No More Afternoon Crashes

In this episode of the Berman Method Podcast, Dr. Jake and Jenni Berman tackle a common but overlooked issue: afternoon crashes and the need for naps. As part of their “arrive at 80 feeling 40” series, they explain why feeling exhausted during the day isn’t normal—even if you’ve been a lifelong napper.

They break down the real root causes behind low energy, including vitamin deficiencies, unstable blood sugar, cortisol imbalances, and simply not eating enough fuel—especially protein. What feels like a harmless afternoon slump is often your body signaling that something deeper is off.

If you’re relying on caffeine, naps, or sugar to get through the day, this episode helps you understand why—and what to do about it. From optimizing nutrient levels to using a continuous glucose monitor (CGM), they share practical ways to stabilize energy and feel consistent throughout the day.

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Transcript

Treat Problems Not Symptoms

Speaker 1 0:00

And we're rolling baby with the Berman Method Podcast, treating problems and not symptoms. David going against Goliath, Goliath being the corporate medical system. Big pharmaceutical companies, health insurance companies, they do not have your best interests in mind. They will choose profits over patient outcomes every single time. Here we are, Dr. Jake Berman here with my beautiful co-host, Jenni Berman, physician assistant. We are ready to rock and roll, baby.

Speaker 0:30

Yeah.

Speaker 1 0:33

What is so funny?

Speaker 0:36

I don't know. I'm not sure. I'm not sure today. But here we are.

Speaker 1 0:44

Oh man, this has been quite a journey these past few months. We can say months now, because I think we're five, six, seven, seven episodes into this ultimate boomer arriving at 80 feeling 40 recipe.

Speaker 0:57

Yes. At least seven.

Speaker 1 0:59

Yeah.

Speaker 1:00

Is this number eight? I think.

Speaker 1 1:02

Yeah, today's number eight because I did five. You've done two so far.

The Anti-Aging Pillar Series

Speaker 1:06

Yes, of our pillars. That doesn't even include the whole intro spiels that we had leading into our first pillars. Yeah. So, but yes, we are on pillar number three of the wellness side. We've already talked about the five pillars on the physical side to arrive at 80 feeling 40.

unknown 1:24

Yeah.

Speaker 1:24

And now we're talking about the chemical nutrition wellness pillars to arrive at 80 feeling 40. The anti-aging recipe, essentially.

Speaker 1 1:35

Yeah. The physical part is move better. The chemical chemical part is feel better. Move better, feel better. Arrive at 80, feeling 40. If you're already in your 80s, kick your 90s asses. Yes. Good?

Speaker 1:46

Yes.

Speaker 1 1:47

What was the first one that we did on your side?

Speaker 1:50

Um, well, first we have to talk about brain fog.

Speaker 1 1:54

Brain fog.

Speaker 1:55

Then we talked about sleeping through the night.

Speaker 1 1:58

Sleeping through the night. Wait a minute. I have to, I'm getting older. I have to wake up to pee.

Why Needing Naps Is A Signal

Speaker 2:04

You should go back and listen to last week's episode then, if you're still concerned about that, sir. And then the third thing today is not having to take a nap.

Speaker 1 2:16

Afternoon crashes?

Speaker 2:17

How many people take a nap in the afternoon?

Speaker 1 2:20

I'm raising my hand and waving it all around.

Speaker 2:24

20 minutes in the truck at lunch every day.

Speaker 1 2:27

That is not true.

Speaker 2:28

Not anymore. It used to be that way.

Speaker 1 2:30

Yeah, it used to be.

Speaker 2:32

Whenever you lived in Destin and worked, and I would come visit you, and I was still in school, and I would come visit you, and then we'd, you know, I'd come see you at work for lunch, and you'd cut your lunch on me. Cut me out 20 minutes early before your hour for lunch was up, and I was like, what are you doing? Your nap was that important that you had to kick me out after I drove five hours to come hang out with you. Kick me out for a 20-minute nap.

Speaker 1 3:00

It's funny you remember that because I don't remember that. I just remember the wonderful 45 minutes that we had together.

