Can Eating Turkey Help You Sleep?

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Michael Breus, PhD
Well there's a big myth about turkey, okay, so turkey does have L-tryptophan in it. You'd have to eat about a 46 pound turkey to get enough tryptophan in your system to, for it to make a difference and the truth of the matter is that tryptophan doesn't work particularly well in the presence of protein. So, it doesn't really work. There's just as much tryptophan in beef and pork asthere is in turkey, so if you eat a big Thanksgiving meal, it's not what's making you sleepy is not the turkey. It's probably the preparations and the lack of sleep you got the night before, getting the meal ready, that's actually making you tired.