Does Turkey Make You Sleepy? The Reality About Tryptophan & Meals Comas (2025)

Fast reply: Turkey doesn’t make you sleepy—it has the identical tryptophan as rooster or beef, and different amino acids block it from affecting your mind. The true culprits are outsized parts, carb-heavy sides (stuffing, potatoes, rolls), and high-fat meals (gravy, casseroles). Consuming an excessive amount of diverts blood to digestion, spikes then crashes blood sugar, and exhausts your system—leaving you prepared for a nap.

You end your Thanksgiving plate, lean again in your chair, and really feel your eyelids develop heavy. Inside minutes, you’re combating the urge to nap on the sofa.

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Everybody across the desk nods knowingly, it should be the turkey. For many years, individuals have blamed dishes made with this chicken for his or her post-meal drowsiness, satisfied that one thing within the meat triggers an immediate meals coma.

However what if turkey has been taking the autumn for another person’s crime? The true culprits behind your sleepiness would possibly shock you. Preserve studying to find why turkey is harmless and what really makes you wish to crash after a giant meal.

What Is Tryptophan and Why Do Folks Blame It?

• Tryptophan is an important amino acid your physique converts into serotonin and melatonin, however consuming it in meals doesn’t immediately trigger drowsiness.

Image this: you’ve simply completed a large Thanksgiving dinner, and out of the blue you’ll be able to barely hold your eyes open. Your uncle snores on the recliner, your sister curls up on the sofa, and somebody mentions that the turkey did it once more.

Each November, the identical scene performs out in properties throughout the nation. Folks collect round tables loaded with turkey, stuffing, and all of the fixings. Inside an hour of ending their meal, visitors sprawl throughout couches and chairs, combating to remain awake.

The eating room transforms right into a makeshift nap zone, with full bellies and drooping eyelids in all places. This annual custom of post-dinner drowsiness feels as a lot part of the day because the meal itself.

Most individuals blame the turkey for this collective sleepiness. They level to the chicken as the plain perpetrator, claiming it comprises one thing that knocks individuals out. This rationalization will get repeated so usually that it appears like widespread information.

Pals warn one another about consuming an excessive amount of turkey, anticipating to really feel drained afterward. The story has grow to be so widespread that even individuals who’ve by no means appeared into the information settle for it as true.

Turkey takes the blame for sleepiness due to one ingredient: tryptophan. To grasp why this blame is misplaced, you must know what tryptophan really does in your physique.

What Is Tryptophan?

Tryptophan




is



an amino acid that your physique makes use of to create sure chemical substances. Your physique can’t make this
much-needed



amino acid by itself, so that you get it from the meals you eat.

• Constructing Block Chemical: Tryptophan serves as a uncooked materials that your physique transforms into different substances it must operate.
• Sleep Chemical Connection: Your physique converts tryptophan into serotonin, a chemical that helps regulate your temper and finally turns into melatonin.
• Melatonin Manufacturing: Melatonin is the hormone that tells your mind when it’s time to sleep and helps management your sleep-wake cycle.

You devour tryptophan each time you eat protein, whether or not it comes from turkey, eggs, dairy or nuts. The important thing query isn’t whether or not turkey comprises tryptophan—it’s whether or not turkey comprises sufficient to really make you sleepy.

Why Turkey Will get Blamed

Turkey grew to become the scapegoat for post-meal tiredness as a result of somebody related the dots between tryptophan and sleepiness. This easy rationalization caught on and unfold like wildfire via American tradition.

• The Tryptophan Discovery: Folks discovered that turkey comprises tryptophan and that tryptophan performs a task in sleep, in order that they assumed consuming turkey would make them drowsy.
• Custom Spreads: Households shared this rationalization at Thanksgiving dinners yr after yr, turning it into accepted knowledge that bought handed down via generations.
• The Particular Connection: Turkey grew to become singled out as a result of it’s the centerpiece of the meal when individuals really feel most drained, making it a simple goal for blame.

The timing couldn’t have been extra excellent for this fable to take maintain. Folks felt sleepy after Thanksgiving dinner, somebody supplied a scientific-sounding rationalization, and everybody accepted it with out questioning whether or not different meals is likely to be the true drawback.

Does Turkey Really Include Extra Tryptophan Than Different Meats?

• No—turkey, rooster, and beef all include related quantities of tryptophan, and a traditional serving comprises far too little to trigger drowsiness by itself.

