DR. KOMAL BHANGU ON THE ENERGY CRISIS AT WORK: Why Employee Well-Being Begins with the Everyday Work?
Always Tired After Work? 6 Habits That Might Be Draining Your Energy. That’s Why Employee Well-Being Begins with the Everyday Work?
Fatigue at work is often treated as a personal problem: sleep better, drink less coffee, exercise more, or take a holiday. But what if persistent tiredness is also telling us something about the way work itself is designed?
In today’s always-connected workplace, employees can begin their day tired, move through hours of meetings and screen time without meaningful breaks, postpone meals because of deadlines, depend on caffeine to sustain concentration, and remain mentally connected to work long after they have left the workplace. Individually, these behaviours may appear insignificant. Collectively, they can create a cycle of depleted energy, reduced concentration and declining well-being.
This makes workplace energy a much broader HR issue than conventional wellness programs often recognise.
In this interview, People Manager explores this everyday but increasingly important question through an insightful conversation with Dr. Komal Bhangi, who looks beyond sleep to examine the complete rhythm of the working day. Her perspective draws attention to the interconnected role of nutrition, hydration, movement, caffeine consumption, screen exposure, stress and recovery.
One of the strongest messages emerging from the conversation is that energy management is not about dramatic lifestyle transformation. Small, repeatable behaviours—taking movement breaks, protecting meal times, drinking sufficient water and creating a genuine boundary between work and personal time—can influence how employees experience the working day.
But the conversation also challenges HR leaders to look beyond individual responsibility.
If meetings routinely consume lunch hours, if back-to-back calls leave no space to pause, if employees feel expected to respond late at night, or if workplace food and hydration choices are poor, then organisational design itself becomes part of the well-being equation. Dr. Bhangi makes this point clearly: employee energy cannot be viewed solely as an individual’s responsibility; the workplace environment and leadership behaviours also shape the capacity to recover.
For CHROs, HR leaders and people managers, this creates an important shift in thinking—from wellness as a program to well-being as a work-design responsibility.
The objective is not simply to make employees more productive for longer. It is to create working conditions in which people can sustain attention, recover appropriately and perform without continuously operating from a state of depletion.
And there is another important caution in the conversation. Not every instance of persistent fatigue can be solved through better workplace habits. Where exhaustion continues despite improvements in sleep, nutrition, hydration and stress management or where other concerning symptoms appear professional medical assessment becomes important.
This interview therefore invites a broader question for the modern workplace:
Are we designing organisations that continuously consume employee energy—or organisations that help people sustain it?
The answer may lie not in another wellness campaign, but in the everyday architecture of work itself.
Q. A lot of workers believe weariness is just a lack of sleep. Why does doing the same things at work make you always fatigued, even if you get enough sleep?
Ans.: Sleep is only one part of the equation. I have plenty of patients who get a full eight hours of sleep and feel wiped out. It’s not sleep so much as the way the rest of the day is structured.
It’s extended meetings without breaks, infrequent meals, very little activity and continual screen time. None of them alone seem like a huge concern yet they build up. The body need not just slumber at night, but rhythm throughout the day. Fluctuating energy levels might also be the result of irregular eating, exercise and mental pauses.
I normally tell my patients something like this: sleep recharges you, but how quickly that charge is used up depends on what you do throughout the day. Sleep well but miss meals, sit all day, have continual job stress, sleep alone won’t solve the weariness. This is why when a patient comes to see me with complaints of exhaustion, I enquire about their full day, not just their night.
Q.: What impact does skipping or delaying meals during the workday have on energy levels and overall productivity?
Ans.: Meal timing is way more overlooked than it should be. When food intake is reduced or delayed, blood glucose levels fall, and the body responds by pumping out stress hormones to compensate. You may feel a brief period of false alertness, but this phase will be followed by a much sharper drop, with irritability and an inability to focus.
I constantly see it. People skip lunch because of calls or deadlines, then feel a sudden drop in energy mid-afternoon and grab tea, coffee, or something sugary to keep going for the rest of the day. This pattern of skipping and then crashing over time doesn’t just impact energy levels; it can throw off digestion and even sleep, as erratic blood sugar can affect how well the body winds down at nite.
