# Turkey makes me sleepy and other sleep causing/enhancing foods **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 4, 2004, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turkey-makes-me-sleepy-and-other-sleep-causing-enhancing-foods/253540 "2004-07-04T21:21:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Chairman\_Pow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/838e76/32.png) [@Chairman\_Pow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chairman_Pow)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2004, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turkey-makes-me-sleepy-and-other-sleep-causing-enhancing-foods/253540/1 "2004-07-04T21:21:13Z")
So, I recently, for the first time, at a big ol’ turkey sammitch and promptly fell asleep. And had some pretty freaky dreams. I understand that turkey, in and of itself, is a soporific. However, I can’t think of the last time that I ate turkey and got tired. The other times were a big turkey club sandwich and I was fine afterwards. Was this bout of somnia due to the processed nature of the turkey (the slices for the club sandwich were nice and straight off the turkey)? Also, I understand that eating bananas somehow aids in remembering your dreams. Are there any other foods that are reported to do this? If so, what are they and what is the mechanism? When I woke up, I was just about as cranky as I was before I went to sleep, but I was too tired and seemed sleepily cute to my companions. Is this a side effect of taking a too-long nap during the day or something that Sara Lee threw into her turkey juices? I’ve had a pretty nasty case of insomnia/sleep apnea for quite some time now and have experimented with different ways of falling asleep. Provided that it will keep me asleep for the entire night, I might make a habit of eating turkey for dinner. Of course, I also hear that eating two hours before bed is bad, both because it helps to keep you awake and because it somehow screws up your dreaming. What’s the straight dope on this? ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2004, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turkey-makes-me-sleepy-and-other-sleep-causing-enhancing-foods/253540/2 "2004-07-04T21:27:49Z")
> [@Chairman Pow](#): > > I understand that turkey, in and of itself, is a soporific. [Snopes](http://www.snopes.com/food/ingredient/turkey.htm) says it ain’t so. > [@](#): > > Turkey does contain tryptophan, an amino acid which is a natural sedative. But tryptophan doesn’t act on the brain unless it is taken on an empty stomach with no protein present, and the amount gobbled even during a holiday feast is generally too small to have an appreciable effect. And > [@](#): > > Milk, beef, and beans are among the foodstuffs which house this amino acid, and experts say chicken has higher levels of tryptophan than turkey does. If tryptophan were truly the sandman’s henchman, we’d be falling asleep at the wheel on our way home from KFC. ---
**Author:** ![Chairman\_Pow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/838e76/32.png) [@Chairman\_Pow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chairman_Pow)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2004, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turkey-makes-me-sleepy-and-other-sleep-causing-enhancing-foods/253540/3 "2004-07-04T21:32:28Z")
Assuming that one’s perscription stays that same that is… I recently got a new pair of glasses and was told that the perscription didn’t change much from my old glasses (which I’ve had for 4+ years). I asked the doc if the new 'scrip was enough of a change that it warranted a new pair of glasses. Probably the wrong person to ask, but I phrased it in such a way that he’d be hard pressed to come out and say, “I haven’t met my quota yet, so yes, it will be a good idea.” And I’ll be damned, the new glasses are quite spectacular and allow me to see things at a distance with significantly more acuity than my older glasses. One of the reaons I chose to get a new pair is becaue the frames on the old ones are beat up. I’m generally in the store about once or twice a month to fix them after they get smashed in some form or another and the two lenses got twisted such that they were not, nor apparently could ever be, on the same vertical plane again (I’ve frustrated a lot of otherwise pleasant repair techs with that request). As a result, I could clearly out of one eye at a time, depending on how I put the glasses on. Another reason I chose the new pair was that the lenses themselves were pretty scratched. I spoke to a non-optometerist who advanced a theory that over time scratches (either visible or in-) would “cloud” up your lenses and change the perscription/definition of that pair of glasses. My questions: 1. Is that theory of scratches true? 2. If the frames getting beaten up and changing the planes that the lenses reside on occurs (along with question 1, if true), what is the standard life of a pair of glasses, even if my perscription doesn’t change? ---
**Author:** ![Wikkit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c0e974/32.png) [@Wikkit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wikkit)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2004, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turkey-makes-me-sleepy-and-other-sleep-causing-enhancing-foods/253540/4 "2004-07-04T22:01:50Z")
You might want to start a new thread for your question, **Chairman** , because I don’t think anyone will find it in a thread about turkey. ---
**Author:** ![Chairman\_Pow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/838e76/32.png) [@Chairman\_Pow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chairman_Pow)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2004, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turkey-makes-me-sleepy-and-other-sleep-causing-enhancing-foods/253540/5 "2004-07-04T22:26:19Z")
> [@Wikkit](#): > > You might want to start a new thread for your question, **Chairman** , because I don’t think anyone will find it in a thread about turkey. D’oh! I had multiple windows open and clicked the wrong one to “start” a new thread.