Turkey doesn’t deserve its popularity as a sleep-inducing meals. The information about tryptophan ranges inform a very totally different story than the favored fable suggests.

Evaluating Tryptophan Ranges

Turkey comprises roughly the identical quantity of tryptophan as different widespread meats you eat usually, together with different meals like nuts and cheese. If turkey made you sleepy, you’d really feel drowsy after each rooster dinner or hamburger too.

• Identical as Different Meats: Turkey, rooster, and beef all include related concentrations of tryptophan, with none standing out as considerably greater than the others.
• Inadequate Quantity Current: A typical serving of turkey comprises far too little tryptophan to trigger any noticeable drowsiness by itself.
• No Single-Serving Impact: You would want to eat turkey in isolation and in a lot bigger portions than a traditional portion to expertise any sleep-related results from tryptophan alone.

The following time somebody blames turkey for his or her meals coma, remind them they eat rooster sandwiches for lunch with out falling asleep at their desk. Turkey merely isn’t particular in the case of tryptophan content material.

What Are The Actual Culprits Behind Publish-Meal Sleepiness?

• Overeating, carbohydrate-heavy aspect dishes (stuffing, potatoes, rolls), and high-fat meals (gravy, casseroles) are what really make you drained by spiking blood sugar, slowing digestion, and diverting blood circulation away out of your mind.

Now that turkey is off the hook, let’s have a look at what really makes you wish to crash after a giant meal. The true causes of your drowsiness don’t have anything to do with the chicken and all the pieces to do with how a lot you eat and what else is in your plate.

Overeating and Your Digestive System

Once you pile your plate excessive and return for seconds, you power your physique into overdrive. Your digestive system calls for large quantities of power to course of all that meals without delay.

• Digestive Overload Occurs: Your abdomen and intestines work a lot tougher while you stuff your self, requiring your physique to focus its sources on breaking down the additional meals.
• Blood Movement Redirects: Your physique sends extra blood to your digestive system to assist course of the big meal, pulling that blood away from different elements of your physique.
• Mind Power Decreases: With much less blood flowing to your mind, you obtain much less oxygen and fewer vitamins, which makes you are feeling foggy, gradual, and drained.

This explains why you are feeling wonderful after a normal-sized lunch however zonked after loading up at a buffet. The dimensions of your meal issues excess of what’s really in it.

The Carbohydrate Connection

These mountains of mashed potatoes, heaping spoonfuls of stuffing, and heat dinner rolls do extra harm than the turkey ever might. Carbohydrate-heavy aspect dishes set off a series response in your physique that leads straight to sleepiness.

• Blood Sugar Spikes: Mashed potatoes, stuffing, rolls, and candy potato casserole flood your bloodstream with glucose, inflicting your blood sugar to shoot up quickly.
• Insulin Surge Follows: Your physique responds to the blood sugar spike by releasing giant quantities of insulin to deliver these ranges again down.
• Tiredness Units In: The insulin surge causes your blood sugar to drop, which triggers that acquainted heavy, sluggish, exhausted feeling that makes you wish to lie down.

Large feast meals sometimes embody extra carbohydrates than protein, which implies your aspect dishes pack an even bigger punch than your turkey. That’s why you’ll be able to eat grilled rooster with out getting sleepy, however add a giant plate of pasta and out of the blue you want a nap.

Excessive-Fats Meals and Power Drain

Gravy drowning your turkey, butter melting into your greens, and creamy casseroles all contribute to your post-meal exhaustion. Fatty meals require additional effort out of your physique to interrupt down and course of.

• Digestion Slows Down: Wealthy, fatty dishes like gravy, buttered rolls, and creamy casseroles take for much longer in your physique to digest than lighter meals.
• Further Processing Required: Your physique works tougher to interrupt down fat, utilizing extra power and time to extract vitamins from high-fat meals.
• Nap Urge Will increase: The mixture of gradual digestion and intense power calls for leaves you feeling drained and determined for relaxation.

Fats isn’t the enemy, however loading up on high-fat meals on the identical meal while you’re already overeating creates the proper storm for drowsiness. Your physique merely can’t deal with all that work with out making you pay for it with fatigue.

Why This Fable Will Not Die?

• The turkey fable persists due to timing (large meals throughout relaxed holidays), custom (households repeat the story yearly), and affirmation bias (you discover tiredness extra while you count on it).

The turkey sleep fable survives yr after yr regardless of the proof towards it. A number of psychological and cultural elements hold this false perception alive and thriving.