It has a direct bearing on the work output too. Stable blood sugar is very important for concentration and good decision making. By the time someone eats lunch at 3PM, they are probably working at a fraction of their actual ability (even if they don’t realise it themselves). It’s not rocket science – taking meal times as seriously as a scheduled meeting makes a world of difference.
Q.: Tea and coffee are workplace staples. Could you explain how excessive dependence on caffeine creates an energy crash rather than sustained alertness?
Ans.: It’s not tea and coffee that are the problem. It’s overdependence and bad timing that will get you into trouble. In my patients, I often see a pattern where one cup progresses to three or four, spaced closer together throughout the day, each trying to patch up the dip left by the previous one.
What really happens is caffeine blocks a chemical in the brain that tells you that you’re tired. It does not generate new energy; it just delays the feeling of tiredness for a certain time. And then when it wears off, that tiredness often comes back even stronger, which is why people feel they need another cup soon after. This becomes a cycle that masks fatigue rather than addressing it.
Too much caffeine, especially later in the day, can also impact sleep quality. Even if someone falls asleep fine, their sleep can be lighter, which then compounds the next day’s tiredness and the need for more caffeine. My advice would be not to give up tea or coffee altogether, but to be mindful – have it to one or two cups earlier in the day, with food and not on an empty stomach, and look at what’s really causing the fatigue instead of covering it up with another cup.
Q.: Sedentary Workstyles: With long hours of sitting and screen time becoming the norm, how does the absence of movement during the day drain the physical and mental energy?
Ans.: Sitting for long hours is more tiring than people think. Many people think they’re okay if they’re not exercising, but our bodies are made to move a lot, and long periods of inactivity actually sap energy, rather than store it up.
When you sit for hours motionless, blood circulation slows down and your muscles stiffen. This also applies to the brain — reduced circulation contributes to the fog and sluggishness that many office workers feel come the afternoon. That slump isn’t always about bad sleep – it’s often just hours of sitting without a break.And same happens with the screen time. The only thing that’s happened is that you’ve been focusing on a close-up object for a long time . That causes eye strain and low-level mental fatigue . Having long stretches of uninterrupted time can make the day seem monotonous, which is mentally tiring in its own way.
The fix is simple, and often overlooked short, regular breaks for movement. Even two or three minutes walking or stretching every hour helps circulation and gives the mind a short reset. I tell patients to schedule those breaks like they would schedule a meeting, rather than waiting for a natural break that rarely occurs.
Q.: Dehydration is often overlooked. What subtle signs should employees watch for that may present as tiredness rather than thirst?
Ans.: Dehydration is one of the most common and most missed causes of tiredness at work, primarily because it doesn’t always present as thirst. By the time someone actually feels thirsty, they have often been mildly dehydrated for a while.
Signs to watch for include difficulty with concentration that doesn’t improve with rest, mild headaches that come on suddenly by mid-afternoon, dry lips, urine that’s a little darker than normal, and a general low energy that’s not in line with how much sleep someone got. These are often mistaken for fatigue that needs more sleep or more caffeine when the real deficit is just water.
This is made worse by air-conditioned offices, where the dry air increases fluid loss without the obvious sweating that usually tells you to drink more. Long meetings where water is forgotten entirely, and it’s easy to go half the day mildly dehydrated without realising.
I usually suggest keeping a water bottle in sight on your desk, rather than out of sight, and building in small habits — a glass before each meal, one after every meeting, one first thing in the morning. These little repetitive habits stave off the slow dehydration that leads to the afternoon exhaustion.
Q.: How do work-related stress and the inability to disconnect after work hours contribute to chronic fatigue in professionals?
Ans.: Physical tiredness generally improves with rest, but mental and emotional exhaustion doesn’t operate in the same way — particularly when the mind doesn’t switch off from work at all.
If you’re constantly stressed at work—meeting deadlines, getting notifications all day, never quite sure where work ends and personal time starts your body stays in a low-grade state of alertness even when you’re off the clock. This is a different kind of tiredness than, say, physical fatigue. It is a chronic low level stress that saps energy slowly often without the person making any association with stress what so ever. Technically, someone may be asleep for eight hours, but if they are checking email late at nite, or if they are mentally replaying work that remains unfinished, their bodies never really settle down to rest. Their sleep tends to be lighter and less restful when their minds have not fully calmed down.
