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Midday Slump
Take a moment, please, and help me out. Around 4 PM every day — sometimes it hits as early as 2:30 PM — I hit a wall.
It’s not really fatigue, exactly. It’s more just a puttering-out of energy. Here’s a message from the Harvard Business Review — I mean, they must know how to beat this, right? — on ways to overcome the afternoon out-of-gas feeling:
https://twitter.com/HarvardBiz/status/656435538589782016/photo/1
Two items struck me as weird. The first, “Tailor your tasks to your energy” seems like one of those pie-in-the-sky suggestions people make who have never really worked for a living. It’s like when super-fit people who hate food tell me to “avoid breads and sugars, load up on fresh vegetables and salad” as if that’s even something a decent person would be able to do.
I spend my afternoons, more often than not, catching up to what I didn’t do in the morning or responding to disasters that have arisen since then. What I cannot do, under any normal circumstances, is “tailor” anything to anything.
And then there’s “Meditate.”
Which is something — Surprise! Betcha didn’t expect it from the West Coast RINO! — I’ve done from time to time. Most of the time, I just fell asleep. Occasionally I’d actually come back to consciousness feeling relaxed and rejuvenated, but even on those occasions I came back to a full email inbox and a sense of being even further behind.
So I’m stuck with my 3 PM espresso, which they imply is some kind of a crutch.
They’re right. It is. So what?
Published in Culture
Ignore advice, especially when it comes from Harvard . . .
My production peaks are mid-morning, early afternoon. Any other time? Vegetable.
I hit the same wall in the afternoon which is why I turn to my numero uno time waster then – Ricochet!
Sounds like someone needs a nap.
Caffeine and a little snack with protein…before I hit the wall. I will stand for phone calls some times. I sit on a stability ball in the afternoons pretty regularly, that way I can bounce. I also try to schedule phone calls I the afternoon. My best times are early morning thru mid mornings. It is all downhill for me after lunch….
These people are delusional if they think I am giving up caffeine
I remember at one place I worked that there was regularly a line for the coffee and snack machines about 3:00. I’d get sleepy about that time, myself, and I remember at some research team meetings (3 or 4 o’clock), once the lights went off and the overhead projector came on, with that soft whirring sound in a too-warm lab…I’d just nod off, despite a Coke.
One time, while trying to mask the nodding by propping my head in my palms, I hear a loud BANG! I tried not to make any sudden move but opened my eyes casually. The lead professor was staring straight at me while leaning over to pick the big reference book off the floor, where he’d slammed it down.
After that, I figured that eating something worked better at waking me up than caffeine.
“Yes, I know we have a deadline, but my personal energy is not optimal at this time of day. You guys keep working but I am going to step back and engage in some mindfulness exercises until I feel that I have begun to transition from a valley to a peak. You understand, of course.”
The 20 minute power nap is great when it works, but it’s tough to just conk out on command, especially under stress. When I try, I usually end up spending an hour trying to force myself to relax, ordering Siri to keep pushing back my alarm every five minutes, and then slumping back to my desk more alert from panic than rest.
My suggestion is to take a nap. Either a power nap that’s 20 mins or one that’s 90 mins, so you get that cycle thing to happen. Those are the optimal times. If it’s longer than 25, or longer than 90, you’ll be groggy after.
I’d also suggest showering and/or eating something. (Or eat something in the shower. Oatmeal … probably isn’t a great idea. Despite being a giant fat man, eating in the bathroom is a dignity line I have refused to cross … mostly.)
Also, both speed and caffeine take about 20 mins to kick in. So if you pop two Ritalin, and pound an XL coffee, then immediately go down for a 20 min power nap, when you wake up, you’ll be able to conquer the world. (I’m pretty sure that’s how Alexander the Great did it.)
Then you’ve utterly failed. Go for a walk or something.
If you’re trying to sleep, and the Zs don’t come after 20 mins, relocate and try something else.
A siesta after lunch is a good for daily productivity. Just look at the Latin American countr….. oh, never mind.
I think its a common problem – and a short nap helps when needed, but I might suggest the Emergen C powder formula drink (different kinds and flavors) – just mix with water – I take a mug with me over ice when I am checking properties and it helps a lot – full of vitamins. Also builds up your immune system for cold season. Taking a multi-vitamin or at least a B complex seems to help with that pooped feeling in the afternoon – not sure what you do for a living, but some sort of exercise a few times a week, even walking will help. If you work in an office, get out at lunch time and do it. You may want to limit carbs and eat a snack with protein like someone suggests before the slump – a hard boiled egg, handful of nuts, etc. Also check the ingredients in what you eat – soy affected my neighbor, and me the same way, instant drowsiness and sometimes headache.