Timing and Custom

Large turkey dinners don’t occur on random Tuesday nights after work. They happen throughout occasions while you’re already relaxed, surrounded by household, and eventually taking a break out of your standard routine.

The timing of those meals creates the proper circumstances for sleepiness that has nothing to do with what you’re consuming. You’ve probably spent hours cooking, traveled to see kinfolk, or simply completed a annoying work week earlier than sitting all the way down to eat.

Neighborhood gatherings additionally encourage you to decelerate, lounge round, and luxuriate in one another’s firm moderately than bounce up and get again to duties. When households repeat the identical story about turkey making everybody sleepy at each

Thanksgiving for many years, that narrative turns into a part of the custom itself.

Affirmation Bias at Work

Your mind performs tips on you in the case of the turkey fable. You count on to really feel sleepy after Thanksgiving dinner as a result of everybody has informed you that’s what occurs, so that you pay additional consideration when drowsiness hits.

Once you do really feel drained after a giant meal, you bear in mind it and suppose “see, the turkey bought me once more,” however you conveniently overlook all of the occasions you ate turkey and stayed awake. Your expectations really form the way you expertise and interpret your physique’s alerts.

If somebody tells you beforehand that turkey will make you sleepy, you’re extra prone to discover and deal with any tiredness you are feeling, even in the event you would have felt that approach anyway.

This psychological sample retains the parable going sturdy as a result of individuals see what they count on to see moderately than what’s actually taking place.

What Science Really Says About Meals and Sleep?

• Whereas turkey doesn’t make you sleepy, consuming giant meals near bedtime does disrupt sleep—and sure meals like tart cherries and fatty fish could assist higher relaxation when eaten in reasonable parts a number of hours earlier than mattress.

Whereas turkey doesn’t make you sleepy, your consuming habits do have an effect on how nicely you sleep at evening. Understanding the true connection between meals and relaxation helps you make higher selections in your power ranges.

Meal Timing and Sleep High quality

Once you eat issues simply as a lot as what you eat in the case of getting good sleep. Massive, heavy meals eaten too near bedtime power your physique to digest whilst you’re making an attempt to relaxation.

• Night Digestion Interferes: Consuming a giant meal inside three hours of bedtime retains your digestive system lively when your physique needs to be winding down for sleep.
• Earlier Consuming Works Higher: Ending your largest meal no less than three to 4 hours earlier than you propose to sleep provides your physique time to digest correctly with out disrupting relaxation.
• Late Meals Disrupt Cycles: Heavy night meals may cause discomfort, acid reflux disease, and stressed sleep as a result of your physique struggles to digest and relaxation on the identical time.

If you wish to sleep nicely, take note of the clock as a lot as your plate. Transferring your greatest meal earlier within the day could make a noticeable distinction in how you are feeling at bedtime.

Meals That Genuinely Help Sleep

Some meals really may also help you sleep higher, however they work in another way than the turkey fable suggests. The important thing lies in selecting balanced choices that assist your physique’s pure sleep processes with out leaving you uncomfortably full.

• Pure Sleep Supporters: Meals like tart cherries, kiwis, fatty fish, and nuts include compounds that will assist regulate your sleep-wake cycle when eaten as a part of common meals.
• Balanced Selections Assist: Combining a small portion of complicated carbohydrates with some protein creates a mild, sustained power launch that may promote leisure with out spiking your blood sugar.
• Stuffed Versus Sleepy: Feeling pleasantly glad after a normal-sized, balanced meal helps good sleep, whereas feeling stuffed and uncomfortable from overeating really makes sleep tougher.

The distinction between meals that show you how to sleep and meals that knock you out comes all the way down to portion dimension and stability. You wish to assist your physique’s pure rhythms, not power it right into a meals coma that leaves you groggy and uncomfortable.

How one can Break Free from the Meals Coma Cycle?

• You’ll be able to keep away from post-meal crashes by controlling parts (use smaller plates), balancing your plate (half greens, quarter protein, quarter carbs), and consuming slowly sufficient to acknowledge while you’re glad moderately than stuffed.

You don’t have to decide on between having fun with good meals and feeling energized afterward. Easy adjustments to the way you eat may also help you skip the post-meal crash whereas nonetheless savoring each chunk.

Portion Management Methods

Feasts and celebrations don’t require you to eat till you’ll be able to barely transfer. You’ll be able to get pleasure from all of your favourite meals with out the uncomfortable aftermath by being attentive to how a lot lands in your plate.

