Mind Tools - Health - Food, rest and energy

Eating Patterns, Rest and Energy

You may find that your energy levels throughout the day are driven by your eating patterns.

Having a good breakfast with plenty of carbohydrate will keep your brain supplied with sugars for the early part of the day. You may find that these sugars fade sharply by mid-morning as your body reacts to high levels of sugar by burning it faster, and then finds the supplies running down. Some people find it useful to have a mid-morning snack to avoid this. Other people recommend eating protein (e.g. an egg) at breakfast. This seems to delay the energy dip.

On the other hand, eating a large lunch seems to divert blood from your brain to digestion - you have probably felt the desire to go to sleep after a heavy meal. This will be much worse if you drink alcohol at lunch. Alcohol is a sedative.

You may also find that energy levels are dependent on whether you take rest periods or not. If you work through the day with no breaks, you may find that you fade badly during the end of the afternoon. Often taking a lunch break will allow you to start the afternoon refreshed for quality work.

With intelligent eating and adequate breaks you may find that you can extend the amount of quality time available to you in a day quite significantly.

Try experimenting with different eating and rest patterns to see which ones suit the way you work. It is worth trying each approach for a few days before trying another to make the experiment more reliable, as this helps to minimise the effect of random events.

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