Tryptophan and Light

June 29, 2020
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Tryptophan is a light dependent amino acid. This means that the presence of light affects how tryptophan is metabolized in the body. This is extremely important for anyone concerned about anxiety help or healthy sleep. Here’s why:

Amino Acids

Amino acids are the building blocks of our bodies. They are the precursors to proteins that our cells are synthesizing constantly. All humans need amino acids for our bodies to function properly. There are essential and non-essential amino acids. Essential amino acids cannot be made by the body, they must be taken into the body as a food or supplement. The 9 essential amino acids are: histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, and valine.

Tryptophan is like a steppingstone or a key ingredient in a recipe for quality of life. Some extremely important neurotransmitters and hormones are synthesized directly from tryptophan in an important metabolic pathway, including serotonin and melatonin. Tryptophan naturally metabolizes to serotonin and/or melatonin depending on the availability of light.

Natural Serotonin

Serotonin, commonly known as “the happy neurotransmitter” regulates mood, sleep, appetite and more. To stress the importance of serotonin, one can see the negative impacts of serotonin deficiency in a common array of depressive disorders and the role played in pharmaceutical depression anxiety treatments. Serotonin’s job does not stop there. As a key neurotransmitter itself, serotonin is a precursor to the sleep-inducing hormone, melatonin. Zenbev Drink Mix provides natural help for anxiety as a source of natural, dietary tryptophan in a complex formulation that gently helps your body synthesize tryptophan to natural serotonin during the day and natural melatonin at night.

Natural Melatonin

The melatonin that your body creates from dietary tryptophan is secreted from and regulated by the pineal gland. Production is mostly controlled by the body’s internal clock, the circadian rhythm. However, melatonin production is also reliant on environmental factors such as light. In fact, light-dark cycles are the most dominant party affecting melatonin production, besides the circadian rhythm with specialized neurons conveying light-dark information to the brain and organs of the human body.

The presence of light at bed time is also known to cause suppression of melatonin production in the brain and should be avoided. For the healthiest sleep you want to make conditions as dark as possible. This is why a dark room is recommended or a good quality sleep mask kit to block out all light and noise stimulation to increase natural melatonin production and, as a result, sleep quality.

 Light Sensitivity

So, light is extremely important in the healthy metabolism of tryptophan in our bodies. That is why we say tryptophan is light sensitive: during light conditions it metabolizes to serotonin and in dark conditions it metabolizes to melatonin. Same amino acid, two very different and vital functions. Natural source tryptophan multitasks to help calm you during the daylight hours and help you sleep at night.

Biosential’s proprietary Zenbev formulation is based on this science but takes it one giant step further. Zenbev provides the best natural techniques to deal with anxiety and sleep issues. Tryptophan from foods is readily available in our diets but does not get easy access to the brain where it needs to metabolize to serotonin and melatonin. The Zenbev formulation takes care of this by providing natural source tryptophan in combination with strategic ingredients that promote serotonin metabolism in light and melatonin production in the dark. Zenbev provides anxiety relief without medication and is the healthiest sleep aid, all because of light or lack of light.

For over the counter sleep and anxiety aids you can’t do better than Zenbev. Working within the body and within the science of light sensitivity, Zenbev provides the best anxiety treatment without medication and is by far the healthiest sleep aid around.