Clinical studies confirm that alcohol quickly loses its effectiveness as a sedative, but retains its sleep disturbing qualities. When taking a whole night’s sleep into account, the restful and reinvigorating sleep we all need and rely on, instead deteriorates and over time disrupts our body clock. OSA is recurrent episodes of airway obstruction resulting in disruptions in sleep. 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 to OSA. Alcohol aggravates OSA as it can increase the time between the breaths you take as you sleep.
Why Sleep Apnea is More Than Snoring: Health Risks and Solutions
While alcohol may initially help you fall asleep faster, it can disrupt your overall sleep quality and lead to frequent awakenings throughout the night. Alcohol is not an effective long-term solution for insomnia and may exacerbate the condition over time. While a small amount of alcohol may initially induce drowsiness, it can disrupt the later stages of sleep and lead to poor sleep quality overall. It’s generally recommended to avoid alcohol close to bedtime for better sleep.
Clinical Psychologist, Sleep Medicine Doctor
If you think your alcohol intake may be negatively impacting your quality of sleep or sleep duration, there is always time and opportunities to adjust your lifestyle for better sleep. Alcohol increases levels of adenosine, a key component of the homeostatic drive. The homeostatic drive is responsible for keeping our body balanced, and it’s one of the major mechanisms that regulates the sleep-wake cycle. The homeostatic drive prompts sleep by boosting levels of adenosine when we’ve been awake for too long.
Sleep Stages
Many of us have indulged in a glass of wine to help send us off to bed, and more than 1 in 10 people uses alcohol to beat stress-related insomnia and sleep better at night. However, the bulk of the evidence shows that alcohol doesn’t improve sleep. 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 alcohol and sleep connection sleep is the first step toward preventing alcohol-related sleep problems. When you’re in the first two stages, you’re in “light sleep.” When you’re in the third stage, you’re in “deep sleep.” And the fourth stage is your “vivid,” or dream, stage. While every person’s individual sleep cycle varies, it’s generally true that each of us goes through four to six rounds of it.
- While every person’s individual sleep cycle varies, it’s generally true that each of us goes through four to six rounds of it.
- This might initially feel like more restful sleep, but it’s actually a disruption of the natural sleep cycle.
- Proceed with caution when drinking before bedtime, as alcohol may be affecting your sleep more than you realize.
- As a general rule, stick to having a drink with a gap of at least 4-5 hours before bedtime – as it takes one hour to metabolize a full glass of alcohol.
- In other words, it throws off the first two stages of light sleep, and it can be difficult for your body to readjust during the remainder of the night.
- Alcohol is one of the most commonly used psychoactive substances in the community.
Can alcohol worsen sleep apnea symptoms? How does alcohol affect sleep quality?
The impact of alcohol on sleep can vary depending on several factors, including the amount consumed, the timing of consumption, and individual differences in metabolism and tolerance levels. While a moderate amount of alcohol may initially help you fall asleep faster, it can also lead to fragmented sleep, frequent awakenings, and decreased time spent in the restorative stages of sleep. It takes on average one hour to digest one alcoholic beverage, so stop drinking at least three hours before bed. Otherwise, you risk your cortisol levels rising and disrupting a healthy sleep cycle.
Each cycle lasts around 90 minutes total, which adds up to between six and nine hours of sleep. Dr. Abhinav Singh, board certified in Sleep Medicine and Internal Medicine, is the Medical Director of the Indiana Sleep Center, which is accredited by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. He is also a Clinical Assistant Professor at Marian University College of Medicine in Indianapolis, where he developed and teaches a Sleep Medicine rotation.Dr. Singh’s research and clinical practice focuses on sleep disorders, including excessive daytime sleepiness, narcolepsy, sleep apnea, chronic snoring, insomnia, and sleep education. Furthermore, alcohol slows and shallows breathing, relaxing the muscles of the throat and further causing the upper airway to collapse.
