How to stay awake during late afternoon video meetings
The post-3 PM circadian dip causes extreme fatigue during late afternoon video calls, even for people who are fully rested. This exhaustion makes it a constant struggle to stay alert and leaves people wishing they could turn off the camera and just work alone.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1getting 9+ hours of sleepDid this help you?
- 2doodling shapes and patterns in the margins of nearby paperDid this help you?
- 3standing up and pacing around the room with headphones onDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“my brain is absolutely cooked after like 3pm, no matter how rested i am.”source ↗
“When it hits 4 I start to really chug and wish I was just working alone”source ↗
“I will doze off and have to literally FIGHT for my life to stay awake.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
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- 8Teacher staff meetings that could have been an email
- 4How to survive the long school stretches without breaks
- 2Do you enforce bedtimes at sleepovers?
- 2Is it feasible to take a virtual meeting at an airport?