The Afternoon Apathy Syndrome

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Yawn. Your body is feeling leaden, your thoughts are sluggish. Strange glazed circles are forming before your eyes. You literally have to pry your eyelids open to keep awake. All around the office, colleagues are in a similar state of passing away.

Guess what time it is?

It’s most likely to be three in the afternoon, better known as the post-lunch slump. For the next hour-and-a-half, welcome to the zone of the living dead. The body is present, but the brain is asleep. This afternoon apathy syndrome is very common among office workers and can leave you feeling less alert, less energetic and more apt to make mistakes. Researchers in the UK found that productivity goes down so much during this period, it can have serious financial implications.

Trainers call it the graveyard session and have to fill it with activities to keep participants interested. Seminars typically have the lowest attendance during this time. Meetings held immediately after lunch are full of dead bodies on a caffeine drip. Even daytime accidents are most likely to be caused by lapses in attention which peak mid-afternoon, especially in drivers over age 45.

What is it about 3 pm?

Well, around this time several body cycles clash, sending office workers—not everyone, mind you—into a deep slump. For one, all the body’s resources are suddenly diverted into digesting a heavy meal, an act, which according to nutritionists, requires more energy than either running or swimming. Second, a heavy meal causes gastric distension in the stomach leading to a reduced flow of oxygen and energy. Third, by mid-afternoon, a natural sleep-cycle builds up which sends you crashing into a valley. And fourth, at just about this time, the body is also slipping into a boredom cycle: the morning spurt of enthusiasm is over and now, it’s just dull routine work.

You have two choices. You can either wait out the slump which passes naturally in about 90 minutes or so. Or you can reclaim the afternoon by some smart moves. I’ve had to figure this out the hard way because I teach a class at, guess what time: 3 pm.