Sleeping after eating is beneficial. Is it possible to sleep after eating: harm to the body

Is it possible to sleep after eating?

Doctors and fitness instructors do not advise going to bed to rest after eating. This can lead to gastrointestinal diseases and cause obesity. The thing is that the process of digesting food slows down. As a result, heartburn, belching, and heaviness in the stomach may appear. If you lie down after a meal, food will be digested more slowly, and fatty acids will not be broken down, but accumulate.

Useful tips for those who sleep during the day

To make sleeping during the day truly beneficial, follow these simple rules:

If your sleep the previous night was objectively insufficient, allow yourself to take a 40-60 minute nap. In some cases, the time can be increased to 90 minutes (1 cycle);
The duration of the “siesta” with a full night’s rest should not exceed 30 minutes. During this time, a “restart” of the body’s physiological systems will occur. If after half an hour you “fell” into the deep phase, waking up quickly will cause you to feel unwell. If the previous night's rest was not complete, sleep during the day can last 2 hours. Carefully observe the duration of the phases;
- create a comfortable environment for relaxation. Dim the sound and lights. Alternatively, use earplugs and an eye mask. Sleeping in complete darkness is most beneficial for melatonin production.
- choose a comfortable place to sleep. Somnologists do not recommend lying on the bed, since sleep can become sound (reflexively). The best position is reclining. Good places are a sofa, car seat, etc. You should also loosen restrictive clothing items;
— the optimal time for a daytime nap in adults is no later than 15.00. During these hours, the body especially needs rest. Falling asleep later can lead to disruption of night sleep;
— take into account individual physiological characteristics. If falling asleep takes a long time, add another 15 minutes to the total time. This is the only way you can fully experience how beneficial it is to sleep during the day;
— those who have difficulty waking up should drink a cup of strong tea or coffee in advance;
- after a nap, it is very useful to do a short warm-up to improve blood circulation;
— if you feel drowsy, you can’t cheer yourself up, and there’s no time to rest, still take a nap for about 10 minutes. Doctors have proven that even such a short nap can charge you with energy for an entire hour! Think back to your student years. Surely, you fell asleep during lectures, and then felt a surge of freshness and enthusiasm.

We'll give you some valuable advice.

Is it possible to sleep during the day after eating? Let's answer this and other questions, so:

It doesn’t matter whether it was lunch or dinner, don’t rush to go to bed. Walk around for about half an hour and let the food settle.
It is better to take a walk, and this is useful both before and after eating.

So is it possible to sleep after eating? The clear answer is no! If you feel very sleepy, try to distract yourself, do something that will require your utmost concentration. It’s better, of course, to go to rest after a meal an hour or an hour and a half later.

How to lose weight

Failure in the digestion process leads to sad consequences - the appearance of gastritis, colitis, heartburn, metabolic disorders, and excess weight. Therefore, if you are once again wondering how to lose excess weight, pay attention to whether you are interfering with the natural process of food absorption.

How to lose weight? Start by following the rules outlined above. After a meal, give your body time to digest the food. If these were light dishes, such as vegetable salad or soup, then it is enough to wait half an hour or an hour. It will take 2 hours or more to digest heavy, fatty foods and meat products.

VesDoloi.ru

Children's naps during the day are considered beneficial for health. But when a person becomes an adult, the habit of sleeping in the middle of the day puts him in the category of lazy people.

Why does opinion about healthy sleep change so dramatically with age? Scientists all over the world claim that napping helps restore physical strength, normalize emotional levels, and increase efficiency.

any activity. Patterns in society about daytime naps have no scientific basis. In this article we will talk about an important and interesting topic for many - is it good for an adult to sleep during the day?

Why do you want to sleep after eating?

So, we have already figured out whether it is possible to sleep immediately after eating. Why does it make you sleepy? Let's look at the root cause. It lies in the fact that after eating food, the stomach begins to digest it. Blood rushes to the organs that are involved in digestion. And less oxygen reaches the brain, which is why you feel tired and drowsy. Is it possible for overweight people to go to bed after eating? Definitely not possible.

