Exhausted at Work? 15 Tips for Beating Midday Tiredness.

Is your energy flagging as the workday wears on? By 2 p.m. you’re moving through your tasks in slow motion, your attention is flagging in meetings, and the effort to focus is more than you can summon.

When we feel exhausted, we tend to feel less drive to complete tasks or achieve goals. Our brains play a role in our emotions and according to studies by Umeå University, when we’re exhausted, we regulate our cortisol levels less effectively, causing increased stress. We also experience less activity in our frontal lobes—the part of our brains responsible for idea generation, decision making, and informed action.

But you can find your way through your feelings of exhaustion with a few key strategies, informed by science.

Why are you tired at work?

Everyone feels tired at work sometimes, but if it’s becoming a common occurrence for you, you may want to understand the possible causes.

1. You’re not getting enough sleep.

This may feel like a no-brainer, but if you’re consistently feeling exhausted during the workday, you might not be getting enough sleep. Even the work schedule of a traditional 9-to-5 may force you to override your natural sleep schedule and cause sleep deprivation.

2. You’re chronically stressed.

There may be items on your to-do list that you keep procrastinating on or daily crises you’re constantly trying to stave off. Perhaps your boss is always on your back, or annoying clients and customers are dragging you down. Maybe your whole organization is struggling, and each feels more like you’re bailing out a sinking ship than sailing ahead with the wind at your back.

Psychologically speaking, stress is the emotion you experience when you haven’t successfully avoided something negative out there in the world. Short-term stress can be energizing (it engages your fight-or-flight reaction and motivates you to act), but long-term stress just saps your energy.

3. You’re not using your energy efficiently.

Some tasks use more of our mental (and physical) energy than others, and which tasks those are can vary from person to person. Maybe either meetings or doing heads-down technical work take a lot out of you. Perhaps any work duty that has you making a lot of decisions drains you more than others.

Take a look at how you’ve structured your days: Are you doing tasks that drain your energy all morning, leaving yourself with little energy for the afternoon? Are your energy-heavy tasks all clumped around the time of day you already feel most tired?

4. You Have No Agency.

In some situations, you may feel like you have a lot of control over what’s happening. In others, external factors are controlling you. A lot of this is situational–most people’s work lives include a mix of both types of situation–but if you’re mostly just being swept along with the tides, it can feel demoralizing. Eventually that lack of agency can leave you feeling dejected or even depressed, and your body’s constant physical fatigue can become seemingly unshakable.

5. This Just Isn’t Your Calling.

Finally, it might just be your job itself. Maybe your day-to-day tasks seem perfectly fine on their own, but you don’t feel like they add up to anything meaningful. Or maybe the tasks themselves are inherently boring to you and you’re burning more mental energy than necessary to get through them. Maybe your job was exciting and challenging to you when you first started, but now you feel like you could do it on autopilot—and often do. Regardless, your current work is just a chore, and your eight-hour workday feels like an eternity.

15 Ways to fight tiredness at work

Here are a few methods for fighting through your midday exhaustion, ranging from in-the-moment hacks to long-term solutions.

1. Drink some water.

The culprit behind your tiredness might be as simple as dehydration. In these cases, drinking water can give you an energy boost quickly. Additionally Fast Company writer Michael Grothaus found that upping his water intake for a week helped him eliminate his daily midafternoon slumps. If you’re chronically under hydrating, try keeping a drink (that isn’t coffee) by you throughout the day and taking periodic sips.

2. Schedule breaks into your workday.

Contrary to popular belief, humans are organisms, not robots; thus, they need breaks to do their best work—often in about 90-minute intervals. You might try the popular Pomodoro technique which involves taking a 5 minute break every 25 minutes and a half-hour break every two hours. Knowing when your next break is coming can help motivate you to get through the task at hand. And disconnecting for a short period can help you re-energize, re-focus, and even reduce eyestrain.

3. Refresh by changing environments.

If you’re sitting in your desk chair feeling like you’re about to nod off, consider taking your work somewhere else, whether that’s to a different room in your home (if you’re remote) or an empty conference room or communal standing desk. You might even be able to take your work laptop to a coffee shop or similar. Taking a quick walk outside or around the office might also energize you.

4. Practice stress management techniques.

If you suspect your exhaustion is caused by stress, a short-term solution might be figuring out how to calm yourself when the stress gets bad. One easy stress management technique is to find a quiet space to sit for five minutes. Close your eyes and focus on taking slow, deep breaths. Slow breathing can calm you down, and paying attention to those breaths can keep you from focusing all your mental energy on the things that are stressing you out. Experiment to find out what works for you.

5. Eat smarter.

A quick snack can help you perk up on the spot, but what you eat can also have an effect. Sugary snacks might wake you up fastest, but leave you with a crash, while a more balanced snack with fats and protein can keep you energized for longer but might be slower to kick in.

Eating healthily day-to-day will also improve your overall energy levels. While there are many different diets out there that may help, such as the MIND diet, they’re not one-size-fits-all. It may take some experimentation to find the best food routine for you.

6. Spend time with an animal.

Another way to replenish is to spend time with a pet—your own, a friend’s or by volunteering at a shelter. A study at the University of York found pets are especially effective in providing companionship and distraction. In addition, they require activity and attention—and these contribute to our overall well-being.

