After a huge meal, we feel a wave of tiredness that makes us drowsy and in need of a bed to lie on. This is normal, and not just a random coincidence because you want to laze around. This phenomenon is called the postprandial dip, or at its extremes, a “food coma”. Food coma is the way your body takes a break to digest all the food that you’ve ingested, ABC News detailed:
The science of food comas is mostly based on animal models and inferences from our current knowledge on how the body works, says Emma Beckett, a nutrition scientist at the University of Newcastle.
There are three main theories, and Dr Beckett thinks they probably all play a role to some extent.
The first theory involves the activation of the parasympathetic nervous system — that's the rest and digest pathway, as opposed to the sympathetic nervous system which is fight or flight.
"We've got a bunch of nerves around the digestive tract. And one of those big nerves — the vagus nerve — signals between the brain and the gastrointestinal tract," Dr Beckett says.
"From an evolutionary point of view, if you've come across abundant food — the feast period — you don't want to be going running around and risking losing that food."
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