First, it’s common, almost everyone has this experience after eating and the culprit is probably is the food we eat.
See, most of us don’t stop to think about what type of foods we are eating when we sit down for a meal unless we are on a strict diet. Many of us are extremely busy in our day to day life, so it’s easy to just grab something that is convenient which is typically loaded with carbohydrates or sugar.
You will often hear during Thanksgiving time that people take naps after the celebratory meal because turkey contains a sleep triggering chemical call tryptophan. However, did you know that this is actually a normal chemical contained in the human body and produced when insulin trigger the movement of tryptophan? If you eat a meal that is high in sugar and carbohydrates, you may find yourself feeling as though you could fall asleep at your desk. Many of us have jobs that require us to stay sedentary the entire day, so when we consume large amounts of sugars or fast food, it makes us sleepy after we eat because we just aren’t moving enough to burn off the excess sugar that we have consumed. This is caused by an increase in serotonin which is the chemical that helps control sleep.
So, why do we feel sleepy after eating? It’s caused by an increase in serotonin which is the chemical that helps control sleep.