Eating = wanting to sleep

I have had exactly the same problem. I know it sounds weird but acupuncture helped me a lot with that. I went there 3 times and followed some dietary advice that the acupuncturist gave me and it worked!

Lisa,

Try taking a Food Enzym with your meals. You are getting tired because your body is working to digest the food, which is sapping energy! Food Enzym's will help with the natural digestion of foods and help you to not get the sleepies after a meal. It is especially difficult for most adults to digest milk, try switching to a soy milk that is more friendly to our body.

You can pick up food enzyms from any natural health food store. I personally have taken them for years - and they're only about $8 for a months worth of pills. Good Luck, I hope this helps!

My husband has this problem as well. Ask your doctor about sleep apnea, (or your spouse may have noticed too). Sleep apnea can cause undo tiredness in the day even when you slept the whole night. I am no expert, but one difference between my husband's sleep and mine is that he NEVER remembers dreaming, I normally do. (not the details, just that I dreamed) On days when I am especially tired, I too have no memory of dreaming. Also he snores excessively and will have these very short periods of time when his breathing stops, I do not notice the stopping, but do notice the quick snorts/inhales when he restarts.

We are in a fitness challenge at our gym that is telling us to put food (healthy balanced) in our mouths every 2.5-3 hours. Our coach says that will regulate sugar spikes in our blood...(sugar high then a crash). She also says that going more than 4 hours without food causes us to get loopy. She is a huge fitness buff, owns the local gym and competes in fitness shows all the time.

Certain foods are more likely to spike your blood sugar, there is a website that will give you information on which foods these are, it gives a glycemic index. Higher numbers will cause higher sugar spikes leading to crashes...the site is http://nutritiondata.self.com/ and is very helpful in determining both glycemic loads and inflammation factors of the foods you eat.

Then try limiting foods with high glycemic loads and eat 5-6 mini meals a day. Some people find this hard to do, what I do is plan my meals, but divide them up... for example, I may eat the cereal at breakfast, wait a couple hours and have my fruit and yogurt. Eat my sandwich at lunch, then my salad in the mid afternoon. Also whenever I find myself feeling suddenly too tired, I force myself to get physically busy for 20-30 min...ie, take a walk, play with the dog, go to the gym, or do a major housecleaning chore, I tell myself, I can take a nap as soon as I am done, generally this helps me to become refocused and I can skip the nap.

I suffered insomnia for over 5 years where I could not sleep longer than an hour in a 24 hour period...then I went total turn around and for a year could not stay awake between about 2pm and 5pm.... now I sleep a solid 6 hours a night...perhaps not enough, but way better than before, and seldom suffer fatigue in the daytime.

But for sure talk to your doctor about sleep apnea, as it is dangerous and regardless of diet, if it is a problem must be fixed. I am no expert, but have been studying this healthy eating thing for over 10 years and have recently gotten involved in the gym and fitness challenge to get more focused on a healthier lifestyle. I have dealt with my husbands sleep apnea, which has led to serious narcolepsy...the man falls asleep if he sits for 5 min--he can barely even drive anywhere anymore, he will not have deal with the problem at all. I am hoping that with this newer healthy lifestyle, I will be able to convince him to take care of this as well. I hope this helps a little...Like I said, I am no expert, but I think most likely you are having blood sugar spikes and crashes...

Good luck...

This happens to me if I eat too many carbs. Last night we had pasta for dinner (whole wheat pasta even) and afterwards I was sooooo sleepy. So hubby encouraged me to jump on my exercise bike for a bit, that helped a lot.

Sorry to hear that. Take care of yourself!