This manifests over time as what is often called burnout – persistent fatigue, low motivation, irritability and difficulty concentrating that don’t resolve after a single weekend away. I normally suggest creating a simple end-of-day routine (such as a short walk or changing out of work clothes) to signal to the body that it’s time to rest.
Q.: How does good nutrition support continuous energy and what are some practical eating habits that may be adopted by workers throughout their time at work?
Ans.: Nutrition contributes significantly more to energy than most people think, but is typically the first item to be sacrificed under the strain of work. You don’t have to be on a rigid diet for balanced nutrition, it’s more about feeding the body slowly throughout the day, rather than sugar or caffeine spikes.
I normally tell people to eat protein and fibre with every meal, since they take longer to digest and provide you more consistent energy than refined carbohydrates or sugary snacks that rise then fall your blood sugar. A meal like eggs or anything based on lentils will retain your energy far better than a short sugary snack or no breakfast at all.
Small, well-timed snacks between meals – nuts, fruit or yoghurt – can prevent the dips which lead people toward vending machine snacks or additional tea and coffee. Be mindful of carb-heavy meals which are notorious for causing the familiar post-lunch slump. A lighter lunch may help keep you on-task in the afternoon.
Consistency is as vital as the cuisine. Eating at the same time each day helps the body establish a pattern around appetite and energy release. Nutrition at work doesn’t have to be flawless, it simply needs to be acceptable and consistent enough to really sustain energy all day long.
Q.: Lifestyle modifications: What are easy, sustainable lifestyle modifications that workers may do to maintain their energy levels throughout the day?
Ans.: I tell my patients regularly that lasting change is not about major overhauls that are hard to maintain, but modest habits repeated every day. Here are a few variations I often suggest for working professionals:
Do a little workout or stretch for a few minutes to start the day, rather than going straight to the displays. It’s a natural way to wake up the body that doesn’t rely on coffee alone. Every 60-90 minutes, take “movement breaks,” even if it just means stepping up and refilling your glass.
Set mealtimes like a meeting. Keep a glass of water on your desk as a visual cue to drink water all day long. Try to consume coffee earlier in the day, when it won’t impair your sleep later.
You don’t have to make major changes to your lifestyle to do any of this. The goal is to make energy management automatic, not something you have to be constantly working on, by developing little, repeated routines into your existing workweek.
Q.: When is fatigue? When does it become a medical condition rather than just a behaviour problem at work?
Ans.: I encounter a lot of fatigue in my practice that’s really about day-to-day habits, but sometimes it’s worth looking beyond lifestyle. If sleep, food, fluids and stress all improve significantly but weariness continues for several weeks, it’s a warning indicator that needs deeper investigation, not just more tinkering with routines.
Other signs include unexplained weight changes and exhaustion, a low mood that is not lifting, interrupted sleep despite appropriate sleep habits, changes to your hair or skin, digestive disorders or excessive fatigue that is impacting your day to day functioning despite getting rest. Sometimes they might be a sign of underlying issues like thyroid imbalance, anaemia or vitamin deficiencies which need adequate diagnosis and not simply lifestyle change.
I always tell patients not to self-diagnose on social media, but if fatigue doesn’t improve after a few weeks of prudent lifestyle changes, they should have a thorough checkup.As a homoeopathic doctor I perceive the person as a whole but also the need to recognise when it goes beyond lifestyle tiredness and needs additional medical attention. If you are exhausted all the time for no reason, it’s best to check it out than to blame a demanding work schedule.
Q.: What are the duties of the employer? Finally, what is the role of businesses in developing improved work habits that help to prevent energy depletion and increase employee well-being?
Ans.: Simple things may make a big difference – protecting lunchtimes from meetings, encouraging short exercise breaks and having water and healthy food options available, rather than reaching for sugary alternatives. Meeting culture matters too no gaps between back-to-back meetings don’t allow for the little resets that avoid tiredness.
The human ability to ‘switch off’ from work is also very much an organisational problem. But the culture of late-night answers—no matter what the policy says will suck the vitality out of any one person’s desire to rest and recover. Leaders who really model healthy boundaries — taking real time off, not texting after hours — are so much more powerful than any stated wellness policy.
Ultimately, employee energy is not an individual responsibility, it is a collective one. Companies that build in some breathing space in the workday with proper meeting scheduling, easy access to good food and drink and respect for personal time, will be rewarded with attention, mood and long-term retention, not just short-term productivity.
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