• Smaller Plate Methodology: Utilizing a smaller plate naturally limits your parts and helps you keep away from the temptation to pile meals excessive simply because you have got the house.
• Happy Not Stuffed: Cease consuming while you really feel comfortably full moderately than ready till your abdomen feels tight and uncomfortable.
• Savor Every Chew: Taking time to really style and luxuriate in your meals means you get extra satisfaction from smaller parts as a substitute of mindlessly consuming giant quantities.

The purpose isn’t to deprive your self or skip meals you like—it’s to search out the candy spot the place you get pleasure from all the pieces with out paying for it later with exhaustion. You’ll bear in mind the flavors higher while you’re not combating to remain awake afterward.

Balancing Your Plate

The best way you prepare meals in your plate makes an enormous distinction in how you are feeling after consuming. Strategic mixtures provide you with regular power as a substitute of that acquainted crash and burn.

• Energizing Meal Construction: Fill half your plate with greens, one quarter with protein, and one quarter with carbohydrates to create a balanced meal that received’t drain you.
• Sensible Mixing Works: Combining lean proteins with complicated carbohydrates and loads of greens gives sustained power with out the blood sugar curler coaster.
• Alert-Pleasant Substitutions: Swap heavy, cream-based dishes for lighter variations, select roasted greens over fried ones, and choose entire grains over refined carbs to remain energized.

You’ll be able to nonetheless get pleasure from conventional favorites—simply regulate the ratios so greens and protein take middle stage whereas the heavier carbs play a supporting function. This easy shift retains your power regular all through the meal and past.

Strategic Meal Timing

Once you eat impacts your power as a lot as what you eat. Your physique’s digestive effectivity and blood sugar regulation change all through the day.

Optimum timing for big meals:

Lunch (12-2pm): Greatest window for giant meals

• Digestive enzymes peak mid-day
• 6-8 hours to course of earlier than sleep
• Much less prone to disrupt circadian rhythm
• Permits afternoon stroll to help digestion

Dinner (5-7pm): Second-best choice

• End 3-4 hours earlier than bedtime
• Nonetheless permits full digestion
• Reduces acid reflux disease threat
• Maintains night power for actions

After 8pm: Keep away from giant meals

• Interferes with melatonin manufacturing
• Will increase nighttime acid reflux disease
• Disrupts deep sleep phases
• Morning grogginess extra probably

The three-4 hour rule: Your abdomen wants this minimal time to maneuver meals into your small gut earlier than mendacity down. Consuming at 8pm for a 10pm bedtime leaves solely 2 hours—not sufficient for correct digestion.

Aware Consuming Practices

Your physique sends clear alerts about when it’s had sufficient, however you must decelerate sufficient to listen to them. Speeding via meals ensures you’ll overshoot fullness earlier than your mind catches up.

• Tempo Your self Down: Consuming slowly provides your abdomen time to sign your mind that you simply’re getting full, which usually takes about 20 minutes from while you begin consuming.
• Constructed-In Breaks: Pausing between programs or setting your fork down between bites helps you test in along with your physique and acknowledge while you’ve had sufficient.
• Physique Sign Consciousness: Take note of how your abdomen feels, discover when meals begins tasting much less interesting, and cease earlier than you are feeling uncomfortable or overly full.

The irony of conscious consuming is that you simply really get pleasure from your meals extra while you eat much less of it. Slowing down enables you to style flavors higher, respect textures, and stroll away from the desk feeling glad as a substitute of stuffed and sleepy.

The Competitors Drawback

Even when turkey contained large quantities of tryptophan, your physique wouldn’t course of it the way in which most individuals suppose. Turkey comes full of different amino acids that truly forestall tryptophan from working its supposed magic.

• Amino Acid Competitors: Turkey comprises many alternative amino acids that each one compete for a similar pathway to enter your mind, not simply tryptophan.
• Blocked Mind Entry: These competing amino acids crowd out tryptophan and forestall it from crossing into your mind the place it might must go to have an effect on sleep.
• Protein Weakens Impact: Consuming protein-rich meals like turkey really reduces tryptophan’s potential to succeed in your mind as a result of all these different amino acids get in the way in which.

This implies turkey works towards itself in the case of making you sleepy. The very protein that comprises tryptophan additionally blocks that tryptophan from doing something in your mind.

