the turkey myth

I was thinking.... here we are. Thanksgiving. I'll eat a lot of turkey, load up on that tryptophan stuff, and sleep like a baby.
Turns out, though, turkey isn't the secret. That tryptophan stuff is found in just about anything high in protein. I learned from www.howstuffworks.com that the tryptophan helps your body produce niacin, which in turn creates serotonin. This is where we get the drowsiness; the increased serotonin levels make us all sedated and whatnot. BUT, they say, it works best on an empty stomach. So all that cheese and crackers before lunch, and the salad and other stuff that I got to before the turkey sort of got in the way.

According to the information I found, folks were skipping the consumption of turkey and taking tryptophan supplements as a sleep aid, but the FDA banned them in 1990. Turns out these supplements were connected to some crazy muscle disorder that occasionally resulted in death. Usually, the FDA knows what's best, but in any case, I'd rather be a little sleepless than dead.

I had a bad day at the Scrabble boards. I lost a few games and a bunch of ratings points, dropping to 1015 or something like that. I think I played alright, but I couldn't string together two good games in a row. I was getting frustrated with bad racks, and I let that frustration take away from my concentration level. I had to stop playing earlier than I wanted to. It's okay though. I know that soon enough, I'll go on another winning streak.