The harm of daytime rest

Scientists say that the benefits and harms of daytime sleep depend on many factors that are important to consider. We'll talk about healthy napping rules later. Daytime rest can be harmful if you nap for a long time, without taking into account time, external conditions and sleep phases. Napping is not useful, and sometimes contraindicated, for patients with severe depression and mental disorders. Daytime rest can be harmful for people suffering from insomnia. In this case, life biorhythms are disrupted and sleep disturbance processes progress.

A few more recommendations

So, we are looking into whether it is possible to sleep after eating. According to scientists, after eating you not only feel sleepy, but you also don’t want to think. So:

You should not delve into a complex mental process immediately after lunch or breakfast. Brain activity returns to normal after 30-40 minutes.
Don't eat a lot of food at one time.
Lunch should be light, with the least amount of carbohydrates, if you know that difficult mental work lies ahead. Avoid eating fatty meats, fried foods and baked goods.
Eat more vegetables and fruits, they will give you energy.

And don’t forget about vitamin C, the lack of which reduces immunity and performance. Now let’s figure out whether it’s possible to go to bed after eating at night.

Sleeping during the day is good for you, but not for everyone

For some categories of people, napping during the day may not be beneficial. The first reason for contraindications is age. As you age (after 40), problems with blood pressure and heart often appear. A sudden awakening leads to a jump in blood pressure, which means that sleeping during the day will not be beneficial, but vice versa.

In addition, other pathological conditions may develop, the external sign of which is constant drowsiness. Of course, the cause must be sought with the help of doctors. Perhaps this is a problem with the endocrine system. Therefore, you need to be attentive to yourself and not take risks.

For those who suffer from insomnia , it is better not to sleep during the day. Otherwise, night wakefulness is guaranteed!

The next contraindication is depression. Even a short nap at an “inopportune time” can aggravate the condition.

To avoid jet lag, daytime sleep should last no more than 1.5 hours.

Respondents often report feeling unwell and groggy after a nap. However, this is usually due to the wrong time and duration of the “siesta”.

Why is this harmful?

The question already presupposes the answer that you should not eat before going to bed at night. Let's find out the reasons:

If you regularly eat enough at night, you can quickly gain weight, because calories are not consumed, but accumulated.
The digestion process slows down during sleep, just like others. And the food is not digested, but remains in the stomach until the morning, causing rotting and disruption of the microflora, which negatively affects the immune system.
Night sleep is needed to restore the body and vitality, and this can only be achieved with an empty stomach.
Sleeping on an empty stomach slows down the aging process.
The hormone melatonin, which kills cancer cells, helps prolong youth, improve immunity, and helps you fall asleep quickly. It is not produced on a full stomach.

Is it possible for children to sleep after eating? Yes, moreover, the smaller the baby, the shorter the interval between meals and sleep should be.

People who suffer from stomach ulcers should not sleep on an empty stomach.

Tip 5: Don't eat before or during heavy mental or physical work.

Any athlete knows that you can only eat 2 hours (or better yet, more) before training. The reason is simple - if he eats an hour before or during it, then the body will spend enormous amounts of energy on digestion. This will affect your performance during training - it will be significantly lower. And in addition, the digestive processes will still be disrupted - indigestion, malaise - all this will be waiting for you. The situation is similar with mental work. Did you know that brain activity consumes more energy than body activity? And this proportion is approximately 70/30. Those. 70% is consumed by the brain, 30% by the body. Therefore, for mental work the advice is even more relevant.

Eating at night is a bad habit!