Speaker 3:08

Oh yeah. Wasn't 45, it was 40. Because you needed your 20 minutes. You would set the alarm, I think, for like 18 minutes or something.

Speaker 1 3:18

Yeah, I've been playing around with it because as soon as you get into that deep room, then the nap becomes counterproductive. So if I can just shut my eyes and tune out for four minutes to 12 minutes, I'm ready to go. Like it's not even 15 minutes anymore, because that's when it starts to transition into deeper.

Speaker 3:38

Wait, I thought you said you weren't napping anymore.

Speaker 1 3:40

When I do. When I do.

Speaker 3:44

Well then we have a problem we need to fix. Because you shouldn't need a nap in the afternoon.

Speaker 1 3:49

But I've been napping my whole entire life.

Speaker 3:52

That means there's something wrong. Means that we haven't really fixed the problem.

Speaker 1 4:01

Okay, well, let's fix it today. Let's see if we can fix it in the next 10 minutes.

Speaker 4:06

Well, napping and having an afternoon crash or just waking up with low energy, feeling like you need the caffeine to get going, uh, or waking up and feeling pretty good, but then two hours later, after breakfast, you feel like you need a nap. So napping at 10 a.m., napping at 1 p.m., 2 p.m., 3 p.m. should not be a normal part of aging. It actually, it's not a normal part of aging. There's usually or always something there that is triggering our body to want to take that nap. Now, certainly some people say, Well, I'm good if I'm moving, but if I'm at home and I'm sitting down, I'll just close my eyes. And even that I really don't understand because I'm like, why does your body want to sit down if you're at home? You shouldn't want it. You shouldn't be craving the sit down and the close your eyes. There's something there that's triggering this.

Speaker 1 4:58

Yeah, I guess I don't I don't really know how to interpret that because if I'm outside working, I don't there's no nap. Like I don't even think about resting. I could do yard work all day Sunday and not think about it. But if I'm not doing yard work all day Sunday and I'm inside trying to catch up on admin stuff, sitting in the recliner with my laptop on me, game over.

Speaker 5:25

Yeah, you don't work at home, you sleep out. If you're inside on the couch, you're sleeping. Like totally tuned out, can't even hear the baby crying, sleeping. Well, I think that's an interest thing. When you sit on the couch and you pull out your laptop, you that doesn't interest you. So that's an interest problem. But, anyways, we're here to solve other people's problems today, not yours. I can't be self-there's no fixing you.

Speaker 1 5:52

There's no fixing me.

Vitamin Deficiencies That Drain Energy

Speaker 5:54

I'm just kidding. But we need to talk about other people. So most commonly when we're napping in the afternoon, there's some there's definitely common triggers or causes to this. One, right off the bat, is typically going to be related to a vitamin deficiency. Whether it's a B12 deficiency, uh magnesium deficiency, a vitamin D deficiency, all of these vitamin levels and nutrient levels can play into our energy and the brain power that our body has. So we see that very commonly.

Speaker 1 6:28

Okay. So maybe that's my problem.

Blood Sugar And Cortisol Crashes

Speaker 6:31

For a while you did have B12 and zinc deficiencies. Wait, we're not talking about you. But yes, B12, zinc deficiencies, you know, these do definitely play into um the sustained energy that our body has throughout the day. If we have a magnesium deficiency and we're not actually getting adequate restful sleep at night, then that's going to trigger fatigue because the body's not really getting enough adequate rest. Like we talked about on the last episode about sleep and making sure we're actually getting quality sleep and sleeping through the night, we discussed that the causes to poor sleep or interrupted sleep are typically related to blood sugar and cortisol dysfunctions. And both of these will play into your energy throughout the day as well.

Speaker 1 7:19

Oh my goodness. Okay. All right, let's keep going.

