Imagine being able to get into bed after a long day and immediately drift off into a deep, eight hour sleep. No lying in bed, looking up at the ceiling; no frustrated tossing and turning – just a pleasant evening tiredness followed by a refreshing slumber that leaves you feeling bright and breezy the next morning.

While you can’t get rid of your nocturnal neighbours or change every aspect of your stressful job, you can improve sleep quality through your diet.

Tryptophan is an essential amino acid responsible for the creation of niacin, a B vitamin that helps the body turn the food we eat into energy. It’s also a substance that’s great for promoting good sleep quality and stable mood. That’s because it controls our melatonin and serotonin signals – the hormones that tell us when we should be asleep or awake. If we aren’t eating enough of the amino acid, our internal clock gets thrown off, making it hard to drift off at the end of a hard day. So if you’re lying in bed staring at the ceiling, it might be time to start thinking about getting more tryptophan in your life.

With that in mind, we’ve found two incredibly simple recipes. One is a delicious breakfast bowl; we know that the foundations of a good sleep start the moment we wake up, so it makes sense that a tryptophan-rich breakfast might help. The other is a very simple dip that makes for a great lunch accompaniment.

Improve your sleep and recover quicker with these easy tryptophan-rich recipes