Does Thanksgiving turkey make you sleepy? Experts weigh in

You snooze, you lose — but don’t blame it on the turkey.

Post-meal naps on Thanksgiving have grow to be as ritualistic as the vacation itself. Oftentimes the November meal’s fundamental course is scapegoated as the only perpetrator for the late afternoon daze.

The uninformed turkey-and-snooze consumer might inform you that the bird incorporates exorbitant amounts of the amino acid tryptophan which — just like the garden-variety stories from outlets aside from The Post — could make one feel sleepy.

Does turkey make you drained?

But you don’t actually gobble up that much tryptophan — which helps create the sleep hormone melatonin — solely in turkey, explains biochemist Doug Young of William & Mary, who debunked “the large myth” about bird-eating.

“Turkey, in the case of tryptophan content, is just about in the center scale of things. There are vegetables which have more tryptophan than turkey does,” he said.

“Soybeans have about double the quantity of turkey. Parmesan cheese. Even pork has more tryptophan than turkey does.”

What’s in turkey that makes you sleepy?

As an alternative, Young says what causes people to conk out like a Plymouth Rock is a matter of volume and the carbs consumed.

“So when you eat a giant starchy meal, with potatoes and plenty of the opposite good foods that include Thanksgiving, then oftentimes you spike that blood glucose level,” he said.

The inner imbalance prompts the body to course-correct. “Your body responds … but then, it over-responds. Consequently, you dip down from that glucose spike, and that’s whenever you feel the fatigue and enter into the ‘food coma.’”

Carbs and sugary delights — traditional holiday favorites — are also a streamline for tryptophan to achieve the brain.

Often, the brain will intake other amino acids as an alternative of the sleeper agent, but it surely’s often overpowered on this case, in accordance with Mady Hornig, associate professor of epidemiology at Columbia School of Public Health.

“Once you raid the refrigerator for the additional piece of pie, you get an insulin spike,” she said. “That suppresses the blood levels of all the opposite large neutral amino acids apart from tryptophan.”

Perhaps the misnomer about turkey has more to do with the copious amounts of it consumed more so than the common feral Staten Island residents’ chemical composition.

“During Thanksgiving, people eat 300 to 400 grams of protein without hesitation,” Nicolaas Deutz, a nutrition expert and director of Texas A&M’s Center for Translational Research in Aging and Longevity, said.

“That’s an enormous amount of tryptophan and way higher than what people normally eat, so the body has to take care of that,” Deutz added, doubling down on the role carbs play here.

How do you combat fatigue after Thanksgiving dinner?

Since eating less is probably going out of the query, listed below are some alternative measures which may keep you conscious for an extended day ahead.

Leaning into fresh and healthy foods in your plate like eggs, oats, watermelon, almonds, kale, spinach and bananas can assist keep energy high, per Medical News Today. A 2017 research paper showed that “are an economical energy source” when examined studied on endurance athletes — and the identical could hold true for endurance eaters.

At the identical time, dinner guests should go light on carby dishes, sugary desserts and alcoholic beverages, all of which contain energy-sapping ingredients that can decidedly hamper efforts to make it to the vacation’s finish line.

Tessa Wellmon, a registered dietician with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, also passed along a number of pro tricks to help Thanksgiving revelers stay up long into the evening — first stressing the importance of eating slowly so your body has time to comprehend it’s too full for more food.

Wellmon also advises happening a walk after the meal which “can assist along with your digestion” and boost energy levels.

Fortunately for this 12 months’s feast, turkeys are seeing a significant price drop in comparison with years past. That’s something you shouldn’t sleep on.