Tryptophan in turkey is not solely responsible for post-meal sleepiness. When consumed alone, tryptophan can make a person sleepy, but when eaten with other foods, the amount of food consumed and high amounts of carbohydrates can also increase feelings of sleepiness. Alcohol can also contribute to sleepiness.
Tryptophan can make someone feel sleepy for a variety of reasons, though in general, the tryptophan found in turkeys isn’t solely responsible for feeling sleepy after a big holiday meal. When consumed alone, tryptophan in food can make you sleepy, although it typically needs to be eaten with little or no other foods to be effective. When eaten with other foods, the amount of food consumed will often affect a person’s feeling sleepy afterward, and high amounts of carbohydrates can also increase feelings of sleepiness after eating turkey or similar dishes.
Many people often feel sleepy or tired after eating a large holiday meal, such as Christmas or Thanksgiving. Since these meals often include turkey, the tryptophan present in turkey is often blamed for these sleepy feelings after the meal is over. The reality, however, is that turkey contains relatively low amounts of tryptophan, equivalent to other poultry such as chicken and much less than foods such as parmesan cheese or sesame seeds. Tryptophan can make a person feel sleepy or tired, but this typically occurs for one of two reasons.
When eaten on an otherwise relatively empty stomach, with no other foods, tryptophan-rich foods can make a person sleepy by producing serotonin and melatonin, both chemicals involved in a person’s sleep cycles. That’s why a midnight snack consisting of a small turkey sandwich or small portion of turkey can effectively help a person fall asleep. When eaten with other foods, however, the turkey itself isn’t typically solely responsible for drowsiness. Much of the sleepiness you feel after a large holiday meal is also due to the other foods you eat.
A holiday meal of turkey is often accompanied by other large amounts of food, many of them high in carbohydrates such as dinner rolls, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and pie. These carbohydrates cause tryptophan introduced into a person’s system to be more easily absorbed into the eater’s central nervous system. This in turn creates higher levels of serotonin and melatonin. It is the high amounts of carbohydrates consumed with turkey that allow the tryptophan to contribute to feelings of sleepiness.
The average holiday meal, especially Thanksgiving in the United States, is also extremely high in calories and fat and often accompanied by alcohol. This large meal requires a large amount of energy to be digested by the body, and blood is shunted from other systems in a person’s body to the stomach to aid in digestion. The rest of a person’s body, therefore, has less energy and less oxygen, resulting in feelings of sleepiness and lethargy. Alcohol that is consumed with the large meal can also act as a sedative in the person’s system, contributing to his sleepiness.
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