- It's 3:00 p.m. and your motivation to do literally anything has evaporated. You feel tired, you can't focus, and the idea of starting any
of the tasks on your to-do list is just mentally exhausting. In other words, you've
hit the afternoon slump and you're not alone. Millions of people around the world hit this wave of tiredness
during the early afternoons every single day, which is actually a problem for me 'cause people who are tired tend not to watch YouTube
for quite as long, so let me help you out real quick. (creaking)
Is this in frame? Is this helping? Are you awake? Okay, hopefully that
helped at least somewhat. Let's get back to the video. So like I just said, this is something that
happens to millions of people. If you get tired in the afternoon, if you feel like you
should be going to bed but, for some reason, the sun's still out, well, that is an absolutely
common experience. So what I want to do today
is share a three-step process that you can go through
whenever you find yourself in an afternoon slump, battling
that afternoon brain fog. Going through these things can help you gain back at
least some of your energy to tackle the rest of your to-do list before you end the day. But before we get into that, we do want to answer the question of why does this happen
in the first place? Because there are definitely
some controllable factors that contribute to the afternoon slump, but part of it is actually natural. Part of it is due to something
called our circadian rhythm, which is essentially this internal clock that helps to keep our
body's internal processes synchronized with the day and night cycle, which helps us go to
sleep at the right times. And in doing some research for this video, I found out that there are
actually two parts of the day where we actually have a dip in energy. So according to the Sleep
Foundation's website, for most adults, the biggest dip in energy happens during the middle of the night, between 2:00 and 4:00 a.m, which is the time where most
people are just fast asleep, snoozing away like a rock, actually, rocks don't snooze, but there is another dip in
energy just after lunchtime, around 1:00 to 3:00 p.m., when they start to crave
that post-lunch nap. But another website that I looked at, Science Daily, said this: "In a strict sense, "circadian rhythms are
endogenously generated," and although the definition
for endogenously, and I'm not even sure if I'm
pronouncing that correctly, but I didn't know what it meant when I was doing this
research, so I put it there, "although they can be
modulated by external cues "such as sunlight and temperature." And keep that in mind
for later on in the video because what this is saying
is that circadian rhythms are, for the most part, internally set. You can't do a whole lot to control, but some things do affect them. And with that, let's go over
to step one in the process, which is to refuel. Your body is essentially an engine and what you put into it, the quality of what you put into it and the time at which you fuel it, these all factor into how
energetic you're going to feel at all different times of the day. So in the afternoons when
I start feeling tired, this is the first thing
that I think to do. I want to get something to
eat, get something to drink, and usually the first
thing that I reach for is either a glass of water
or a can of sparkling water. I think this is the Michael Buble kind. That's how you pronounce it, right, Buble? And I actually like sparkling water a little more than regular water because when I was in college, I was super addicted to energy drinks and I kind of identified
the reason for that. It wasn't necessarily the caffeine. It wasn't necessarily the taste. It was actually the fact
that the energy drink and the colorful can and
everything and the carbonation were sort of novel. It kind of injected a
little bit of excitement into an otherwise boring
afternoon study session. And it was actually the Power of Habit that helped me to differentiate these different reasons for my cravings for terrible, unhealthy energy drinks, because there was a part of the book where he was talking about this
afternoon habit that he had to get a cookie every single day and he started asking himself
what is the reward I get for getting this cookie? Is it the taste? Is it the energy boost? And he actually came to
the conclusion that no, it's just this ritual that
allows me to get it from my desk and then it gives me an
opportunity to socialize with some of my coworkers. So he just changed his habit up to go over to the water
cooler or something like that so he could still talk to the coworkers. So reading that actually helped
me to identify the factors that caused my craving for those terrible, unhealthy energy drinks, the taste, the caffeine levels,
and also the novelty factor. And then I realized that sparkling water, especially flavored
sparkling water like this, fills two of those three categories, and if I want caffeine, I can obviously go for tea or coffee. And I do want to talk about that as well because tea and coffee can
be useful in the afternoons but you need to understand how
your body reacts to caffeine later in the day. There are studies out there to show that caffeine even
six hours before bedtime can significantly impact
the quality of your sleep in a negative way but
everyone's mileage may vary. So some people may be able
to have a cup of coffee at four in the afternoon,
while other people, if they have caffeine
at any time in the day that has a p.m. in it, they're not gonna be able to go to sleep. So, again, do some testing if you want to use
caffeine in the afternoons. And you can also pair
it with a light snack. And if you're gonna go for a snack, the main thing here is don't
just reach for simple sugars. Don't go for candy or soda especially, but also if you're just going for fruit and you're just taking in simple sugars, this causes a spike in your blood sugar with a subsequent crash. So you want to pair that with
some complex carbohydrates, maybe some wholewheat bread or maybe some proteins,
like a hard boiled egg. In fact, my best friend Martin, who helped me write the
script for this video, listed that you should
put a hard boiled egg inside of a banana, which I sat there and
thought about for a second and I still can't envision how you do it but if any of you out
there know what he means, put it in the comments below
because I'm kinda stumped here. Anyway, step two in the
process is to reset. This means step away from your desk and take a break from your work. Now for me, the ultimate way
of resetting is to go outside. If you'll remember earlier in the video, I talked about how the
circadian rhythm is, for the most part, endogenously, I think that's how you pronounce it, but endogenously generated or controlled but that there are some factors that you can use to influence it, one of them being sunlight exposure. So this is kind of my main thing. Whenever I feel tired in the afternoons, I am reaching for a glass of water, maybe making some coffee
depending on the time, but the next thing is I'm
going outside for a walk or I'm gonna take a
break to go for a workout or I'm gonna go outside
and do some skateboarding or rollerblading but whatever it is, I want to get outside and
