Thanksgiving is all about giving thanks for all that you have in your life, and it’s an opportunity to get together with loved ones and enjoy a delicious feast. But there are certain foods that you can focus on eating on Thanksgiving in order to improve your sleep too.
Check out the foods that help you sleep better below, and consider adding these to your menu if you’re hosting Thanksgiving.
Turkey
Like other meats, turkey contains an amino acid known as tryptophan. This is a building block for the melatonin and serotonin that assist in the regulation of sleep.
To put things in perspective, when you take tryptophan in a pill form, you can ease insomnia. Therefore, when you eat a lot of turkey on Thanksgiving, you’re getting a good dose of tryptophan that could play a role in making you feel tired after you’re stuffed.
Potatoes, Stuffing, and Other Carbohydrates
Let’s face it, there are a lot of carbohydrates on the dinner table at your Thanksgiving feast, and you’ll be indulging in a lot of them. From the stuffing and the sweet potatoes, to the mashed potatoes, the myriad vegetables, and the bread, there are a lot of ways to overdo your carb intake for the day in a single meal.
When you eat these carbs, your pancreas will end up secreting insulin. And when your body realizes how much insulin is in your blood, other amino acids are used to bring everything back into balance. This lets the tryptophan that you got from your turkey, or even your tofu, enter the brain and cause drowsiness. So if you’re searching for foods that help you sleep better, don’t be afraid to eat all of those carbs.
Cherry Pie
Cherries are really delicious and really good for you, but they also contain melatonin, which is your body’s sleep hormone. Tart cherries, along with tart cherry juice, could help you fall asleep more easily and improve the quality of your sleep. So when you dig into that cherry pie at the end of your Thanksgiving feast, you might end up feeling quite sleepy in no time as your body begins using the melatonin in the fruit.
It’s hard to avoid the foods that help you sleep better during a Thanksgiving dinner, but these foods do provide a host of health benefits, and when you control your portions and prepare these foods in healthy ways, you can avoid unwanted holiday weight gain. But if these foods aren’t enough to help you sleep, consider taking a product like Somnaprin.
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