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Alcohol and Your Sleep

Drinking alcohol, whether for socializing, relaxation, or through over-the-counter drugs, can disturb your sleep unless managed properly. While alcohol can make you fall asleep easier, your body cannot sustain a proper night's sleep under its influence, making its short-term sleep benefits useless.

Alcohol and Proper Sleep

The social and clinical uses of alcohol range from its inclusion in medicines prescribed by doctors to social lubrication and self-medication. But all forms of alcohol consumption share a common outcome – it has a negative effect on your sleep unless managed properly.

Scientific data supports the argument that moderation is the best approach to help adults achieve an optimum eight hours of sleep. But how much you drink and when you intake alcohol in relation to your bedtime make all the difference.

Many people utilize alcohol as a sleep aid. Studies have shown that people who drink to help themselves fall asleep outnumber those using sleep medications, both over-the-counter and by prescription.

Alcohol does help you fall asleep, but over the course of a few hours it will prompt you to wake up, rendering its short-term sleep benefits useless.
After alcohol has metabolized into sugar, even with moderate consumption, the body reacts poorly as glucose levels rise and hydration decreases in the body. The result is wakefulness, often affecting the entire second half of the optimum eight-hour sleep cycle.

Ruining the last half of your night’s sleep is especially likely to occur if you’ve consumed alcohol within one hour of bedtime – something more than ten percent of people admit to doing.
Making a Bad Thing Worse

Alcohol consumption can exacerbates pre-existing breathing disorders during sleep while causing new problems. People who suffer from apnea, insomnia and Restless Leg Syndrome can experience worsening symptoms due to alcohol-induced relaxation of upper airway breathing muscles. Asthma and allergy sufferers can also experience increased symptoms caused by alcohol and the dehydration that comes with it.

People prone to snoring may not consciously register the pronounced effects of alcohol on their night's sleep, but their partners certainly do. If you share a bed, more that one person will be missing out on the clinically proven benefits of a proper night's sleep. Once you're awake, you're vulnerable to anxiety and restlessness, which can be aggravated by an unhealthy sleep environment

Eight hours of sleep is the preferred “average” length of a proper night’s sleep because of the benefits it provides to the human body. When the body is at rest, its light and deep sleep cycles are nourishing the mind and replenishing the body. Alcohol creates an imbalance that depletes vital systems and accelerates the body’s metabolism when it should be at rest.

Those who begin their nightly sleep cycle under the influence of alcohol often find themselves awake two to five hours into slumber.

Many people who have trouble falling asleep appreciate alcohol's assistance in helping them drift off. But that initial gratification has some unhealthy outcomes. You awaken feeling worse than when you went to sleep, and are mentally and physically deficient throughout the following day.

Managing Alcohol and a Good Night’s Sleep

To manage your alcohol intake to get the best sleep possible:

• Moderate alcohol consumption and hydrate properly (drink one glass of water for every alcoholic drink, and limit consumption to no more than one drink per hour)
• Stop drinking at least one hour before bedtime• Take an inventory of your sleep habits to identify how alcohol may be exacerbating existing problems with your sleep quality and environment
• You should also invest in the best sleep environment possible to mitigate alcohol’s effects. Make sure each element of your environment is adequate, including”
• Your mattress (viii) – Alcohol may allow you to bypass the discomfort of an inferior sleeping surface in the short term, but you will spend the second half of the night suffering from a bad mattress
• Your pillow – match your physiology and comfort level to the range of pillows available
• Your shades – create the darkest possible room for your slumber
• Your bedclothes – not too hot and not too cold. Cover your feet for a better night's sleep
• Your peace and quiet – while silence is preferred, if it’s hard to make things quiet a white noise machine can negate disturbing noise.

Alcohol Affects the Young and the Old

Age and time are two more factors that affect alcohol’s effect on sleep. Like the consumption of any liquid, alcohol can trigger wakefulness through the need to urinate. Older people under the influence of alcohol have greater likelihood of injuring themselves en route to and from the bathroom during the night. For younger drinkers, high levels of alcohol consumption are often combined with a less-than-ideal amount of sleep.

A Real 8 Straight

Take stock of your drinking habits and see what a difference some careful consideration of their effect on your quality of sleep can make. Redirect the money, time, and energy that leads you to ingest excessive alcohol. Don’t make yourself a nightcap. Instead, create an optimal sleep environment that will give you the rest and regeneration you need.

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