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There are several reasons or scientific studies that have studied the sleep-inducing effect of overeating. The ‘food coma‘ is real, and it can induce an eternal nap if it is not regulated or limited. But what exactly is this phenomenon or what causes it?
According to a study entitled ‘Postprandial sleep mechanics in Drosophila‘ the salt and protein in food sends a signal to the brain that triggers postprandial sleepiness and/or tiredness after having ingested especially large amounts of food.
A food coma is not the same as a true medical coma. In the words of Nikolay Kukushkin, Clinical Associate Professor of Life Sciences at New York University, ‘food coma is a behavioral response to food intake when the animal, human or otherwise, slows down and relaxes after ingesting a meal…. Another way of putting it is to rest and digest’.
In this regard, in another study concerning ‘food coma’, 4,000 students in India were subjected to a series of tests in various subjects at different times of the day: some were given the tests shortly after eating, others several hours later. The results revealed that students tested in the first hour after eating performed markedly worse, with Hervé noting in Gastropod that ‘taking the tests in the postprandial period reduced their cognitive ability by between 5% and 9% on all these types of tests. That’s a substantial reduction in their ability to perform.’ Through the research, it was thus discovered that food coma not only produces a simple feeling of fatigue but also somehow causes cognitive impairment.
