Morning energy - afternoon fatigue?

[maartendc]

Hello all,

 

Lately it seems like in the morning (before lunchtime) I am full of energy. I have a lot of ideas, feel like doing things, make big plans for the weekend or the rest of the day, brainstorm about new exciting career paths, where to go on vacation, etc. etc.

 

But as soon as the afternoon rolls around, I get very drained of energy and motivation to do anything. All I want to do is take a nap or sit in the couch and mindlessly watch TV.

 

I feel like a completely different person morning vs afternoon, it is quite extreme.

 

Anyone can relate? Any tips on how to cope with this? Perhaps it has to do with drinking too much coffee? I drink about 4 (small) cups of coffee before noon, and 2 (small) cups in the afternoon. Perhaps once the morning coffee 'wears off' it makes my system "crash"?

 

Thanks!

[Ralphred]

9 minutes ago, maartendc said:

Perhaps once the morning coffee 'wears off' it makes my system "crash"?

To be honest, if you cut out the caffeine altogether, within a few weeks (about three, up to six max) you body will be back into the swing of producing natural stimulants (at the right times, depending on circadian rhythms, so autumn/spring are the best times to attempt this).

There is also the "effect of lunch" to consider; the reason we (as western cultures) have desert after a main meal is to try and offset the effects of complex carbohydrate loaded meals affecting blood sugar levels, which is why we eat the "sweet/dessert" at the end of the meal, to provide a readily available source of sugars to help offset the increase in "non-sugar based carbohydrate blood concentrations".

 

To test this you can try to have protein loaded breakfasts and lunches, forgoing any carbs (sugar based or otherwise) except for those found naturally in vegetables, this will "force" your body to use it's natural reserves throughout the day (switching from "readily available" to "stored energy" takes time, and involves your liver doing work, so lay off the sauce while trying this ;P) and helps provide a more "level playing-field" throughout the working day.

 

But directly above is "hardcore testing", just try laying off the caffeine altogether for a few weeks to start with; you'll be surprised how letting your body "take back control" will have a marked effect on energy levels and cognition, you'll sleep better too.

[tikker]

3 hours ago, maartendc said:

I drink about 4 (small) cups of coffee before noon, and 2 (small) cups in the afternoon. Perhaps once the morning coffee 'wears off' it makes my system "crash"?

What is a cup / small cup in this case? 100 mL, 250 mL? What type of coffee? Espressos, filter coffee? The recommendations usually go up to about 400 mg of caffeine per day. A coffee takes about an hour to reach peak effect and caffeine has a half life of around 5 hours in your body. So say you start at 8 AM and drink one cup every hour until 12 you're basically constantly riding the peak all morning. If you then wait until 3 or later in the afternoon to replenish then basically from 1 PM on you're "out of fuel".

 

Assuming everything else about your habits is fine (sufficient food, well hydrated etc.), you may simply be affected by the amount of caffeine you are ingesting and/or the time within which you do so. If you feel like you really need it, the good thing is that your caffeine tolerance is generally fairly quick to "reset". You can go cold turkey and just cut out coffee for a week or two and see how that goes. You can also start by cutting down the number of cups in the morning. Instead of four cups in quick(er) succession, try just two further apart. Or pace it more across the day with one every 2 hours (for an 8 hour work day), for example.

[thrasher_565]

4 hours ago, maartendc said:

Hello all,

 

Lately it seems like in the morning (before lunchtime) I am full of energy. I have a lot of ideas, feel like doing things, make big plans for the weekend or the rest of the day, brainstorm about new exciting career paths, where to go on vacation, etc. etc.

 

But as soon as the afternoon rolls around, I get very drained of energy and motivation to do anything. All I want to do is take a nap or sit in the couch and mindlessly watch TV.

 

I feel like a completely different person morning vs afternoon, it is quite extreme.

 

Anyone can relate? Any tips on how to cope with this? Perhaps it has to do with drinking too much coffee? I drink about 4 (small) cups of coffee before noon, and 2 (small) cups in the afternoon. Perhaps once the morning coffee 'wears off' it makes my system "crash"?

 

Thanks!

coffee... and lack of sleep probly

 

i stopped drinking coffee (been addicted to hot chocolate...) but be for the hot chocolate and no coffee i didn't get the super man boost like taking a tylenol but i also didn't crash at 12 i do a bit on the bus at 530 (but i work hard so...)

 

if i gave up the hot chocolate and got more sleep it probably be even better.

 

so in short sleep and caff-en

Edited June 1, 2022 by thrasher_565

[wseaton]

As somebody who suffers from this its a warning sign. 

 

Advice above is sound. Have a protein focused breakfast with complex carbs. Stay the hell away from sugar.

 

Caffeine is actually not the bad guy here. It's sugar. 

[ToboRobot]

Could be caffeine, or sugar/carb, or just lunch.

 

Cut things out of your life, and reintroduce them individually and see how they affect you.

[Mark Kaine]

For me, i cant really eat anything at lunch, i get tired... until the evening or next day even... i also dont eat breakfast typically... same thing i get tired immediately... which is dumb because I just woke up! 

