How good it feels to come home after a long day and unwind with a late night drink. And it even puts you to sleep faster. But sometimes you find yourself tossing and turning in bed later, and you wonder what’s wrong. If you’ve been struggling to sleep at night, that drink might actually be doing more harm than good. While many people think alcohol helps you sleep better, the truth is a bit more complicated.
In this blog, we’ll explore whether alcohol really makes you sleepy, dive into the effects of alcohol on sleep, and uncover how drinking can actually disrupt your rest. So, if you want to understand the link between alcohol and sleep – and get tips for catching better zzz’s – keep reading!
Alcohol as a Sleep Promoter?
Let’s start with something (kind of) good we can say about the effects of alcohol on sleep – it technically does make you fall asleep. By depressing the central nervous system, alcohol acts as a sedative, making us drowsy and helping us fall asleep faster. So we get to enjoy a pretty deep rest during the first part of the sleep cycle, but as the night progresses and those effects wear off, we tend to wake up more often and our sleep becomes less refreshing. Now let’s get into the science of it.
How Alcohol Affects Your Sleep Cycle
You know how sometimes you go out drinking after work to loosen up and get the stress off or have a few drinks with friends. And those nights you might be able to fall asleep faster, nodding off before you realize it. It makes you wonder, “can alcohol make you sleepy?” – well yes! Because of its sedative effects some people do use alcohol as a sleep aid, having a late night drink thinking it’ll help them sleep better. But it won’t help you stay there. You’ll sometimes lie awake in bed, unable to sleep after a few drinks. And that’s actually the effects of alcohol on sleep consistency and quality screwing you over.
We all know that people react differently to alcohol. So naturally, even the relation between alcohol and sleep would be different for people; depending on how much they drink, how their body reacts to it, and their physiological makeup. Some people start to feel sleepy after a few rum-infused drinks, and for some others, it’s wine that does the trick. And even the amount it takes varies. We’ve all got our own capacities, our own Drunkenness Scale.
But what’s mostly common for us all is the way our sleep cycle works. Our sleep is divided into two main phases: “non-rapid eye movement” (NREM) and “rapid eye movement” (REM). NREM further has stages ranging from N1 to N3. Usually our sleep progresses as N1 - N2 - N3 - N2 - REM (1).
• N1: light sleep. It’s the shortest sleep stage, and our breathing remains normal during this time.
• N2: deeper sleep. The majority of our sleep happens during this stage, which lasts around 25 minutes and gets longer with each cycle. This is also when we might grind our teeth.
• N3: deepest NREM sleep. Also called “slow-wave sleep”, this stage is the hardest to awaken from, where even loud noises won’t affect you. Even if you do manage to wake up during this stage, you’ll feel some “mental fogginess” at first. This is also the time we might sleepwalk or have night terrors.
• REM: this stage is not exactly the most restful period – our brains and eyes are active, and our breathing can become irregular. This is when we dream or have nightmares.
This is what a regular sleep cycle looks like. But it can get influenced and disturbed by alcohol consumption. Going to bed after a few drinks might initially help you fall into a deep sleep (N3 stage). But this effect disappears as our body metabolises the alcohol, returning us to the N1 stage. Because of this change in the cycle, we often experience broken or fragmented sleep during the latter part of the night, waking up frequently (2).
Common Sleep Problems Linked to Drinking
Now we know the science of what alcohol does to our sleep and sleep cycle, but how does alcohol affect sleep quality? There are a handful of sleep problems that you could develop because of alcohol use:
1. Snoring: Alcohol has some effects on our physiology, like relaxing your tongue and throat muscles. But this narrows the air passage, causing vibrations while breathing. And these vibrations are what become that loud annoying snoring sound!
2. Insomnia: Insomnia is a sleep disorder in which people struggle to fall asleep and stay asleep. Many insomniacs might turn to alcohol thinking that it’ll help them fall asleep quicker, and this might develop into a dependence. The opposite is also true – heavy consumption of alcohol can lead to development of insomnia.
3. Effects on Circadian Rhythm: Everyone has a biological clock – that’s your circadian rhythm. It’s mostly influenced by light and darkness, and causes changes to body temperature and hormone release. Alcohol consumption can fluctuate the regular secretion of hormones like melatonin (sleep-promoting hormone) and cortisol (stress hormone). It can result in changes like an increase in melatonin during the day and lower it at night. This is what makes your sleep cycle go all out of whack.
Tips for Better Sleep If You Drink Alcohol
So if you’re out drinking someday and don’t want it to affect your sleep quality, here are some tips:
• Try to reduce your alcohol intake, especially as it approaches nighttime. Maybe go for low-alcohol content drinks.
• Stop drinking about 3-4 hours before you plan on sleeping.
• Drink a whole lot of water. Make it a habit to have some water between each alcoholic beverage. Also load up on electrolytes.
• Drinking on an empty stomach can aggravate the effects of alcohol, especially on sleep. So eat a meal before and while drinking to avoid that.
Final Thoughts
To wrap things up, while that late-night drink might seem like the perfect way to unwind and drift off, it’s actually messing with your sleep more than you think. Alcohol might help you fall asleep faster, but it can have you lying awake in bed for hours and waking up groggy or unrested. If you’re finding it hard to get a good night’s sleep, it might be time to rethink how you have those evening cocktails and try out some of the tips above. Quality sleep is just as important as how quickly you nod off – so give your body the best shot at real rest. Cheers to better sleep (and maybe fewer hangovers)!
FAQs
Q1. How does alcohol affect sleep?
Drinking alcohol can disrupt your sleep cycle, causing broken and restless sleep. It might help you fall asleep faster but you’ll probably wake up several times during the night, so you’ll feel extremely tired and unrested in the morning. It also messes with our circadian rhythm, making us feel sleepy during the day but wide awake at night.
Q2. Can alcohol affect sleep days later?
Yes, alcohol can negatively affect sleep quality even days after consumption. Depending on the amount you drink, alcohol can disrupt our circadian rhythm and affect our sleep even the next day and into the following days.
Q3. Why does alcohol make you sleepy?
Alcohol acts as a depressant on the central nervous system, and that’s what induces drowsiness and relaxation. That’s how alcohol makes us sleepy.
Q4. When to stop drinking alcohol before bed?
You should stop alcohol consumption at least three hours before bedtime.