Speaker 7:25

So if your blood sugar is unstable throughout the day, when it spikes and falls, that typically is triggering that response of it spikes up, cortisol spikes up, we get overstimulated, we go in that fight or flight mode, and then the blood sugar starts to dip down and the body gets tired. It can't keep up with this constant variation up and down of the blood sugar all day long. So typically speaking, when the blood sugar starts to drop, is when our body feels like we need to have that rest time. So we'll either go, it'll be one or two things that ends up happening. We're either gonna lay down and rest and close our eyes and take a nap, or we're gonna go in the kitchen and find something sweet to eat to try to bring that blood sugar back up. It's subconscious. We don't realize that's why we're going in the kitchen and looking for a treat, but we are.

Speaker 1 8:14

Well, maybe that's uh a benefit to me just napping. I'm not going into the kitchen and looking for cookies.

Speaker 8:21

I think you do that anyway, too. Well, I think well, can you stop?

Speaker 1 8:25

Did you just mumble? You think I do that too? Jeez the wheeze. If you guys can't see this because you're listening and you're not watching this on the video version that we don't have, she's just running back and forth over me with the bus right now. Ran over me. Now she's in reverse right now.

Speaker 8:45

You're doing it to yourself. Stop talking about yourself, and we won't have to do that. But here it is is Jake's not perfect, even though he's married to the person who does this for a living every day. I can't treat you. You cannot treat family.

Speaker 1 9:02

No, you can't treat family. I can't treat my mom. I haven't treated her in over 10 years. I have to send her to one of my PTs down there and say, fix my mom.

Speaker 9:14

Yeah. She's gonna go on Google first and get her own diagnosis. Then the PTs will help her.

Speaker 1 9:19

No, that's what pop pop does. Pop pop. You're gonna yell at us because you listen to every one of these episodes.

Speaker 9:29

They usually do a pretty good job though, self-diagnosing and being self-advocates.

Speaker 1 9:35

Yeah, so let's get back to this afternoon crash thing. So afternoon crashes are not normal, even though I've had them my whole entire life. So coming back to me, I can't stop talking about me. It makes me like envious. My dad and my brother were never nappers. And I'm going, man, how productive could I be if I could just power through the whole entire afternoon. So I'm jealous of this.

Speaker 10:00

Yeah, I'm not a napper.

Speaker 1 10:02

Yeah, you're not. You just power through. I'm like, I'm envious of that.

Under-Eating Protein And Low Fuel

Speaker 10:07

So a lot of times it with the blood sugar instability and the cortisol, if we didn't listen to last week's episode, you really should, because we set this pillar up so much talking about the relationship of blood sugar and cortisol and how much these go together. And when one rises, the other one spikes up, and when the other one crashes, they both crash. So blood sugar and cortisol play a huge role into the body's ability to have that sustained energy, but so commonly with our patients, they don't have enough fuel to actually sustain what the body requires to go through in a day, to be able to give the body the energy it needs for its organs to function, for the brain to function, for metabolism to be able to burn fat and gain muscle and to do their exercise, to balance the medications that they're taking. And then on top of that, we have to have fuel to be able to have sustained energy. So frequently, our clients are under-eating, not just protein, but just generally undereating. We don't have enough energy. There's not enough fuel. We have to think about food as gasoline. It is the gas for our car. It's the gas, the the food is the gas that we put into our body to make our car function, and our body is the car.

Speaker 1 11:21

I've mentioned that because I heard that once years back. I forget who said it, but I heard some functional medicine doctor or somebody somewhere said life changed for them when they stopped looking at food as something to enjoy versus this is just fuel. Right. Why would you put a donut into your body that is crappy water sluggish fuel? You would never put water into your gas tank knowingly, but you're gonna put a donut into your body. Food is fuel. And whenever I heard him say that, I'm going, man, that makes so much sense. It's so simple, but it's so true. Food is fuel. So why would you put a donut? I can't even remember the last time I had a donut. That was the last time that I ever even considered eating a donut, was when I heard this. And this has been years.

Speaker 12:19

I think it was probably when I told you how long it takes to digest a donut. So nasty. Um, but we really our body is a a flesh vessel, right? That's that's what we call it. It's a flesh skin. It's our vessel covered in skin. It's our car.

Speaker 1 12:35

Vessel, like a car, like a boat.

