vitamins and potassium keep you alert. Drink a big glass of water instead of coffee. Works for me.
posted by scarabic at 9:20 AM on March 17, 2005

Exercising (even fast walking) on my lunch hour makes me feel perkier in the afternoon, and my job is VERY boring. Another idea -- sometimes people with sleep apnea think they're getting good sleep, but aren't, and are very tired during the day. It's an under-diagnosed disease.
posted by nancoix at 9:21 AM on March 17, 2005

Fatigue can be due to a number of things. How's your diet and exercise?
posted by gramcracker at 9:27 AM on March 17, 2005

I recently started cycling the (fairly short) distance to and from work. It rocks. Whereas before I'd feel like you at the end of the day, ready to mong out on the sofa, now I get back home energised and excited and full of beans.

And then I can energetically mong out on the sofa.

Of course, your commuting distance might not allow this, but any form of exercise at the end of the day should perk you up.
posted by grahamspankee at 9:30 AM on March 17, 2005

Six hours of sleep a night is not really very much. You might try increasing to seven and see if it helps. Also, being drowsy after lunch is fairly natural: it's called the postprandial dip. I don't know what you mean by eating a healthy lunch, but I find that eating too many processed carbs at lunchtime makes me sleepy. Whole grains and protein are your best bets. When I eat, say, a tuna salad sandwich on whole wheat, I feel less sleepy. And, if you can, instead of eating a large lunch, splitting it into two or three parts and eating at several times also helps a lot. An overly full stomach induces stupor.

As graham says, the exercise is also key. If you can do something aerobic before work, you will feel more awake for longer. If you can get out for a walk at lunchtime, that helps a great deal, also.
posted by anapestic at 9:38 AM on March 17, 2005

I'm with xmutex. Between the hours of about 2 and 3:30 pm I'm almost always in that state of nodding off at my desk. You know the one... you stare at the screen/document/tiresome Dilbert calendar until it goes fuzzy and the sheer effort of bringing it back into focus just seems too much... and then you literally nod and swiftly jerk back upright again as your mind and body desperately crave temporary oblivion to escape the sheer grinding quotidian hellishness that is cube life.

I really don't think it has anything to do with diet or sleep patterns - not in my case, anyway. I think I just get so damned bored and aggrieved by my miserable, soul-breaking work life that I can't take more than a few hours without wishing I was dead, so my body tries to help me out.It's like an emergency cut-off mechanism that stops me going postal and punching some deserving bastard into a real coma. Which is nice.

I generally perk up when I get home, but I've also found that exercise after work accelerates this. It gets those sluggish juices flowing again.
posted by Decani at 9:52 AM on March 17, 2005

I used to have this problem. I worked right next to Chinatown...I found that when I stopped having rice or noodles for lunch every day the problem went away.

Anapestic is right. Lose the sugar and starch, bring on the whole grains and protein and you'll feel a lot better.
posted by duck at 9:53 AM on March 17, 2005

It's hard to approach my creative projects at home after work because I've spent eight hours being.. very... booored.

Man, I feel exactly the same way. I wake up with an almost manic desire to do this and that and finish this and brainstorm on that and read up on this and study that....

...only to drift into the ennui where I can barely get *anything* done. And I get home for freelancing projects and I am barely motivated enough to make dinner.

I've tried: physical changes (tea instead of coffee, walks at lunch, vitamins, etc) and mental changes (to-do lists, organization, prioritization of tasks, etc) with more or less little change.

I think the one thing that is lacking is exercise. When I jogged in the morning, I had (ironicaly to me) energy to get through the day. Now that I don't, I sense my body is slipping into a waking-coma. I think exercise is pretty much key to a good, natural overall energy boost.
posted by tpl1212 at 9:55 AM on March 17, 2005

Lots of good advice here. Let me synthesize:

1. Eat well. Stay away from sugars and processed carbohydrates - these cause your blood sugar to spike and then crash, making you feel sleepy later on. Try to maximize on protein. Lean meats, fresh veggies, nonfat dairy (yogurt, milk, low-fat cheese) are good things for breakfast and lunch. If you can, divide your eating up so that you are eating a 3-4 meals during the day instead of 1 or 2. This can be as easy as saving half of your lunch and snacking on it around 3pm.

2. Stay away from caffeine. Drink as much water as possible. This keeps you hydrated.

3. Try to exercise at least once during the day. If you can go to the gym or take a walk during your lunch break, or if you can walk or bike to work, great. If not, try to move around and stretch during the day. Take five minute breaks and get out of your chair and walk a bit and do some stretching.

4. If you wake up feeling tired in the morning by the middle of the week, you may need to get more sleep. Many people can get by on 6 hours a night just fine, but that may be too little for you.

5. Try to figure out what sort of work stimulates you and what is mind-crushingly boring - it might be good to get the boring tasks out of the way while you are relatively alert, and then save the more interesting ones for the afternoon in order to keep you interested; or the reverse might be better, so that you save the really boring tasks for when you are fatigued. Experiment to see what works for you.

6. Finally, recognize that fatigue is natural, and an 8-hour work day is not. We evolved to forage and hunt in short bursts, not to sit in front of a computer for hours at a stretch.
posted by googly at 9:56 AM on March 17, 2005

There is a book "How to Not to Come Home from Work Exhausted". It's kind of chipper for my taste so I won't recommend it, but it encourages you to set a schedule full of fun and energetic activities before and after work. The thesis is, the richer your life is, the more energy you'll have. I find I am less tired if I do something after work-- walk home, exercise, go shopping or out for a coffee. If I go straight home, I'll crash on the couch and wake up grumpy.

Personally, I need more than six hours of sleep a day, but no more than seven and a half. You might want to experiment a bit.

