Office Health: Beating the Afternoon Slump
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This video first ran in March 2011.
Adam Ridgewell: Hitting a slump every afternoon at about 3:00 is probably due to a number of factors.
The first one, I’d say, is getting enough sleep. The best tip for this is if you can get to sleep around about 10:30 every night, no matter what you’re doing, just get horizontal, turn all of the lights out in your room so it’s pitch black and be getting up at the same time every morning. Start to create some sort of cycle, some sort of rhythm, especially during the winter months.
One thing you may want to end up doing is right next to your laptop or your PC or whatever you’re using is get something that uses full spectrum lighting, such as a Litebook – I have one on my desk here. All you need to do is get that full spectrum lighting – it’s like the same frequency as sunlight – get it into your retina. You don’t have to stare right into it – just so your body senses the presence of that full spectrum lighting. What that does is it aims to inhibit sleep hormones, which is what causes that drowsiness between 3 and 4 in the afternoon. That’s when people – quite foolishly – start to reach for that cup of coffee. That’s another story, but coffee takes a long time to get out of your system.
Drinking water too is quite important throughout the day. Not eight glasses of water that every website recommends, but just keep sipping water, have some water nearby. Also, ingesting food, as well. Most Canadians will reach for their Tim Hortons in the morning and a muffin because people on the go, this is what they do. What would be helpful is to ingest food every two hours or so, be it fruit, nuts, cheese, things like that. In the morning, if you’ve got the time – and even make the time – is to get your blender and get some fruit, get a source of protein – powder – in there as well just to have a quick start to the morning. That’s the best way to go.
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