Normal Labs Versus Optimal Levels

Speaker 12:37

Yeah. And so the food that we're eating is the gasoline that we're putting into our own flesh vessel. So we have to provide the body with enough enough fuel to sustain our energy throughout the day. So, step number one, we have to make sure vitamin levels are where they should be, that we're actually absorbing our nutrients, meaning the gut has to be healthy to absorb, that our vitamin levels are actually optimized for our body. And here's the thing: your your doctor may or may not check your vitamin levels. I mean, typically they're not checked, but sometimes they may throw one or two in there and they'll tell you that your B12 of 300 is normal because that's what the quest reference range says. It's not optimal. That's not enough to fuel your body to reduce that internal inflammation, to give it the energy it needs for you to protect your brain and your nerves, to give it the energy it needs to actually have sustained energy throughout the day. So optimizing nutrient levels, not just being quote unquote normal, making sure that the blood sugar is stable throughout the day, so common our afternoon crashes are because blood sugar is dipping down. And we see that using the continuous glucose monitor that we've talked about, but this is also what's related to the body just doesn't have enough energy, it doesn't have enough fuel to be able to say sustain the blood sugar and the energy level. So that's where the under-eating specifically around protein comes in.

Speaker 1 13:59

And it's so counterintuitive because most I don't know if I should even say most, there's a lot of people who are struggling with energy who are also struggling with weight. So feeling fluffy or they've gained 10, 20, 30, 40, even 50 pounds over the years. And the thought is if you eat less, you're gonna lose weight.

Speaker 14:23

Right.

Speaker 1 14:23

If I eat a salad without chicken on it, I'm gonna lose weight. It's just not true. Right. You've gotta eat protein. Protein is how you fuel your muscles. Muscles is what burns the fat. Right. Like you have to do these kind of things, and it's difficult. It's difficult. I I struggle with this the same thing myself, and that's why I like putting the CGM, the continuous glucose monitor, on regularly, because every single time that I do it, sure enough, I think that my portion sizes for lunch and dinner are good enough, but they're always undersized. Something happens over three, four, five, six months where my portion sizes just get smaller, and you gotta increase the protein. You increase the protein, you don't have as many spikes and dips, and the body work runs more smoothly.

Speaker 15:18

Right, right, for sure. So wearing that continuous glucose monitor again gives us so much data to see what's happening over a 24-hour basis for two weeks so we can really assess is the body actually resting and recovering at night to provide energy? Are we actually eating enough to sustain our blood sugar throughout the day, to give the brain the energy it needs, to give our or other organs, the metabolism, the energy it needs. And checking your vitamin levels are so important. Having somebody to actually look at the vitamin levels in depth, enough of them, not just one or two of them, uh, and making sure they're actually optimized.

CGM Data And Real Fixes

Speaker 1 15:55

Yeah, so talk about that for a second. Most if if a primary care checks a vitamin D level, most of the time they'll say it's quote unquote normal. But what you're telling me is normal is not optimal.

Speaker 16:14

Correct. Not always, yes.

Speaker 1 16:16

Most of the time, normal is not optimal. So what we're dealing with here, or the analogy that we're gonna use, is let's use the car analogy again. There's a lot of you listening to this who have high performance cars, so cars that will only run efficiently on 93 octane. They tell you at the car dealership, do not put anything less than 93 octane into this thing, or it will not run the way that it should. So if you go and you put 87 in because gas prices are skyrocketing right now, and I'm gonna save 38 cents, so I'm gonna put 87 in instead of 93. Now the car doesn't run as smoothly, as effectively as it could or should. Yeah, it still runs, it'll still get you from point A to point B, but it's not gonna be as um responsive to the gas pedal. It's just not gonna run the way that it should. That's that's what we're talking about with your vitamin D levels. That's just one example of a bunch of different vitamins. Just because it's normal doesn't mean it's optimal.

Speaker 17:20

Correct. Yes. And these vitamins, you know, again, people think about vitamin D. Oh, I need it to protect my bones from osteoporosis, but they don't understand that vitamin D also plays into blood sugar, into mood stability, and to the immune system. So these vitamins, yeah, yes, you know, B12 is great for energy, but it also protects your nerves and your brain. Um, so all these vitamins have more than one purpose. And again, we want to make sure that their level is not just what Quest tells you is normal, that it's actually in an optimal range for your body, your age, your metabolism.

