I slept over 10 hours with only waking once last night. Felt rested and made it to church. We had a substitute pastor today because my pastor had surgery this past week. Pastor Chuck reminded us to bring our Faith Level up. Without faith, we can not receive the blessings of mercy and grace. I sat there wondering what I needed to do to strengthen my faith. I have been feeling so low in energy lately, I haven’t read my Bible and took the time to pray for myself lately. I do pray for other people a lot more than myself.

After church, I came home and had lunch. I have been trying to eat the excess turkey everyday because the rest of the family is tired of turkey. There is no way I can hide turkey in another recipe. They know! Anyway, within 30 minutes, I got extremely sleepy. Was hard to understand after sleeping over 10 hours. I started to cry because I was sick of the low energy and feeling tired. I remembered someone once telling me that turkey can make you sleepy. After doing some research, I found that turkey contains tryptophan, an amino acid. Our bodies do not produce it. We have to eat or consume foods that contain tryptophan.  Tryptophan  helps the body to produce Vitamin B Niacin, which in turns helps the body to produce Serotonin. Serotonin is a chemical that causes a calming affect on the brain.  Serotonin  is a neurotransmitter produced in the brain known to influence the functioning of the cardiovascular, renal, immune, and gastrointestinal systems. This plays a key role in sleep. Serotonin is a precursor of hormone melatonin.

So after eating turkey for the past 4 days, my body has been producing more serotonin plus I have been taking my melatonin at night to help me sleep. I am Bi-Polar and the feelings I have had lately were putting me into depression even though my blood sugar have only been slightly elevated  compared to in the past for me.  Thank God I discovered the reason for my tiredness. I think I will give the rest of the turkey meat to the dogs. Maybe they will sleep good tonight.

Next year, IF we have turkey on Thanksgiving Day, I will buy just a turkey breast.