Foods that Make You Sleepy

Short of sticking Valium in a cup of warm milk, what foods make your sleepy or help you to drift off to sleep?  Foods that contain the amino acid tryptophan can help you fall asleep.  It also helps children grow and balances nitrogen.  Foods high in dietary nitrogen tend to also contain tryptophan. 

Although turkey is reputed to have a lot of tryptophan, it does not contain the most.  Seafood does.  Getting sleepy after a turkey dinner may be due to the entire heavy meal rather than just the turkey.

Keep in mind that these foods need to be eaten within 2 hours of turning in and you can't eat or drink stuff that keeps you awake.  Large meals tend to keep people awake, so you should only eat a light snack a few hours before bed. 

Also, you won't eat these foods and suddenly drop off as if you suddenly developed narcolepsy.  Eating these foods can promote sleep if part of your entire sleep regimen.  Foods effect people differently.  You may want to keep a sleep diary to see how these foods affect you before sleep.  It gives you a good excuse to experiment in the kitchen, anyway:

Foods containing tryptophan include:

• lean meat, including chicken, venison and (of course) turkey
• seafood, especially shrimp, tuna, cod and halibut
• nuts, especially almonds
• milk
• dairy products like yogurt and cheese
• foods made with whole grains, like cereal, bread or rice
• eggs
• chickpeas
• soybeans, including soy sauce, tofu and soy milk
• sea vegetables (seaweed)
• pumpkin seeds
• green leafy veggies like spinach, turnip greens and mustard greens
• asparagus

I had wondered why I'd crave Chinese food or a curry with rice late at night -- maybe I was trying to get to sleep.  I also crave sweets, but that's more of a 24 hour craving than anything else.  A recent study shows that people tend to crave high-fat foods when they are sleepy, so avoid foods high in fat, even though you really want to eat them.

If this list is too hard to manage, you can always travel to Spain and eat a "dream meal" from the Monastrell restaurant.  First course is octopus followed by turbot with lemon calamari and a dessert of lemon sponge cake with olive-oil sherbet.

Image of a blueberry muffin from the National Institues of Health for Wikimedia Commons