"It is an all-too-familiar scenario: you reheat a bowl of last night's noodles for lunch, devour it, then return to your desk and gradually droop over the course of the afternoon, to the point at which you are battling to keep your eyes open. Or perhaps you struggle with energy on waking up; or, after a busy start and strong coffee first thing, you begin to fade mid-morning."
"One is sleep pressure, the natural tiredness that builds the longer we've been awake. The other is our circadian rhythm, the body's internal clock, which gives us a daily pattern in alertness that starts to reduce in the afternoon. For most, it is at about 3pm when there is a dip in energy, says Marjot. Sleep pressure has been rising for several hours, and at the same time the circadian alertness signal naturally dips."
Daily energy fluctuates for many people, with a particularly common mid-afternoon slump. Two physiological processes drive these fluctuations: sleep pressure, which builds the longer someone is awake, and the circadian rhythm, an internal clock that reduces alertness in the afternoon. Those processes often coincide around mid-afternoon, typically near 3pm, producing pronounced tiredness that can impair work performance and increase accident risk. Energy dips can also appear on waking, mid-morning when early caffeine wanes, or after evening meals in winter. Persistent or chronic tiredness may indicate illness and should prompt medical evaluation. The pattern persists even without external time cues, reflecting an intrinsic biological rhythm.
Read at www.theguardian.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]