get some sunlight exposure because exposure to light,
especially sunlight, can be a cue to wake your body up. Sunlight is actually one
of those external factors that really plays a part in how your circadian rhythm is governed. And if for some reason
you just can't go outside or you just don't want to exercise, you're trying to be as
sloth-like as possible, you just get into that zen state of mind, at least let yourself
step back from your work and take a little bit of a break to give yourself some
intentional fun time. Play a video game. But one word of warning here. If one quick game of Overwatch
or one quick game of Magic or whatever game that you
tend to get sucked into often turns into just
a quick several hours, then that's probably not a
good way to take a break. You want to get into something that is not going to suck you in, not going to distract you for
a really long period of time. It just kinda provides
some mental rejuvenation. One other option could be to take a nap. Now, I did a whole video
on naps about a year ago and for me, naps aren't
the most effective thing. I find that even if I do
the 20-minute power nap, where you're not supposed to fall asleep, not supposed to get groggy, I find myself slipping into a deeper sleep and wanting to sleep
for two or three hours. So it's kind of a big time waster for me, but, again, your mileage may vary and a lot of people get use out of naps in the early or late afternoon. In fact, that's why a lot of countries have a siesta culture. That brings us to step
three, which is to refocus. It is time to get yourself back to work and focus is the keyword here. I find that when I hit
the afternoon slump, I often have several tasks
still left on my plate and my brain will sort
of just glide over them and kind of listlessly
try to get into each one but I know there's a bunch of them and that makes it really hard
to get into any one thing. And this is where a bit of
philosophy comes in for me, because a lot of people, when they talk about the afternoon slump, they are talking about the
nutrition aspect of it, the sleep aspect of it, the
circadian rhythm aspect of it, but I think that the level of
interest you have in your work and how focused you are on
it actually plays a big roll in how energized you feel. If you're feeling kind of listless, if you don't really know what
you're supposed to be doing, or you don't care about
it, you're gonna feel tired because the brain and the body, they have a two-way connection, right? Your body's circadian
rhythm, your nutrition, all these factors play a roll in how motivated you feel mentally, but it goes the other way as well. Your level of interest in your
work, how focused you are, this plays a roll in how energized and
awake you feel physically. So if you can find a way, either intrinsically or extrinsically, to get more interested in a
single task that you want to do, then you're gonna feel a
little bit more energized while doing it, so here is how I propose that you externally motivate yourself. First, pick one task that you have to do. You can't let your brain just listlessly glide over everything. It's got to focus in on one thing. Secondly, clear your environment
and get it ready for work. So clear off your desk, close any open programs
that don't need to be open, close any open browser tabs, and then maybe get some good study music for getting into the work zone. Finally, set a timer for 25 minutes and do a Pomodoro session on the task. I find that the Pomodoro technique, where you set a timer for 25 minutes and you focus on one task
during the 25 minutes with absolutely no distractions or anything else coming into
your field of view of focus, this is actually much more
useful for me in the afternoons than it is in the mornings
and this kinda makes sense. In the mornings, I'm more mentally aware. I'm more awake. I'm more easily able to focus
on my work intrinsically. In the afternoons, I'm feeling tired. I might need that little
bit of external motivation and the Pomodoro technique
really provides that. So from personal experience, I know that the three
steps in this process, refuel, reset, and then refocus, these are very effective for getting past that afternoon slump. But if it's not enough for you, there are some longer term
fixes that you can use as well and the main one that
I want to mention here is changing up your schedule if you have the freedom to do so. Like I talked about in my previous video, which is all about my new morning routine, I mentioned that I moved my workouts from the mornings to the early
afternoons or late afternoons and this had a lot of benefits. Number one, it freed up
more time in the mornings, which were better hours
for me to work anyway, but it also means that when
the afternoon slump hits, I can just go to the gym and I often find myself
being more energized when I leave the gym because
I'm getting some exercise and that helps me get
through that tired spell. So if you can, do some experiments and play around with your schedule. Hopefully that, in combination
with the three steps I shared here, will help
you to be more productive during your actual work hours
and beat that afternoon slump, which will help you earn back
some more guilt-free evenings, evenings that you can
use spending with friends or playing Hollow Knight
for the third time or working on some personal projects that you don't have time to do
during the actual work hours in the mornings and afternoons. And one personal project that you should probably
consider taking on if you haven't done so already is building a professional
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connections in your industry and establish yourself as an expert, building a website for yourself, where you can show off your portfolio and tell people how to contact
you, is a great first step. And the first step to doing that is securing your professional domain name, like mine, which is thomasjfrank.com. And if you'll notice, I
had to put a J in my URL because I was not able
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even on the internet. And that's the thing about domain names. Someone else could get yours before you get the chance to get it and if they don't let it relinquish, then you're kind of out of luck. So get your professional domain name before someone else grabs it and to get it, you should
go over to hover.com. Hover is the best place on the internet to get your hands on domain names, not least of which because
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for sponsoring this video and thank you as well for watching. Hopefully you found this video helpful. And if you have any other tips for beating the afternoon slump or you know how to fit a hard
boiled egg into a banana, please share what you
know in the comments below because, well, I really
don't know how to do that and also your tips definitely
help out other people who are scrolling down there, looking for additional information. If you want to subscribe to this channel, you can do so right there to get new videos when they come out. You can also click right there
to get a free copy of my book on how to earn better grades. Or check out a couple of more
videos right here and here. Thanks for watching and I'll
see you in the next video.