7. Exercise.

A burst of exercise can help wake you up in the moment. If your job allows, you might take a brief walk or jog or try some quick aerobic exercise to get the blood pumping. Adopting a regular exercise routine that works with your natural energy levels (more on that later) can also help boost your energy and productivity day-to-day.

8. Take a nap.

If you wake up from a short power nap refreshed and ready to go, you might continue working one into your day. However, if you’re the type to stay groggy for hours after waking, this might not be the tip for you. Of course, this tip is more suited to those who work from home and can fully check out for a bit during the day, but many workplaces are also offering napping pods in case you’re the kind of person who can refresh with a midday power nap.

9. Embrace your natural energy schedule.

Everyone works and focuses best at different times of the day. There’s the classic early bird and night owl, of course, but there’s way more nuance to it than that. For example, you might be most energized when you first start work around 9 AM, or maybe you peak a bit later in the day, around 11 or noon. Maybe you have a slump after lunch, or maybe the meal and break pump you up for the afternoon. Regardless of the specifics, trying to do your most difficult work tasks when your energy is at its lowest is only going to worsen your sleepiness at work.

So figure out when you’re most productive, and adjust accordingly.

Try to put the tasks that are hardest when you have the most energy and schedule breaks or less intense work duties for when your energy generally flags. If your work duties vary a lot day-to-day you might want to think in categories of tasks rather than individual duties such as social, technical, and busy work.

10. Celebrate milestones throughout the day.

During the height of the pandemic, Fast Company writer Elizabeth Hartke suggested weaving little rewards into your workday in order to capitalize on the dopamine boost. “Research shows that dopamine, the neurotransmitter that plays a role in how we feel pleasure, has been proven to increase levels of motivation, mood, focus, and—you guessed it—energy,” Hartke writes.

Instead of slogging through your to-do list until you’re finished or it’s quitting time, Hartke suggests that you set yourself rewards for completing tasks. Hartke continues, “By giving yourself something to look forward to, you’ll be more efficient in your work, breaking through mental fatigue. Consider a five-minute walk outside, a healthy smoothie you look forward to, or a call to a good friend as simple but inspiring milestone celebrations.”

11. Get better sleep.

Getting enough sleep is, of course, paramount to having enough energy during the day. Most adults need 7 to 9 hours of sleep a night and there are ways to figure out where in that range you fall personally.

If you are getting enough sleep in terms of hours but still feeling like nodding off each day, you might need to dig into the quality of your sleep. The Fast Company Executive board makes a number of suggestions to get better sleep that will boost your energy and focus at work, including:

• Maintaining a consistent bed and wake-up time (even on the weekends)
• Avoiding caffeine late in the day
• Turning off the electronics two hours before you plan to sleep
• Sleeping in a dark room or using an eye mask

12. Set boundaries.

Setting healthy boundaries is key to beating workplace sleepiness. While we tend to glamorize hustle culture, in reality, it contributes to our ineffectiveness and emotional strife. Instead, remind yourself you can’t do it all and congratulate yourself for the ways you contribute your talent in ordinary ways every day—and to give yourself permission to take time away and turn off.

This might mean setting firm times to end work each day or removing your business email from your phone so you don’t get the urge to check it on the weekends. Setting boundaries can also mean being aware of how much you can handle at once and turning down work that would put you over the edge. After all, when you’re truly able to take time away and turn off, you can be more effective when you’re on.

13. Engage in interests outside work.

You can also energize by finding something that matters to you and engaging with passion. Sitting at home in front of the TV is great now and then, but we all crave more stimulation. Pick up a new hobby or re-engage with an old one. Volunteer with an organization that serves a need that you care about in your community. The only rule is it has to give you enjoyment! If it helps you make something part of your regular schedule, consider taking a class, joining a Meetup group, or participating with a friend or family member. Doing these things will energize you because you’ll be taking positive action. Plus you’ll be looking forward to something tangible outside of your work day when that 2 PM feeling hits.

14. Try to modify your job duties.

Start with the problem areas: Which parts of your job make you feel like you have the least autonomy, or as though the tasks you’re doing have no impact in the world? What tasks make you want to crawl into bed in the middle of the day? On the other side: What parts of your jobs energize and motivate you? What tasks do you look forward to?

Set up a time to talk with your supervisor about these feelings. You probably won’t be able to eliminate all the tasks that sap your energy, but you may be able to build in more work that builds it back up again.

15. Consider making a change.

Sometimes when the faster solutions aren’t working, you need to take more significant action. Positive effort—even starting steps—can produce motivation rather than the other way around. A study at the University of East Anglia found when people faced barriers and hardship at work, they were rejuvenated and their mental health was enhanced when they made a plan and took action.

So take a step back and think about your values: What are a few causes, principles, or ideals that energize and motivate you? What kind of work would help you feel like you’re contributing to something meaningful? It may not relate to the specific tasks involved but really the purpose of the work itself. Any set of tasks can be exciting as long as you feel them adding up to something you believe in.

Maybe you still believe in your organization’s mission, but your role just doesn’t seem to serve it. Is there a stepping-stone opportunity you might be able to locate without having to quit? If you can’t find a good answer to that question, it might be time to look for another job–or even reconsider your career.

Everyone’s energy flags at work every now and then–and for lots of reasons. But if you’re constantly running on fumes and aren’t sure why, it could be your brain’s way of signaling that you’re spending time in the wrong place.

Tracy Brower, Drake Baer, and Regina Borsellino also contributed writing, reporting, and/or advice to this article and a previous version.