This is how you do it.
You won’t like this, Rob, but there are only two solutions:
1) Organize your whole life so that you can sleep at that time of day. I do it. You’ll notice I’m usually up and working at 4:00 a.m. to compensate for it.
2) Skip lunch. If you don’t eat, the slump won’t hit. That’s what I do if I’m absolutely compelled to be awake and lucid at nap time.
It’s not a “problem,” by the way — it’s just the way most humans work. Around the world cats sleep during the day and wake at twilight and dawn, and humans wake in the morning and sleep after lunch and at night. Fighting it is futile. Sleep or skip lunch.
But then I’ll be hungry, you say. Yes, you will. But I find that easier to deal with than fighting the urge to sleep when I’ve got stuff to do.
For me the solution is a walk. I hit the slump at 2:30 or 3 as well. I tried chocolate milkshakes. That didn’t work, oddly. Coffee is the last thing you should do. Well, second to last, after the milkshakes.
Exercise, go for a walk.
The thing to do is experiment with your life and see what helps overcome or prevent the slump. For me, a quick walk and eating an apple help. They’re the best quick pick me ups that I can do in the office. If you can’t get outside, just jumping up and down helps (it looks stupid but it works, so it ain’t that stupid).
One trick I learned from old lawyers when I was a paralegal at my first trial was the coffee nap. We’d finish at court 5ish and then have a ton to do. So you’d chug a large iced coffee from Starbucks and then take a half hour nap. The nap would refresh you, and since it takes roughly 30 minutes for caffeine to hit your bloodstream, you’d be awake enough to work another 8 hours or so.
In college, I once convinced a professor to take our English class outdoors. He was an artsy fellow, with flowy shirts and a goatee, and I am afraid that my general lack of regard for his smarts bothered him. But he agreed to take the class outside. It was during the 2 o’clock hour… I snoozed almost the whole time, and he was adamant that never again would we sit on the grass under the trees… It was the nicest nap I had in that class…
Sounds like some people are not working 10% of the time!
Since I started bringing my daughter a coffee when I pick her up for her after school cello lesson, the lessons have gone much much better. Does that make me a bad mother?
People told my mother-in-law not to let Mr. Amy drink coffee because it would stunt his growth. He’s 6’2″ with a 52″ chest, and his 5’3″ mom jokes about just how much bigger he would have been without the coffee.
At lunch only 2 martinis and maybe mix in an iced tea and a salad instead of a heavy pasta dish will mitigate the slugishness you feel at 2:30. Also makes you less fat and drunk. Not saying your fat and drunk Rob. Just in general.
Power nap. 10 – 20 minutes.
This is why my wife is campaigning for a law mandating a siesta.
Take a nap. I took one almost every day during my 33 year career with Exxon. Get a good pillow and a self inflating camping mattress and hide under your desk and sleep. 15-20 minutes was always perfect.
Or as we did on the rig, we would eat until we got sleepy and then sleep until we got hungry. How else do you think we got to be the biggest oil company in the world?
Yeah, we aren’t too worried about that. She’s 5’10” at 15 and still shorter than her sister and girl cousins. I’ll give her the coffee!
Frozen your time on Ricochet is never wasted.
The tailor your schedule thing has merit.
I am a morning guy and will be up no later than 5 even without an alarm, on the desk by 6. The hard thinking heavy lifting is the morning. If I have any extras on the to-do list they better be done by 1pm or odds are they are not getting done.
When I hit the afternoon wall it is time for mindless data entry, etc.
My schedule in the field is like a parallel universe, not tailoring anything.
Try getting a change of scenery. 15 minute walk makes a huge difference.
I like Claire’s idea also. If you are out of it by 4 stop. Eat dinner, have a glass of wine, go to bed early, get up early and kick butt.
That is exactly what I’ve done as well, except I knock off at 2. Up after six hours, then I sink into Lethe like a barrel of cement in the late afternoon.
Get up and move is the best advice. When my energy is waning in the afternoon I force myself to get up and do something that gets my blood pumping a little. Take a short walk, vacuum, water the veggie garden; any short task that requires action will wake you up and help you focus.
There are some researchers looking into giving kids coffee instead of Ritalin. I love that idea.
And I once read about a study in which coffee was given to seniors in a retirement community, and their math scores were higher than the seniors who did not get it.
So coffee is good. :)