 

And no,  it doesn't matter what i eat... it sometimes doesn't happen and it could be pankakes, beef, vegetables... if i eat the same thing next time i might get tired again immediately - hence it literally doesn't matter... technically i guess cake would have the least effect,  but i cant always eat cake sadly lol

 

 

10 hours ago, wseaton said:

Caffeine is actually not the bad guy here. It's sugar. 

Actually i drink a lot of coffee, with milk, no sugar... but milk already has sugar, so i dunno...

 

i also get tired from coffee btw, not always,  but often.

[tikker]

3 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

Actually i drink a lot of coffee, with milk, no sugar... but milk already has sugar, so i dunno...

Usually sugar in the context of food is used to mean added sugar. Not the sugar in your apply or your milk, but the extra sweet cereal you put it on, the sugar you add to a coffee, added sugar in products etc.

3 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

i also get tired from coffee btw, not always,  but often.

If you consume it regularly you've probably built up a tolerance to caffeine. You may also simply have been tired already (it binds to receptors, so it keeps you from tiring further more than it wakes you up) + coffee can take half to a full hour to kick in so a short nap right after coffee is not a bad idea in practise.

[Mojo-Jojo]

Maarten, can I suggest the following:

1. Cut down on the coffee in the morning and afternoon. I used to have similar problems as you. I used to drink as much coffee as you or more. From morning till evening. It was affecting my sleep. Nowadays I drink 2 small cups in the morning, and 1 or 2 in the afternoon. I have a hard limit of ~1PM for my last cup, so it's out of my system by the time I go to bed.
2. Try to have a regular sleep rhythm. Go to bed at around the same time every day and get at leats 7-8 hours of sleep. Even if you're not tired. I used to give myself very little sleep. 5 or 6 hours per night. In the morning I would be overactive, probably owing to the fact that I didn't have to "get out of a deep sleep" as much as when you sleep longer. But it would catch up to me in the afternoon. Which would in turn cause me to drink more coffee, sleep less, etc etc. It was a downward spiral.
3. Try to space your activities. If you have a lot of energy, don't burn all of it in the morning. Take it easy and try to save some energy for later in the day.
4. Exercise. I find that going for a run in the afternoon replenishes my energy. Both physical and mental. It breaks you away from your daily chores, gets your feel-good hormones going, gets you out in the daylight which helps your circadian rhythm, regulates your energy and as an added bonus, you'll sleep better for it too. Starting to regularly exercise is the best thing I did. I know, people suggest it all the time. But I can't stress this enough, it works wonders.
5. How does your daily diet look? As in, do you eat breakfast, lunch and dinner, or do you eat smaller bites throughout the day? Some people need different eating styles, or just need to eat more or less of a certain thing. When I started exercising, I started to look at my daily intake and noticed I was eating far too little. I was underweight too. When I started to eat more, spaced throughout the day, I had more energy in general and was more optimistic/energetic.

[jones177]

Sounds like staying at home(cave) syndrome to me.

 

I was freelance and worked from home for years. If I did not have a project or my computers were rendering I would just pass out. Playing shooters helped a lot but sometimes that was not enough so it was Redbull, Coke and coffee.

When a company wanted to have an exclusive I agreed but only if I could have office space(and a pension). Then I had a commute and was surround by people so no passing out. I was made fun of if it did.  

 

Now that I am retired I am usually active in the morning, nap in the afternoon then up until about 1 to 2 am. 

To me that is retired life.

 

[Ralphred]

18 hours ago, thrasher_565 said:

and lack of sleep probly

This is something I ignored entirely in my original post, but yes the concept of "sleep cleanliness" (which you should be able to google and get some insight into) needs to be something you bare in mind when stepping back from a situation and look at it as a whole. I did mention circadian rhythm, but failed to expand on how many things that are ubiquitous within our modern lives can mess with these, the use of mobile phones and led screens, even modern "energy efficient" lighting can be a problem if you don't pay attention to the K values of the light emitted; pay attention to when you are using these things when your body should be winding down ready for sleep.

[maartendc]

5 hours ago, Mojo-Jojo said:

Maarten, can I suggest the following:

1. Cut down on the coffee in the morning and afternoon. I used to have similar problems as you. I used to drink as much coffee as you or more. From morning till evening. It was affecting my sleep. Nowadays I drink 2 small cups in the morning, and 1 or 2 in the afternoon. I have a hard limit of ~1PM for my last cup, so it's out of my system by the time I go to bed.
2. Try to have a regular sleep rhythm. Go to bed at around the same time every day and get at leats 7-8 hours of sleep. Even if you're not tired. I used to give myself very little sleep. 5 or 6 hours per night. In the morning I would be overactive, probably owing to the fact that I didn't have to "get out of a deep sleep" as much as when you sleep longer. But it would catch up to me in the afternoon. Which would in turn cause me to drink more coffee, sleep less, etc etc. It was a downward spiral.
3. Try to space your activities. If you have a lot of energy, don't burn all of it in the morning. Take it easy and try to save some energy for later in the day.
4. Exercise. I find that going for a run in the afternoon replenishes my energy. Both physical and mental. It breaks you away from your daily chores, gets your feel-good hormones going, gets you out in the daylight which helps your circadian rhythm, regulates your energy and as an added bonus, you'll sleep better for it too. Starting to regularly exercise is the best thing I did. I know, people suggest it all the time. But I can't stress this enough, it works wonders.
5. How does your daily diet look? As in, do you eat breakfast, lunch and dinner, or do you eat smaller bites throughout the day? Some people need different eating styles, or just need to eat more or less of a certain thing. When I started exercising, I started to look at my daily intake and noticed I was eating far too little. I was underweight too. When I started to eat more, spaced throughout the day, I had more energy in general and was more optimistic/energetic.

