Turkey Day Sleepiness: Is It The Tryptophan Or Is It The Inlaws?

What is it really about Thanksgiving dinner that makes us crave a nice long nap? Is it the tryptophan, the amino acid that is blamed for our drowsiness year after year, or is it your inlaws’ dissertation about all of the Christmas shopping they’ve already done? Let’s look at the facts: tryptophan is found in turkey, and yes, it does play a role in the regulation of serotonin and melotonin, which influence sleep, but as nutritionist Joan Salge Blake points out in her blog, Nutrition and You, chicken has more tryptophan than turkey. In Salge Blake’s opinion, it’s far more likely that the culprit is the sheer amount of food we eat on Thanksgiving, which requires our digestive systems to do the kind of heavy lifting they are unaccustomed to. But then she hasn’t met the inlaws.