Subsequent Steps: Your Motion Plan for Energized Consuming

You now know the reality about turkey and what actually causes post-meal sleepiness. Put this information into motion with these sensible steps you can begin utilizing at your very subsequent meal.

• Monitor Your Parts – Use a smaller plate at your subsequent giant meal and fill it solely as soon as to keep away from overeating
• Stability Your Plate – Purpose for half greens, one-quarter protein, and one-quarter carbs at meals
• Begin a Meal Journal – Observe what you eat and the way you are feeling 30-60 minutes later for 2 weeks to determine your private sleepiness triggers
• Time Your Meals – Keep away from giant, heavy meals inside three hours of bedtime for higher sleep high quality
• Observe the Pause – Set down your fork between bites and wait 20 minutes earlier than deciding if you would like seconds
• Plan Forward – Earlier than your subsequent large meal, determine on three methods you’ll use to keep away from overeating
• Transfer After Consuming – Take a 10-15 minute stroll after giant meals to help digestion and preserve power
• Keep Hydrated – Drink water all through your meal moderately than filling up on sugary or sedating drinks
• Experiment With Timing – Strive consuming your largest meal at lunch as a substitute of dinner for one week and see any adjustments in night power ranges

Choose two or three methods from this listing to attempt first moderately than trying all the pieces without delay. Small adjustments add as much as large enhancements in how you are feeling after meals, and also you’ll get pleasure from your meals extra while you’re not combating drowsiness afterward.

FAQs

Does turkey include extra tryptophan than different meats?

No, turkey comprises roughly the identical quantity of tryptophan as rooster, beef, and different widespread meats you eat usually.

Can tryptophan from meals really make you sleepy?

Tryptophan from a traditional serving of turkey can’t make you sleepy as a result of different amino acids within the meat block it from reaching your mind in significant quantities.

Why do I all the time really feel drained after Thanksgiving dinner if it’s not the turkey?

You’re overeating carb-heavy sides (stuffing, potatoes) and fatty meals (gravy) that spike blood sugar, then crash it whereas diverting blood away out of your mind to digest the huge meal.

What’s the most effective time to eat a big meal to keep away from feeling sleepy?

Eat your greatest meal at lunch or no less than 3-4 hours earlier than bedtime—giving your physique time to digest with out interfering with sleep or night power.

How can I get pleasure from large meals with out getting a meals coma?

Use a smaller plate, fill half with greens and one-quarter every with protein and carbs, eat slowly, and cease when glad moderately than stuffed.

What meals really assist me sleep higher at evening?

Tart cherries, kiwis, fatty fish, nuts, and balanced meals with complicated carbs plus protein assist pure sleep cycles—however solely when eaten in regular parts 3+ hours earlier than mattress.

How a lot would I must eat to really get sleepy from tryptophan?

You’d must devour 1,000+ mg of pure tryptophan on an empty abdomen (about 12 oz of remoted turkey protein with no different amino acids)—which by no means occurs in actual meals.

Why does everybody say turkey makes them sleepy if it’s not true?

Affirmation bias and custom—individuals count on to really feel drained after Thanksgiving, in order that they discover and bear in mind drowsiness whereas forgetting the precise causes (overeating, carbs, high-fat meals, leisure).

Can I eat turkey at evening with out worrying about sleep issues?

Sure. A standard-sized serving of turkey received’t have an effect on your sleep—simply keep away from overeating, hold carbs reasonable, and end dinner 3-4 hours earlier than mattress.

Conclusion

Turkey has been wrongly blamed for many years, when the true culprits behind meals comas are outsized parts, carb-loaded sides, and fatty meals that power your digestive system into overdrive.

You now perceive that tryptophan ranges in turkey are abnormal—equivalent to rooster and beef—and that different amino acids really block it from affecting your mind.

The excellent news? You’ll be able to get pleasure from large meals with out the crash by consuming smaller parts, balancing your plate with extra greens and lean protein, and timing your meals 3-4 hours earlier than mattress.

These easy adjustments allow you to savor each chunk whereas sustaining regular power all through the day.

Able to optimize your sleep past simply meal timing? Discover our full mattress shopping for information to search out the proper mattress in your sleep place, or browse our sleep suggestions library for professional recommendation on creating your perfect sleep setting. High quality sleep begins with sensible selections—each on the dinner desk and in your bed room.

Discovered this myth-busting useful? Share this text with family and friends nonetheless blaming turkey for his or her meals comas, or go away a remark under with your individual suggestions for staying energized after large meals.