Thanks, there is some good advice here. I will try to cut out caffeine, or limit it to 1 or 2 cups a day or something like that.

 

I do try to sleep 8 hours a night, but usually only get 6.5 or 7.

 

Excercise definitely helps. I do have a fairly active lifestyle, but I will try to fit more exercise into my daily routine.

On 6/1/2022 at 7:38 PM, tikker said:

What is a cup / small cup in this case? 100 mL, 250 mL? What type of coffee? Espressos, filter coffee? The recommendations usually go up to about 400 mg of caffeine per day. A coffee takes about an hour to reach peak effect and caffeine has a half life of around 5 hours in your body. So say you start at 8 AM and drink one cup every hour until 12 you're basically constantly riding the peak all morning. If you then wait until 3 or later in the afternoon to replenish then basically from 1 PM on you're "out of fuel".

 

Assuming everything else about your habits is fine (sufficient food, well hydrated etc.), you may simply be affected by the amount of caffeine you are ingesting and/or the time within which you do so. If you feel like you really need it, the good thing is that your caffeine tolerance is generally fairly quick to "reset". You can go cold turkey and just cut out coffee for a week or two and see how that goes. You can also start by cutting down the number of cups in the morning. Instead of four cups in quick(er) succession, try just two further apart. Or pace it more across the day with one every 2 hours (for an 8 hour work day), for example.

Small cup is about 150-170ml of espresso with water (lungo) for me. I think this has less caffeine than drip coffee or starbucks coffee, but still quite a lot.

 

I think you are right, I am riding a peak of caffeine all morning, and then in the afternoon I cut back, because I don't want to get too nervous or jittery from it. I will try and cut back on it entirely.

 

On 6/1/2022 at 3:57 PM, Ralphred said:

To be honest, if you cut out the caffeine altogether, within a few weeks (about three, up to six max) you body will be back into the swing of producing natural stimulants (at the right times, depending on circadian rhythms, so autumn/spring are the best times to attempt this).

There is also the "effect of lunch" to consider; the reason we (as western cultures) have desert after a main meal is to try and offset the effects of complex carbohydrate loaded meals affecting blood sugar levels, which is why we eat the "sweet/dessert" at the end of the meal, to provide a readily available source of sugars to help offset the increase in "non-sugar based carbohydrate blood concentrations".

 

To test this you can try to have protein loaded breakfasts and lunches, forgoing any carbs (sugar based or otherwise) except for those found naturally in vegetables, this will "force" your body to use it's natural reserves throughout the day (switching from "readily available" to "stored energy" takes time, and involves your liver doing work, so lay off the sauce while trying this ;P) and helps provide a more "level playing-field" throughout the working day.

 

But directly above is "hardcore testing", just try laying off the caffeine altogether for a few weeks to start with; you'll be surprised how letting your body "take back control" will have a marked effect on energy levels and cognition, you'll sleep better too.

Thanks, some good info there. I will try and cut back on caffeine.

Definitely the effect of lunch is there. I may try and cut back on carbs during lunch. My lunches are mostly sandwhiches or bread of some kind, so lots of carbs. Perhaps Ill try switching to protein rich salads or something like that.

[tikker]

10 minutes ago, maartendc said:

Small cup is about 150-170ml of espresso with water (lungo) for me. I think this has less caffeine than drip coffee or starbucks coffee, but still quite a lot.

Adding water afterwards is an americano Starbucks won't have significantly more caffeine in the same volume of the same drink unless the beans they use are more caffeinated.

18 minutes ago, maartendc said:

I think you are right, I am riding a peak of caffeine all morning, and then in the afternoon I cut back, because I don't want to get too nervous or jittery from it. I will try and cut back on it entirely.

If it's good coffee no need to cut it out entirely, just spread them more across the day while maybe lessening as well. Replacing it with tea or something else is another option. At office jobs it can be tempting to just grab another one while actually your intent was simply to get something to drink.

[Heliian]

Try researching about circadian rhythm, fatigue and how to combat it. 

 

Healthy habits will improve your overall well-being.

 

Its common to hit the wall at that time of day, especially in our more modern era of everything now.

 

[Unedited_Mind]

Not producing enough Test? You can always go get an opinion from a doc.