Why You Can’t Stay Alert In The Afternoon

If you constantly fight a battle to keep from nodding off every afternoon, too much weight and a depressed mood may be the root of your problem. According to research at Penn State, obesity and emotional stress are making more and more Americans behave like spaced-out sleepwalkers after lunch every day.

“The ‘epidemic’ of sleepiness parallels an ‘epidemic’ of obesity and psychosocial stress,” says sleep researcher Alexandros Vgontzas, M.D. “Weight loss, depression and sleep disorders should be our priorities in terms of preventing the medical complications and public safety hazards associated with this excessive sleepiness.”

So, if you want to slip off that afternoon sleepiness, slip off a few pounds.

“In fact, our results showed that in individuals who lost weight, excessive sleepiness improved,” Vgontzas says.