It is necessary to get rid of it. Let's give some recommendations that will help:

It is important to correctly distribute the amount of food per day; if this is done correctly, then dinner will account for 20% of all food consumed during the day. Moreover, you need to eat three hours before bedtime.
To drown out a strong feeling of hunger, you can deceive the body with an apple. Or drink a glass of kefir or herbal tea.
Remember, the break between breakfast and dinner should be at least 12 hours.
Do not skip daily meals, because calories consumed in the first half of the day are consumed more easily and quickly and activate metabolic processes. In the evening, they promote the deposition of fatty tissue.
There is one more little trick - an attitude that has been known since childhood: once you have already brushed your teeth, you should not eat. It helps some.

Switching to a new diet, of course, will require a lot of effort. It’s not easy, but it’s possible if you want, the main thing is to be patient. There is one technique that helps to do this. It is known that a new habit is formed in 21 days. Keep a diary and write down your daily feelings there. If you break a rule at least once, start again until you complete the planned marathon to the end flawlessly.

What time of day should you sleep and how much?

Daytime naps lasting more than 20 minutes are not recommended. The optimal period is 13.00-15.00 (adults). To restore vitality, perhaps 20 minutes is enough, and sometimes less. For Churchill, at least, this was quite enough. He was relaxing right in his favorite chair. It is this brilliant politician who is often cited as an example by fans of the midday “siesta”.

Somnologists (sleep specialists) do not consider sleep during the daytime mandatory for adults. At the same time, it is recognized as useful for strengthening the immune system and increasing productivity. Improvement in mood and a decrease in the impact of stressful conditions are also invariably noted.

Scientists have found that sleeping during the day is beneficial. However, its duration should not exceed 20 minutes. Even half an hour's rest can cause harm. A person risks going into a deep phase, and upon abrupt awakening, feeling unwell.

Experts note that drowsiness is a common state for most modern city dwellers.

There can be many reasons:

- deficiency or poor quality of night sleep;

- chronic stress;

- flexible work schedule, etc.

All of the above factors clearly affect your well-being. Therefore, a 20-minute nap during the day can minimize harm, as well as avoid worsening problems and even nervous breakdowns.

Is it possible to learn to wake up after 20 minutes? Yes, there are some useful guidelines for this. For example, drink a cup of coffee or strong tea before going to bed. The effect of the drink will begin after about 20 minutes, and the body will wake up. You can also set an alarm. However, its signal is invariably associated with morning stress, and this should be kept in mind. Therefore, it is advisable to master special techniques for self-awakening.

Remember: if there is unmotivated drowsiness, you need to contact a sleep specialist.

Finally, some general advice

Now we know whether it is possible to sleep after eating. So:

Don't confuse hunger with appetite. Drink a glass of water and wait half an hour, then you can eat. The best hours for eating are 11-14 and 16-20 hours.
Do not drink water during meals. Digestion is disrupted. It is also not recommended to drink tea, coffee and other liquids after meals. Cold and hot drinks also help slow down the digestive process, so keep the water warm.
Don't eat if you're sick.
Snack on fruit.
Don't overeat, it's better to feel a slight feeling of hunger.
Chew your food thoroughly.

These are few tips, but they will help you adapt to the right lifestyle. The main thing is not to give up, not to stop, there is no limit to perfection.

Tip 1. Don't confuse appetite and hunger. Eat only when you feel hungry.

Hunger is a voice coming from you, saying that you need food to maintain the normal functioning of your body.

Appetite is your habit. It can be determined by various circumstances - the onset of a certain time of day (“lunch at 13:00”), the smell or type of food (“what kind of cake ...”), etc.

Appetite can often be accompanied by a feeling of emptiness in the stomach, depression, and a general state of weakness. But the underlying reason here is psychological. And if you feel weak, this does not mean that your body is on the verge of exhaustion. Thus, hunger is a real need for food based on the physiology of the human body. Appetite is just a desire for food, which is a consequence of the interaction of various external factors.

An illustrative example: for lunch you ate soup, main course and fruit. There is a delicious sweet roll left, and it is your appetite that pushes you to eat it, not the feeling of hunger.

And remember - the best time to digest is from 11 to 14 and from 16 to 20.