I'm trying to take more breaks to walk around during the day. It seems to be helping somewhat.
posted by gesamtkunstwerk at 9:58 AM on March 17, 2005

I agree with all the proposed solutions here regarding diet, exercise, and getting a good night's sleep. I'd also add that getting outside and seeing some natural light will likely help as well.

But if, for some reason, you can't put one of those into practice on a given day, you might find that a 15 minute nap at your desk will refresh you. (Much less won't do you much good, and much more will just make you drowsier.) Obviously, this requires either privacy, or a boss who is smart enough to know that your increased productivity will more than make up for those 15 minutes.
posted by yankeefog at 10:00 AM on March 17, 2005

My job started going to this point as well, so I decided I needed to do something about it. I set some extra-curricular goals. I decided I'm going to learn a language and get healthy.

They're big goals and will take at least a year, if not much more to complete. That's good because it means I progress at my own pace and knowing that I have something useful to do when I get home from work gets me excited. Before this I would often pointlessly stay at work extra time because the rest of my evening wasn't going to get any more interesting.

Try to find some other activities that are challenging enough to keep you motivated, but provide enough immediate feedback that you're pushed to continue with them.

As a side note, since starting about 3 weeks ago, I've lost 10 lbs and learned probably 5 sentences in Chinese. Hey, it's better than nothing! :-)
posted by shepd at 10:10 AM on March 17, 2005

I seem to breathe very shallowly at the computer if I'm not paying attention. When I focus on being relaxed and breathing more deeply, I feel much better.
posted by callmejay at 10:33 AM on March 17, 2005 [1 favorite]

So the consensus seems to be more exercise, more water, maybe more sleep (but not at my desk! although that gave me a good laugh, I REALLY really don't thinkt hat would go over well! lol) and that there's only so much that's possible considering the unnatural circumstance of being in an office all day. Thanks everyone.

btw, I'm pretty good at staying away from processed food, so I don't think that's it. I thought I was getting an okay amount of incidental exercise (walking 10 minutes each way from where I park to where I work, and general walking around the building for office tasks). I realize its no formal exercise routine, and maybe it just isn't as adequate as I thought.

Emergen-C and watching for shallow breathing at the computer sound very intriguing too. Thanks everyone!
posted by leapingsheep at 11:00 AM on March 17, 2005

Second (third? thirteenth?) the exercise thing in general, but for that exact afternoon noddy-offy type of after lunch tiredness, I find that if I get up and find an unpopulated part of the office and kind of bounce around a little bit, get my blood flowing again (unpopulated part of the office, remember) I can get rid of that heavy-eye feeling. Nothing’s worse than that slipping into sleep sensation where no amount of biting the insides of your mouth can keep you awake.
posted by audrey the bug at 11:05 AM on March 17, 2005

Personal anecdote:

I went for a total cold turkey zero caffeine break of two solid weeks several years ago. Total break--no soda, no coffee, no tea, no chocolate... After week two, I found my energy level to be much more consistent throughout the day, with no afternoon crash.

These days, my consumption habits don't include any caffeine. I have the occasional chocolate or rum and coke, but that's about it. In fact, these days a night of rum and coke leaves me wired on caffeine after the alcohol has run its course. It's a little odd.

Note that these changes had nothing to do with eating better food. Back then I still inhaled bags of Cheetos and whatever other crap was within reach.
posted by NortonDC at 11:31 AM on March 17, 2005

I don't get the afternoon nods anymore now that I get about 9 hours of sleep. I do get bored in the afternoon and sometimes zone out, but not sleepy. I can function on less without it affecting me much obviously except for the nods, but I feel in general much better now (it's easier to eat healthy too when I'm not a little tired all the time). I would really try sleeping more, which requires less caffeine so you can go to sleep early enough.
posted by dness2 at 12:27 PM on March 17, 2005

Vitamin B is key. Don't forget that.
posted by xammerboy at 1:20 PM on March 17, 2005

Ditto the carb theory. If I eat a lot of carbs for lunch, I am history round about 3. I have actually been known to go down to the parking garage, lean the seat back in my car, and take a power nap when this strikes. If I keep the lunch carbs more reasonable, I avoid the afternoon loginess.
posted by kindall at 1:53 PM on March 17, 2005

6. Finally, recognize that fatigue is natural, and an 8-hour work day is not. We evolved to forage and hunt in short bursts, not to sit in front of a computer for hours at a stretch.

Heh. I appreciate the spirit of this answer. I really do. But we are continuing to evolve, and the need to sit in front of a computer for hours is a significant pressure on that evolution. If someone finds they need to but can't, that's selection at work. There's nothing less "natural" about what we need to do to survive now versus what we used to need to do. You could easily argue that we're in greater harmony with our "natural" states now - because our life expectancy has stretched way past the 20-30 years of a hunter/forager. It's a pointless adjective to try to apply.
posted by scarabic at 8:01 PM on March 17, 2005

Another vote for staying away from carbs. I used to get all draggy in the afternoons until I did Atkins, and my energy level just skyrocketed. Have a salad with chicken or something for lunch instead of a sandwich or noodles. And no sweets during the day.
Also, I really think 6 hours a night is too little sleep.
posted by CunningLinguist at 6:03 AM on March 18, 2005

You very, very much owe it to your health (and possibly life) to investigate the possibility that you have sleep apnea, especially if you are overweight. I would suggest asking your doctor to prescribe you a polysomnogram -- a sleep study.

Check out this sleep quiz, as well as apnea symptoms from the NIH.

Untreated apnea can lead to heart failure, arrhythmia, hypertension, hypercapnia, heart disease, and even stroke. Given what you're saying, it's very much worth investigating.

Feel free to write me, if you want.
posted by WCityMike at 10:46 AM on March 19, 2005