It is about that time of year where all of the holiday’s have arrived. As much as I love spending time with my friends and family, I also love all of the food. Obviously on the holidays people eat more than they usually wood. You have full course meals including appetizers and deserts. Also your portions are probably a bit bigger than usual. Every time I overstuff myself with these big meals I get extremely tired and I know a lot of people feel that way also. I never understood what about large quantities of food can make someone sleepy. If calories are what gives us energy, then why do we get tired?

Foods that contain high levels of carbs, fat, and sugar can trigger neurons in your body to send the message that you need to slow down in order to digest large supplements on food. The body must direct the attention to digesting and breaking down the large portions of food. The Huffington post had an online article about this topic and the author stated the following: “More specifically, researchers found, a group of brain cells called orexin neurons that are found in the hypothalmus are very sensitive to glucose levels, which spike after a big meal. Those neurons produce a protein, orexin, which moderates wakefulness in the brain,” (Sleeping After Eating A Big Meal, 1). Also, melatonin and seratonin are two chemicals in the body that can trigger drowsiness. When food intake increases, insulin in the body increases, which brings out these two chemicals as well.

Also, large quantities of foods that are bad for you also make you extremely tired. In the film “Super Size Me” Morgan Spurlock conducts an experiment of eating McDonalds every day for a whole month. Every meal was McDonaldsa and if he had the option to supersize his fries and drink he would. After just one week of eating like this, he said in his documentary that he felt extremely tired and sluggish all the time. He was sleeping longer and taking naps often, which he says is something he never did. The chemicals in his body were triggered by the high fat, sugar, and carbs that made his body slow down like how I said in the first paragraph.

In conclusion, when we overstuff our bodies we are bound to get tired… and if you do it every day you can put on a few pounds as well.

Sources:

1. Melnick, Meredith. “Sleepy After Eating A Big Meal? Here’s Why.” The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 22 Nov. 2012. Web. 04 Dec. 2014. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/22/sleepy-after-eating-a-big-meal-why_n_2171058.html>