It's Thanksgiving time once again and everyone is looking forward to stuffing their face on Thursday. Turkey, stuffing, potatoes, green bean casserole, squash, cranberry sauce, pies, you get the drift.

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I ATE SO MUCH, NOW I NEED A NAP

When we overeat, most of us feel very sleepy not long after that. But, why? I know, it's the tryptophan in the turkey! Not exactly, but we'll get back to that.

HERE IS ONE THEORY...

Blood flow to the small intestine “dramatically increases” after a person eats, says Dr. Tomonori Kishino, a professor of health science at Japan’s Kyorin University. And as blood is pumped into the gut to fuel digestion, a corresponding drop in blood flow to the brain could trigger feelings of sleepiness, he says. -time.com

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BUT WHAT ABOUT THE TRYPTOPHAN?

I can only assume anyone reading this has heard of tryptophan? I remember hearing that term as a kid every Thanksgiving.

Tryptophan is an essential amino acid that your body doesn't produce so you must get it from your diet. Yes, tryptophan is found in turkey. It's also found in milk, beef, nuts, cheese, and chicken.

Tryptophan can aid in sleep, yes. It helps with the production of melatonin which helps with sleep.

SO, WILL EATING A LOT OF TURKEY MAKE YOU FALL ASLEEP?

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No.

Eating turkey, or any other food high in tryptophan doesn't make you sleepy because of the way tryptophan gets into your brain. -medicinet.com

In actuality, it's THE AMOUNT of tryptophan that you would have to consume to make you "fall asleep", and an average or even an above average serving of Thanksgiving turkey aint gonna do the trick.

Adults who take tryptophan supplements take doses of 5 gramsTrusted Source before bed to help improve sleep. By comparison, two servings of turkey contain about 410 milligrams of tryptophan — close to the daily requirement of this important nutrient.

But that also means you’d have to eat 20 servings of turkey to equal one dose of tryptophan in pill form. That’s a lot of trips to the buffet! -healthline.com

So...

If you fall asleep after Thanksgiving dinner, it was most likely the beer or wine!

Don't fall for the big turkey myth and have a Happy Thanksgiving!

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To find the best beer in each state and Washington D.C., Stacker analyzed January 2020 data from BeerAdvocate, a website that gathers user scores for beer in real-time. BeerAdvocate makes its determinations by compiling consumer ratings for all 50 states and Washington D.C. and applying a weighted rank to each. The weighted rank pulls the beer toward the list's average based on the number of ratings it has and aims to allow lesser-known beers to increase in rank. Only beers with at least 10 rankings to be considered; we took it a step further to only include beers with at least 100 user rankings in our gallery. Keep reading to find out what the best beer is in each of the 50 states and Washington D.C.