7 Responses

1. Dealing with Mid-afternoon sag
   Mid-afternoon sag happens when participant’s blood-sugar levels have dropped, a combination of digesting lunch and tiredness as the demands of your “intensive, stimulating and fun” programme. Two suggestions: (1) Diet: change the structure of the lunch: foods high in fats and carbohydrates are more likely to result in low blod-sugar levels; try more salads and fruit, and ensure that there are plenty of supplies of these for participants to “graze” on during the afternoon. Tiredness is a symptom of dehydration (also an product of an energy (and particularly sugar)-rich lunch, as the body tries to maintain an optimum bllod sugar level by flushing out excess sugars, so you can counteract this by providing plenty of water during the afternoon sessions. Tea and coffee, which contain caffeine, will produce a temporary “rush” of energy, especially when sugar is added, but this will subside fairly quickly once the effect of the caffeine wears off, resulting in still-tired participants.
   (2) Programme Content: acknowledge that your participants are tired! You have worked them hard: replace intensive sessions with lighter, (left side of brain material: suggestions can include meditation period,or engaging in art work to explore more intuitive (right-side of brain material). if you ca get them moving (preferably into the open air) this will also reduce the problem.

2. Try a quiz – use http://www.quia.com
   I pre-empt the post lunch slump by having a team based quiz about 30mins to an hour after coming back from lunch.

   Create a quiz based on course content so far on http://www.quia.com
   then email the link to the trainees and they can work against each other in teams etc.

3. afternoon sag
   I like Martins points, especially the one about getting them moving,and also about acknowledging their need for a quiet reflective time.

   I often use a line-up: – learning styles, beliefs in absolute or relative truth, anything where people can locate themselves on a continuum. They are usually very interesting, educational in a gentle way, and get people out of their chairs

4. An energiser
   The Guessing Game could get your participants moving about, thinking about something completely different, having some fun and getting a surprise. They can take it home and try it on their friends or family.

   Guessing Game – Tell a person something about themselves

   Purpose: icebreaker or energiser.

   Aim: to tell a person something about themselves that only they will know, and give them a surprise.

   Materials: pen, paper, and possibly a calculator.

   Preparation: choose a question to which the answer must be between one and ten. This can be the number of times something has happened in their life, or in the last month, week, yesterday or today. It can be work-related, course-related or not.

   Examples: number of TV sets or phones in their house; number of meetings attended in the last month; number of cars in the family; number of meals out or takeaways in the last week; number of teas/coffees drunk today et cetera.

   Method: ask the group to divide into pairs; tell them that they are going to guess something about each other; give them the following instructions.

   Ask their partner the chosen question, and ask them to write the answer down (must be between one and ten), but NOT to reveal it.

   Multiply the number by two.

   Now add five.

   Now multiply by 50.

   If they have already had their birthday this year, add 1,753. If they haven’t, then add 1,752.

   Finally, subtract the four digit year they were born. This results in a three digit number.

   Now, ask the person to say the three numbers.

   The first number is the answer to the original question. So if the number is three and the question was “How many cars does your family own?” then say “My guess is that your family owns three cars”.

   Surprise: the second and third numbers are the person’s age. So surprise your partner by telling them their age.

   Eddie Newall
   Guessing game
   July 2003

5. Give them some fresh air!
   I agree with all the other replies, particularly with Martin Gill’s comments on diet.

   As well as exercises that involve movement, and ensuring that your delegates eat right, I recommend making sure that they get some fresh air. One way to do this is to open the windows as soon as everyone has gone out to lunch. Leave them open as long as you can when they get back. In conjuction with an exercise involving movement, this can be very effective.

6. Music!
   To add to Don’s comment about movement – I have found that getting them to stand up and “shake themselves out”, gets them alert and wondering what will come next. Then put on some music with a good rhythm – Latin American or the Conga work well – and get them to move to it – encouraging them to be as wild as possible. They feel silly to start, but soon start to laugh and relax into it and it does wonders for morale and that mid-afternoon dip in energy. I have also had them massage each other’s shoulders in time to the music – that really gets them going!

7. The graveyard shift
   Tried many ways over the years, but the best to date is….

   On return from lunch, introduce something that you know they will find particularly boring…then almost immediately agree it does not sound like fun and tell them you have changed your mind.

   Get everyone to change places in the room, pick up all your belongings and move to a new seat. This can be done by age, height, length of service with the company….newest employee in the first chair or on first table oldest in last or on last table……

   Then introduce a quiz. Get them into teams…alternate questions, one pure trivia, the second something learned in the course. Ensure a prize for the winning team.

   Never return to the item you know they would have found boring, but the graveyard shift is often short…

   Neil