Even after trying the 'order of eating,' my afternoon sleepiness didn't disappear. The story of how the culprit wasn't just one person
I will start with the conclusion.
Regarding daytime sleepiness, I had long been searching for an easy-to-understand culprit, thinking, 'If I just fix this, it will go away.'
Eating vegetables first. Reducing white rice. Maintaining fasting periods.
I tried all the commonly heard methods. Even so, my intellectual performance would drop in the afternoon.
What I realized after researching it again was that the culprit was not just one thing, but that several factors were linked together.
A coincidence of overlaps
Previously, I wrote onnoteabout shifting the focus of my meals to breakfast and lunch while making dinner lighter, changing my habit of eating too fast, and starting strength training.
Because of these, my afternoon sleepiness completely disappeared, and I became able to maintain my intellectual performance throughout the day.
This part is clear.
However, I didn't actually know which of those things was effective.
Was it because I made dinner lighter, the speed at which I ate, or because I started moving my body?
The result is clear, but the factors cannot be identified.
It looks like the result of everything overlapping little by little.
That is precisely why I think the opposite.
If I had only changed one of these, the change might have been too small, and I might have ended up not even knowing if it was effective.
The aims were different, but they all came back to the same 'afternoon'
What is interesting is that the 'aims' of what I changed were each different.
I made dinner lighter because I originally wanted to improve my sleep at night.
I wasn't trying to directly do anything about afternoon sleepiness.
Strength training was for securing survival reserves.
Stopping eating too fast was the only action I took that directly aimed to improve post-meal sleepiness, especially after lunch.
However, when I looked into it again later, I realized that these actions, which seemed to have different targets, were actually all effective for the depth of the same 'afternoon slump'—in other words, maintaining intellectual performance such as concentration, judgment, and decision-making.
The evening meal affects sleep, and that sleep comes back to haunt you the following afternoon.
How much you move during the day changes the premise of how your body reacts after a meal.
The dots that I thought I had adjusted separately had, before I knew it, connected into a single line.
The body was one complex, interconnected system.
That was exactly what I relearned from this experience.
Sleep, diet, exercise, and afternoon mental clarity.
These are not independent items, but one complex system where they influence each other.
Even if you stare at just one number, the cause will not become visible.
Even if you isolate and look at just one meal or one habit, the whole picture will not be reflected.
If you cannot narrow down the cause, your next move becomes difficult to see.
However, when multiple factors overlap slightly, making the cause difficult to see, what is needed is not to try to land a single decisive blow, but to line up what happened and what came before it on the same timeline and look at them.
A guide to 'clear decision-making'
What I want to protect is a state where judgment does not become dull even in the afternoon, which I call 'clear decision-making'.
'I even tried the eating order, but I still crash.'
I have summarized the story beyond that in an explanatory article with primary sources.
The magnitude of the effects and why it is necessary to look beyond the plate are organized there.
Please feel free to use it as a reference.
▷ Guide: I tried the eating order. Still crashing in the afternoon. The story 'beyond' blood sugar spikes
The relationship between afternoon sleepiness and blood sugar is also covered in this guide.
▷ Dinner is late and large. That one meal might be making your sleep shallow at night
That is why we are building a system to align and compare them.
However, continuing to do this manually is not easy.
Diet apps, sleep data, exercise logs.
Just rearranging records from separate places to sit next to your afternoon state takes a fair amount of effort.
To handle that effort behind the scenes, we are building a system called meiseki OS.
It is not a tool or a coach that tells you what to eat or when to exercise.
It bundles scattered records onto a single timeline and quietly reflects only what can be said from the user's own records, such as, 'It seems that after this kind of night, the afternoon slump is more likely to occur.'
The person themselves is always the one who decides.
※This article is based on my personal experience and general physiological facts, and does not recommend any specific diet or treatment. If you have concerns about your physical condition or weight management, please consult a medical institution or professional.
meiseki OS