Liberation Wellness



Tryptophan is vital to getting a good night’s sleep and waking up in a pleasant mood. The process begins when tryptophan is converted to serotonin, which is a precursor to melatonin, the sleep hormone. Serotonin is responsible for mood maintenance and when levels are low depression, anxiety, panic attacks, or insomnia may rear their ugly heads. That being said, it takes adequate amounts of serotonin to manufacture melatonin.  These processes all hinge on each other, but without the essential amino acid tryptophan and plenty of it, there will be a serotonin shortage.

The body can’t make it, so it must be obtained from the food we eat. Good sources of tryptophan include poultry, seafood, meats, and dairy products. When seeking these out, it is best to find grass fed products because when animals eat grasses and plants rather than grains, they are much higher in tryptophan.  Vegetarians take note non animal sources of tryptophan generally have about 50% less than animal sources.

In terms of supplementing with melatonin there appears to be a lot of disagreement re what the proper dosage should be. This is even more pronounced when it comes to children who are having trouble getting to sleep.  The benefits of increasing your tryptophan through food are many fold.  Real dairy, pastured eggs and chicken, grass fed beef, and wild caught seafood are exactly what a body needs to be vibrantly healthy and free of the diseases of civilization.  To think that a good night’s sleep happens to be a side benefit of opting out of industrialized food couldn’t be better news.  It makes one wonder, how many ailments would mostly disappear once real food was introduced and take seriously.

Lauren Snyder Grosz is a Certified Nutrition and Wellness Educator.  As a student on a lifelong quest for exceptional health and happiness, her mission is to empower people to take complete responsibility for their own health by rethinking everything we’ve assumed to be true and rediscovering what truly works based on accurate science.