Speaker 1 17:55

Good. And if it's not normal and it's low, just because you take a supplement doesn't mean that it's gonna help.

Speaker 18:02

Right.

Speaker 1 18:02

Right?

Speaker 18:03

Yeah, doesn't mean you're always absorbing it correctly. Um, or you know, the opposite uh side of that is vitamin levels, some of them can get to toxic levels. So you may be taking way too much, which is causing a negative reaction instead of a positive reaction if your level is now way too high.

Speaker 1 18:21

Okay. So we say all this to come back full circle to afternoon crashes. The answer is not my answer, which is I've always taken naps. So it's just who I am. I'm a napper. The ri right answer is well, why am I crashing? Why is this happening? Just because I've done it forever doesn't mean that it's right or normal.

Speaker 18:47

Yep. Exactly. You gotta figure out the the why behind it. I think your energy is better when you wear the CGM.

Speaker 1 18:56

It definitely is.

Speaker 18:58

Yeah.

Speaker 1 18:58

Because then I can see it in real time.

Speaker 19:01

Mm-hmm. Yeah, so the the blood sugar is just such a vital role to all things that we do on the wellness side, to the gut health, to the sleep, to the energy, to the metabolism, the weight loss. The blood sugar has to be step number one, optimizing. And so many people again will tell us, Oh, my blood sugar's fine, it's normal. And it's not.

Speaker 1 19:21

It's not. It's funny, every single time I put one of those things on and I'm sitting in my office in the chair, staring at the computer at two or three in the afternoon, and I feel myself crashing, I go, let's look at what the blood sugar is. And sure enough, it isn't a dip. I'm going, son of a gun, let's go jump up right now. 15 jumping jacks.

Speaker 19:46

Start moving. That does help. That stimulates it. But then we gotta go down to and the other thing is blood sugar is often reflective of the 24 hours prior, and so we have to be consistent to be able to see some improvement as well.

Speaker 1 20:01

24 hours prior?

Speaker 20:04

It can be reflective up to 24 hours of the prior.

Speaker 1 20:08

Jesus.

Speaker 20:09

So what you ate and drank and how you slept yesterday is affecting your blood sugar today.

Speaker 1 20:13

Oh my goodness.

Speaker 20:14

And that can be frustrating to try to figure out on your own.

Speaker 1 20:19

You know what? I'm just gonna eat cookies and take it out.

Speaker 20:26

Okay.

Speaker 1 20:27

Good.

Key Takeaways And Share Request

Speaker 20:28

I think so. Have your blood levels checked, vitamin levels, nutrient levels, wear a CGM, let's see what your blood sugar's doing. Fuel your body, eat more the right way.

unknown 20:41

Yeah.

Speaker 1 20:41

It seems like this is a common thread with these episodes, is the CGM.

Speaker 20:47

It really is, and that's why I just said like the blood sugar plays into all aspects of the chemical side. We have to get that optimized and stable first before we can then go to say, okay, let's make the gut healthy. I mean, they all play into each other, right? We can't just focus on blood sugar. The gut's not going to heal just by focusing on blood sugar, but the blood sugar affects how the body is able to heal with the gut healing process. We can't fix the blood sugar if our cortisol is absolutely wonky, so we have to improve the cortisol too. So we have to work through all the pillars together, but the blood sugar is most definitely a baseline to our energy, our sleep, our healing process.

Speaker 1 21:29

Okay. Well, we're just cranking through these things. We've got three down, we've got two more to come. And then after we go through these next two episodes, we will summarize all 10 aspects on how you can arrive at 80 feeling 40. And if you're already in your 80s, kick your 90s asses. Please share this episode with a family member, a friend, or a family member that you know crashes in the afternoon, and they're just they take naps and This is the answer. They just need to know what is the answer.

Speaker 22:04

Yes.

Speaker 1 22:04

Good.

Speaker 22:05

Perfect. Ciao for now.