Turkey has held a reputation for a long time now for putting the crowd to sleep after a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. The cause for this drowsiness was thought to be high levels of tryptophan.
L-tryptophan is an essential amino acid, which means it's needed to create protein, and isn't made by the body, so must come from the diet. Tryptophan is a building block for protein production.
Tryptophan assists in making the B vitamin niacin. Niacin aids in digestion, and in the manufacture of the neurotransmitter serotonin.
Serotonin is a brain chemical that influences mood, enhancing a sense of wellbeing, and encouraging relaxation. Tryptophan helps make serotonin, and serotonin helps make the hormone melatonin, which regulates your waking and sleeping.
At one time tryptophan was in sleeping aid supplements. But as relaxing and sleep-beckoning though tryptophan may be, it is not turning your turkey into a sleep supplement.
Tryptophan is effective in that way only on an empty stomach, which puts your Thanksgiving experience right out of the running. And while turkey has tryptophan, so do many other meats, fish, eggs, yogurt and cheese.
So what is it that lulls the busy, boisterous household into dreamland after a big Thanksgiving meal?
Eating -- or overeating -- a big high carb dinner, perhaps with a few alcoholic drinks on the side, can leave a body feeling lethargic and interested in a snooze in the easy chair.
In a WebMD article, Elizabeth Somer,MA, RD, author of several books on nutrition, said that it's not the tryptophan found in proteins that are hitting you. It is more the carbohydrates combining with tryptophan that you've eaten. But the tryptophan by itself doesn't do it.
Nope, high carb content is one of the main culprits here. Carbohydrates trigger the pancreas' release of insulin. Other amino acids exit the bloodstream entering muscles cells. Tryptophan then is more concentrated in the bloodstream, serotonin is created and you feel like a snooze.
Overeating is going to be a Thanksgiving factor for many people, as well. Digesting all that food uses up plenty of energy.
Your body will send more blood to your digestive system to aid in digestion. This can leave you feeling sleepy.
Alcohol can also make you want to close your eyes because it has a depressant effect on your central nervous system.
Then again, it's possible for those who cooked and for those who simply ate, that having gotten through the big dinner with family and friends has gotten some holiday stressors out of the way.
All that remains is the desire and great capacity for gearing down and settling in for a time of relaxation, and perhaps a few z's.
Unless you are on kitchen cleanup. Which is of course another story for another time in another article on holiday stressors.
Sources:
Holiday Turkey ... Can It Really Make You Sleepy?. Emedicinehealth.com. Retrieved Nov. 24, 2012.
http://www.emedicinehealth.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=55219
The Truth About Tryptophan. WebMD.com. Retrieved Nov. 24, 2012.
http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/the-truth-about-tryptophan
Does Eating Turkey Make You Sleepy? About.com. Retrieved Nov. 24, 2012.
http://chemistry.about.com/od/holidaysseasons/a/tiredturkey.htm
Visit Jody's website and blog at http://www.ncubator.ca and http://ncubator.ca/blogger
Reviewed November 26, 2012
by Michele Blacksberg RN