For years, scientists have told us that the reason we feel tired after eating a traditional Thanksgiving meal is that turkey contains tryptophan, a natural sedative. But the staff at CO2Meter has known for years that high carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the office also result in drowsiness.
Could high CO2 levels around the table be the reason everyone feels drowsy after the Thanksgiving meal?
In the interest of science (and the holidays) we decided to bring back our 2013 "Thanksgiving Test".
In the past, our CO2Meter team decided to eat a full Thanksgiving dinner while logging the CO2 levels in the break room.
Eight of our staff members sat down to a traditional dinner featuring turkey, dressing, cranberries and all the trimmings. While eating, a large CO2 meter was placed on the wall for the video, and a second meter was used to log CO2 levels for the graph shown below.
CO2Meter cSense Large Character Wall CO2 Monitor
Here are the results from the study:
A - Beginning of meal. The CO2 level in the office has already risen from 400 ppm when the office opens to 1,000 ppm by lunchtime. This is normal every day.
B – Dinner is served. From the time the staff was seated until the meal was over, CO2 levels rose approximately 20ppm per minute! By the end of the meal, the CO2 level peaked at 1,400 ppm.
C – Cleanup. People began to leave the room. Opening and closing the doors lowered the CO2 levels to about 1,200 ppm.
D – Dessert. Everyone came back into the room, and the CO2 levels returned to their peak of 1,400 ppm. The general consensus was that everyone was sleepier than when the meal began.
E – Experiment Ends. During discussion, we realized that we didn’t have a control group of people who did not eat the turkey, so our results were inconclusive. Everyone finally left the room for some fresh air so they could wake up before getting back to work!
With Thanksgiving right around the corner, we thought it would only be fitting to display the video below which showcased the test in action!
Stay tuned for an updated 2021 version of this test for our holiday Christmas dinner, and get a glimpse of the growth of our company from 2013 to now!
Watch the original 2013 video here:
Happy Holidays everyone, and of course, feel free to create your own CO2 Thanksgiving experiment at home!
For more information on Carbon Dioxide Monitoring, visit us here.