How to Stop Feeling Sluggish (Fixes That Work in Minutes)

If you want to know how to stop feeling sluggish, start with what time it is and what you just ate. Most of the heavy, slow, flat feeling people search for lands in the first hour after waking or in the early afternoon. Both have known causes, and most of the fixes below take under 15 minutes. They come from sleep labs, nutrition labs and one 1987 study that pitted a candy bar against a short walk.

Why the early afternoon hits so hard

Timothy Monk, a sleep researcher at the University of Pittsburgh, reviewed the research on the "post-lunch dip" in 2005 for Clinics in Sports Medicine. His conclusion was that the dip is real and rooted in the body clock. It shows up in the mid-afternoon even in people who skipped lunch and had no idea what time it was. A heavy, high-carbohydrate lunch makes it worse. Strong morning types seem to get it more.

So the 3pm slump is partly scheduled. You can't delete it, but you can stop stacking a big plate of pasta and an hour of sitting on top of it.

How to stop feeling sluggish after eating

Walk for 10 minutes once the plate is cleared. In a 2016 study in Diabetologia, Andrew Reynolds and colleagues at the University of Otago had 41 adults walk for 30 minutes a day, either in one block or as three 10-minute walks started within five minutes of each main meal. The after-meal walks cut blood sugar rises after eating by 12% overall, and by 22% after the evening meal.

The people in that trial had type 2 diabetes, but the habit is easy for anyone. Around the block, up and down the stairs, out to get the mail. A few other things that keep a lunch from flattening the afternoon:

• Eat the protein and vegetables first and go lighter on bread, rice and pasta.
• Stop at full rather than stuffed.
• Save the hardest task for before lunch, or for an hour after it.

Drink a glass of water before the next coffee

Lawrence Armstrong's team at the University of Connecticut ran two studies on mild dehydration. In the 2012 Journal of Nutrition paper, 25 young women who lost about 1.36% of their body water reported more fatigue, lower mood, headaches and trouble concentrating. Tasks felt harder even though their test scores barely moved. A matching study of 26 men in the British Journal of Nutrition (Ganio et al., 2011) found more fatigue and tension at about 1.59% loss, plus more errors on memory and vigilance tasks.

That level of water loss is easy to reach without feeling thirsty. Keep a bottle on the desk and finish one before lunch.

How to stop feeling sluggish in the morning

Get bright light into your eyes early. In a 2003 study in the journal Sleep, Jo Phipps-Nelson and colleagues restricted 16 adults to five hours of sleep for two nights, then kept half of them in bright light (1,000 lux) from noon to 5pm and half in dim light. The bright light group was less sleepy and did better on a reaction-time test.

Ten minutes outside with your first drink is enough of a start. Then water, then breakfast, then the screen.

Move for five minutes every hour

If you sit all day, one long walk before work does less for the afternoon than you'd hope. Audrey Bergouignan and colleagues tested 30 sedentary adults in 2016 under three conditions: sitting all day, one 30-minute walk in the morning, or a five-minute walk every hour (six in total). Both walking days raised energy and vigour. Only the hourly breaks kept energy up through the afternoon and lowered fatigue measured late in the day. The morning walk's lift faded by midday.

Robert Thayer at California State University, Long Beach found something similar back in 1987. After a brisk 10-minute walk, his 18 volunteers reported more energy and less tension for about two hours. After a sugary snack, energy rose briefly, then about an hour later they felt more tired and tense than before.

How to stop being sluggish when you have to start work now

Light, water and walks all take a few minutes to land. Sometimes you are already at the desk with a deadline, or in the car park outside the gym, or two minutes from the 3pm meeting, and you need to flip the switch on the spot.

That is the moment Dragon Breath is made for. It's a 50 ml mouth spray of chilcuague root (Heliopsis longipes), a golden root from the Sierra Gorda of Central Mexico. One spray and within about 10 seconds a bright electric buzz spreads across the tongue and mouth. Your mouth floods. The taste is earthy and a little peppery for a second, then the tingle takes over everything. You come out the other side switched on and ready for the next thing.

The buzz comes from affinin (also called spilanthol), which lab work by HPLC puts at 6.9 to 8.5 mg per gram of root. Mexican ethnobotanists (Cilia-López and colleagues) record the root being chewed and used as a spice. Our full guide to chilcuague covers the plant, where it grows and how people have used it.

Use it as the pre-work ritual, the thing you do right before you sit down to the hard task, start a set or walk into the room. One spray marks the line between dragging and doing. "Definitely energized," one customer said on camera, moments after a single spray. Another, filmed trying it for the first time, got as far as "Oh wow, the saliva flow." The clean, fresh feeling in your mouth afterwards is a bonus.

A spray fits the job better than a powder or a tea. It lives in a pocket, one spray is all it takes, and the extract stays sealed in Miron violet glass, away from air and light. A bottle holds 250+ sprays. Start with one, and go up to five once you know the feeling.

Dragon Breath – Chilcuague Extract

50 ml mouth spray. Wild-harvested chilcuague root, dual-extracted. 250+ sprays.

Add to bag

If the sluggish feeling is more like sleepy and foggy, our post on how to feel more awake instantly has more quick fixes for the first hour of the day.

Dragon Breath considerations

The recommendation on the product page: "If you're pregnant, nursing, taking medication, or allergic to plants in the daisy family, ask your doctor before using it."

Questions people ask

How do I stop feeling sluggish and tired all day?

Spread small things through the day. Bright light in the morning, a bottle of water finished by lunch, a 10-minute walk after meals and a five-minute walk every hour of sitting all have research behind them, and none of them takes more than 15 minutes.

Why do I feel sluggish after eating?

Part of it is the body clock, which dips in the mid-afternoon whether you eat or not. A large, carb-heavy meal deepens the dip, according to Monk's 2005 review.

Is a walk better than a snack for energy?

In Thayer's 1987 study, a brisk 10-minute walk gave more energy for about two hours. A sugary snack gave a short lift, then more tiredness and tension an hour later.

How fast does Dragon Breath kick in?

The buzz starts within about 10 seconds of one spray, and your mouth starts watering straight after.