Unsurprisingly, alcohol has many negative effects on sleep. Here you can read how drinking disturbs your sleep & what you can do about it.
Do you also sometimes feel drowsy after drinking beer, wine, or other alcohol?
Most of us know this feeling that alcohol triggers in us: it calms us down and relaxes us, suddenly we feel drowsy!
- Alcohol quietly affects our bodies – our hearts, our brains, our breath – and creates a mess.
- Breaking down the alcohol in the liver is exhausting and takes up a lot of strength – which has a negative impact on health.
Our sleeping habits also suffer from excessive alcohol consumption. This has a particularly bad influence on the second part of the night.
Read more about this in this article:
Index
Alcohol as a sleep aid?
For a long time, most people thought: A good sleeping drink makes falling asleep easier and lets us sleep well through the night.
This may be true in the short term, but in the long term it tends to damage the night’s rest & leads to constant fatigue .
The fact is: While alcohol has a calming and stimulating effect at the same time in certain cases, it is generally responsible for a poorer sleep quality and disturbed sleep phases .
Find out what really happens to your sleep rhythm when you drink here.
The effects on sleep
Many different influences affect our sleep – including many things that we are not even aware of.
This includes in particular certain foods such as spicy food that makes digestion difficult – but also alcoholic beverages.
Who does not know that? Thank god you fall asleep immediately after an evening of great drinking. The next morning you are not only sick, but you also feel without energy despite a sufficient amount of sleep .
But how does it come about?
Alcohol blocks REM sleep
Studies show that while alcohol makes you fall asleep faster and sleeps more deeply for a while, it also reduces your REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep.
The more you drink, the stronger this effect.
What happens in the REM phase?
But what is REM sleep anyway and why is it so important to us?
- About 90 minutes after we fall asleep, we fall into REM sleep.
- In this phase we dream and process information that we have recorded during the day.
Interruptions in REM sleep trigger drowsiness and poor concentration in humans. When you wake up, you feel light-headed and unfocused.
The shorter these phases last during the night, the lower the quality of sleep.
Tip: Here you can read more about the different sleep phases and their effects on the quality of the night’s sleep .
Alcohol can cause night sweats
Alcohol affects the central nervous system, the circulatory system and almost every part of your body.
When you drink, the heartbeat increases and the blood vessels in your skin widen. This can cause night sweats while sleeping .
- Most of the time, alcohol is broken down by the liver.
- So it is not possible to get alcohol out of the system faster through sweat.
This means that alcohol cannot be broken down faster by sleeping more than in waking mode.
Alcohol can make breathing problems worse
When you drink alcohol, your whole body tends to relax, including the muscles in your throat.
It can easily happen that you snore at night or talk in your sleep . Especially if you tend to otherwise as well.
Also, sleeping with your mouth open may have a negative impact on your dental health (such as dry mouth ).
Be careful: you are also more prone to sleep apnea after drinking alcohol. Here it comes to periodic breathing disorders, which can have a negative effect on your own well-being.
Alcohol disrupts the sleep-wake cycle
While it is easy to fall asleep after drinking alcohol, it is just as common to wake up in the middle of the night.
- Another possible explanation is that alcohol increases the production of adenosine (a chemical in the brain that causes drowsiness).
- The rest of the hormonal balance is also disturbed by the breakdown of alcohol and can lead to poor sleep).
In short, this is a quick way to fall asleep – but when the concentration of the chemical drops again, you will wake up before you really recover. So the rhythm in your body is disturbed.
Disturbed sleep from frequent visits to the toilet
Aside from these health problems, consider how alcohol affects the way you sleep.
While our body normally knows that the night is not the best time to run to the bathroom all the time, this is of little use to us after drinking alcohol.
On the contrary: alcohol often has a diuretic effect. This means that we have to get up more often and thus prevent our body from being able to recover and gather strength for the next day.
Conclusion: alcohol is not a sleeping pill!
The immediate and short-term effects of alcohol may seem very tempting to some.
This is probably also a reason why people with sleep problems abuse alcohol as a sleep aid.
- Unfortunately, they mostly regret this after the sleep-inducing part of the night is over.
- Then people who have drunk alcohol are more likely to wake up and feel unwell.
In addition, habitual abuse of alcohol can quickly lead to addiction and it becomes even more difficult to fall asleep.
If you use alcohol as a sleep aid, there are also often unpleasant side effects:
- This includes, for example, sleepwalking,
- speaking in your sleep
- or problems with memory.
Tip: Instead of alcohol, it is better to have a calming nerve & sleep tea .
Alternative to alcohol – what to do if you cannot fall asleep
If you have more and more problems getting to sleep in the evening, you shouldn’t wait any longer and talk to your doctor about it.
This can often give you valuable tips to improve the quality of your sleep.
You can also rule out certain sleep disorders such as sleep apnea or get to know certain suitable sleep aids such as orthopedic bolsters .
This is how you sleep better
Even better sleep habits can be helpful. Some important tips are given below:
- Make your bed an oasis of well-being: Put on the right pillow and make sure you sleep in the right position .
- Regulate the temperature & humidity in your bedroom ! In order to sleep well, it should be rather cool.
- Avoid caffeine, alcohol, or cigarettes in the evening. Do not eat too late before going to sleep , but avoid fatty foods a few hours before.
- Exercise regularly, but not in the advanced hours of the day! It is better to postpone sporting activities to the morning or the early afternoon.
- Stick to regular waking and sleeping times! Try to keep to this rhythm as best you can. A sleep ritual like autogenic training can also help.
Hope this article has been useful. It’s best to browse the linked articles to find out more about how you can ensure deep & healthy sleep.
We spend a third of our lives in bed, so it pays to devote some time to improving your sleeping habits.
I created Sleep Knowledge to share my interests and experiences on healthy sleeping with others. On this page I am therefore dealing with interesting questions about the optimal night’s sleep & everything else that goes with it.