Alcohol may help you fall asleep faster, but it leads to a worse nights rest overall heres why

With sleep onset, relaxation of the muscles of the jaw, tongue, and throat occurs, leading to a narrowing of the upper airway diameter. Essentially changes in the brain’s regulation of upper airway musculature lead sober house to OSA. Alcohol aggravates OSA as it can increase the time between the breaths you take as you sleep. Drops in blood oxygen levels (desaturations) become more pronounced and can in severe cases lead to hypercapnia (increased carbon dioxide), a potentially fatal condition.

Wine: The Solution To A Good Night’s Sleep?

Even in moderate amounts, alcohol consumed in the hours before bedtime can cost you sleep and leave you feeling tired the next day. Based on data from roughly 160,000 Sleep Foundation profiles, nearly 90% of respondents who regularly consume alcohol in the evening have reported at least one sleep-related problem. Effects of an acute pre-bedtime dose of alcohol on sleep have been extensivelystudied although methodology has varied greatly between studies in terms of dose and timingof alcohol administration, age and gender of subjects, and sample size. In the second half of thenight, sleep is disrupted, with increased wakefulness and/or stage 1 sleep. It is estimated thatalcohol is used by more than one in ten individuals as a hypnotic agent to self-medicatesleep problems (Arnedt, 2007). However, while alcohol may hasten the sandman, it can negatively impact sleep quality.

Alcohol and insomnia

In a study interviewing abstinent alcohol dependent people, a substantial proportion described having been aware that alcohol disturbed their sleep, but that they needed to drink to get to sleep. So alcohol use may create sleep disruption, but the sleep disturbance in turn, elicits greater alcohol use. It’s best to cut off drinking alcohol at least four hours before bedtime. This gives your liver time to break down the alcohol and might give your sleep a fighting chance.

How alcohol affects the sleep stages of your sleep

Further, alcohol relaxes the muscles in the airways, which can exacerbate snoring – potentially disrupting the sleep of your partner too. Studies have found conflicting information about how alcohol affects REM sleep. Alcohol appears to consistently delay the first REM sleep episode, and higher doses of alcohol appear to reduce the total amount of REM sleep. Suppressing REM sleep can have detrimental consequences for memory consolidation and other cognitive processes.

Liquor or spirits typically have the highest alcohol content, leading to stronger sedative effects initially. This can make falling asleep easier, but the aftermath is more significant. Additionally, spirits are often consumed in mixed drinks, which may include caffeine-laden mixers like energy drinks or sodas, further complicating sleep quality. Alcohol is metabolized at a rate of approximately one glass of wine per hour, so after 5 drinks at 10 p.m., the alcohol level in your body will be near zero at 3 a.m., but with an increase in arousal after this time.

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She also served as the inaugural chair of the Clinical and Consumer Sleep Technology Committee and is the current chair of the AASM Public Awareness Advisory Committee. Sunnyside uses a psychology-based approach to help you drink more mindfully, no matter what your goal is. You’ll get a 100% custom plan, then use daily texts to track your progress and help you stay on target. As the alcohol in your system begins to wear off, something called “homeostatic recovery” can occur.

REM stage

Alcohol potentially causes a shorter overall sleep time and disrupted sleep, which lead to next-day fatigue and sleepiness. The more alcohol you drink, the greater the negative effects on your sleep. Alcohol affects sleep in multiple ways and contributes to the appearance of different sleep disorders or to their worsening. For example, people who use alcohol as a sleep aid have a higher mean daytime sleepiness. Hot flashes or the need to go to the bathroom (as alcohol is a diuretic) fragment sleep and, therefore, more chances to suffer insomnia. There are multiple alcohol effects that can contribute to a hangover, but chief among them is dehydration.

Because alcohol is a diuretic and dehydration can decrease your sleep quality, having some H2O after your IPA will help counterbalance those effects. “You can drink a couple of glasses of water to just make sure that you rehydrate and get some of that alcohol out before you go to bed,” says Dr. Oyegbile-Chidi. If you want to be really careful, Dr. Willeumier recommends giving yourself a six-hour window before bed. There are a few things you can do to improve your sleep quality even when drinking alcohol is part of your routine, says Dr. Oyegbile-Chidi. While alcohol can help you fall asleep, it does not help you stay asleep during the later hours of the night.

• People with insomnia have an increased risk of developing alcohol use disorder, potentially because many individuals turn to alcohol as a sleep aid.
• Suppressing REM sleep can have detrimental consequences for memory consolidation and other cognitive processes.
• If left untreated, chronic sleep apnea can drastically impact your quality of life and lead to serious health concerns, such as weight gain and obesity, hypertension, stroke, memory impairment and heart failure.
• Adrienne Santos-Longhurst is a Canada-based freelance writer and author who has written extensively on all things health and lifestyle for more than a decade.
• Because you’re more likely to wake up in those early stages of light sleep, you’re also more likely to experience a restless night’s sleep after drinking alcohol.6,7 This robs you of the full healthful benefits that come from a complete sleep cycle.

Sleep Apnea

• These datasupport the hypothesis that diminished gray matter volume in chronic alcoholismcontributes to an impaired ability to generate large amplitude slow waves, although notall the variance could be explained by loss of volume.
• A few drinks here and there shouldn’t hurt your overall health, but your drinking habits could be worth a second look if you find they’re impacting your sleep schedule or any other parts of your life.
• Drinking alcohol might help you fall asleep—but it won’t keep you there.
• Data are drawn from (Feige et al. 2006; Prinz et al. 1980; Rundell et al.1972).
• Alcohol has a diuretic effect that causes your body to release more water in the way of urine.

As a general rule, Meadows said, people should aim to https://northiowatoday.com/2025/01/27/sober-house-rules-what-you-should-know-before-moving-in/ leave at least three to four hours between drinking and sleeping to avoid sleep disruption. “For the best sleep, try to have at least four alcohol-free nights every week,” Meadows said. Substantial evidence suggests that alcohol worsens symptoms of snoring and obstructive sleep apnea.

REM Sleep Disorder and Alcohol

That’s bad because the REM cycle is essential for feeling bright-eyed and rested when you get up in the morning. If you’re having trouble falling or staying asleep often, see your healthcare provider. They can rule out any underlying cause for your insomnia and recommend the best treatment for you.

On the contrary, as alcohol passes through the body, it exerts a number of biochemical effects that tend to lead to poorer sleep. Understanding the effects of alcohol on sleep is the first step toward preventing alcohol-related sleep problems. More than 70% of those with alcohol use disorder (AUD) also experience alcohol-induced sleep disorders, such as insomnia, according to scientists in a 2020 review.

This causes the light and disrupted sleep that people experience during the latter part of the night after drinking. An indirect test of the neuronal loss hypothesis of K-complex amplitude deficitin chronic alcoholism was conducted using gray matter volumes from structural MRI dataacquired from the subjects in Colrain et al.(2009). Statistical models were constructed to determine the extent to whichcortical and subcortical volumes could predict evoked potential component amplitudes insleeping alcoholics and controls. Stepwise multiple regression entering age, intracranialvolume, diagnosis, lobar gray matter volumes and subcortical tissue volumes to predictN550 amplitude at Fz produced different models in men and women (Colrain et al. 2011). For men, sensorimotor gray matter volumemade a significant independent contribution to N550 amplitude with the amount of varianceexplained significantly improving with the addition of diagnostic group.