We all have an uncle Joe. His real name could be Fred, Richard, Ben, and Jose, even Elvis. He’s the guy who just devoured a plateful of your turkey and trimmings the size of a small Buick and is now snoring away in your Barcalounger, while his stomach is creating room for dessert. You know… that uncle Joe.
Don’t blame him for crashing after a heavy meal. Be thankful. For if everyone reacted to your cooking that way, there would be no one awake to help with the cleanup.
Packing away a big meal, especially one with turkey, mash potatoes, stuffing, gravy, bread, butter… is the equivalent of hitting some of them with a tranquilizing dart big enough to bring a rhino to its knees. (Rhino’s have knees. Right?)
The Mystery Ingredient
It’s not your secret stuffing recipe handed down through the ages that dropped uncle Joe. And it’s not something the growers plunged into the backside of your Butterball before shipment. Relax; you do not have to check your homeowner’s policy to see if it covers these things. It is partly the turkey’s fault.
Turkey is loaded with tryptophan, an amino acid that promotes the production of serotonin in your brain. This brain chemical has both a calming effect as well as being involved in REM sleep. But tryptophan is not absorbed easily.
Tryptophan is an essential amino acid, meaning that the body cannot manufacture it. The body has to get tryptophan and other essential amino acids from food. Tryptophan helps the body produce the B-vitamin niacin, which, in turn, helps the body produce serotonin, a remarkable chemical that acts as a calming agent in the brain and plays a key role in sleep.
A study published last month in the Canadian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology asserts that, in order for tryptophan to be absorbed most effectively from the blood stream into the central nervous system, it must be combined with a high-glycemic carbohydrate (all of the trimmings like mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, bread) thereby allowing more tryptophan to reach the brain. In other words, if you ate only turkey, that might not help you sleep.
Thanksgiving is the first time some of us get a chance to relax. It’s amazing what few days off can mean to someone needing to replenish their “sleep debt.”
“Thanksgiving and sleepiness go together like turkey and pumpkin pie,” says Dr. Ralph Downey III, chief of sleep medicine at the Sleep Disorders Center at California’s Loma Linda University Medical Center, in a release from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. “We nap or feel drowsy because we are in a relaxed state. When we finally relax, our brain is primed for sleep from all the days when it has not had as much.”
Your place might look like a ‘60’s crash pad with all of the guests snoozing. Just make sure that the dedicated driver gets a nap before hitting the road.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Dr. Hilton