This, too, can wake you up in the middle of the night, sometimes more than once. And the more water your kidneys release, the higher the chances you’ll get dehydrated. Dehydration can give you a headache; and pain itself can cause poor sleep. Also, getting up multiple times at night puts you at increased risk for falling. While heavy alcohol use can trigger insomnia, the opposite is also true. People with insomnia have an increased risk of developing alcohol use disorder, potentially because many individuals turn to alcohol as a sleep aid.
Design Update – Liquid Glass
Alcohol is a muscle relaxant, so consuming alcohol at bedtime can make a person more prone to experience a blocked airway. People who typically snore or who have obstructive sleep apnea tend to display more severe snoring and lower blood oxygen levels after drinking alcohol, especially when they drink close to bedtime. People who regularly drink alcohol are 25% more likely to have obstructive sleep apnea, although the connection may be partly due to other shared risk factors such as obesity. Although consuming alcohol before bedtime helps you fall asleep faster, the popular beverage negatively affects overall sleep quality. When you consume alcohol before bed, your body metabolizes the alcohol throughout the night.
That’s followed by a deeper cycle of snoozing known as rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. In particular, avoid heavy or large meals within a couple of hours of bedtime. The recommended amount of sleep for a healthy adult is at least seven hours. Here are the ways alcohol can impact sleep and what you can do to mitigate it. Alcohol is a central nervous system depressant, meaning it slows down all of the functions of your brain, ranging from thinking to breathing and other automatic functions.
Following the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, limit your alcohol consumption to moderate levels—up to one drink per day for women and up to two drinks per day for men. For most people, alcohol induces a deeper-than-usual sleep in the first half of the night, followed by disrupted sleep in the second half of the night. Our circadian rhythm is sometimes called our “biological clock”—the process that regulates the way our bodies function during each 24-hour daily cycle. If you’re having sleep-related problems, consider cutting back or giving up alcohol. “I’ve had many patients who came back to me after curtailing alcohol use entirely and their sleep disorders resolved,” shares Dr. Foldvary-Schaefer. The simplest way to keep alcohol from interfering with your sleep is to just not drink.
2. Alcohol’s association with sleep disorders
Doing calming activities before bedtime, such as taking a bath or using relaxation techniques, might promote better sleep. Many factors can interfere with a good night’s sleep — from work stress and family responsibilities to illnesses. Sleep is also controlled by nerve centers in the brain, containing nerve stems that produce serotonin (a chemical linked to the onset of sleep) and also norepinephrine (which regulates slow-wave sleep). Alcohol consumption changes the function of these chemical messengers resulting in changes to your sleep patterns. Weight can impact this recommendation and should be discussed with your doctor.
- During sleep, the body cycles through all of these stages every 90 to 120 minutes, with NREM sleep dominating the first part of the night and REM increasing during the second part of the night.
- In the long term, frequent disruptions to our natural sleep cycle may alter the homeostatic drive in a more permanent way.
- Alcohol can reduce the amount of Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep you have at night.
- This interference can throw off the internal biological clock that regulates the sleep-wake cycle.
- The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared that no amount of alcohol is safe to consume.
Sleep Habits And Health
Although alcohol might help you fall asleep initially, it can disrupt your sleep cycle, prevent deep sleep, and cause you to wake up frequently throughout the night. Substantial evidence suggests that alcohol worsens symptoms of snoring and obstructive sleep apnea. These sleep-related breathing difficulties occur when soft tissues collapse and block the upper airway.
It’s also important to note that 1 drink means 1 serving, so that may be 1 can of beer, 1 shot, or 1 glass of wine, irrespective of ounces or liquid volume. Alcohol can reduce the amount of Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep you have at night. REM sleep is where you have your most vivid dreams, and is probably the most restorative sleep stage. Alcohol can initially enhance the effects of GABA, a neurotransmitter that promotes relaxation and sleep. However, prolonged alcohol exposure can lead to a depletion of GABA levels, contributing to sleep disturbances. But the reality is that many people choose to raise a glass of beer, wine or liquor out of enjoyment or to toast good times.
