Whiskey, Wine, and a Good Night’s Sleep: Avoid the Harmful Effects of Alcohol in Your Sleep

The cup has quite a following: Up to 15% of people use alcohol to seduce the Sandman, large-scale surveys show. The sleep-inducing effects of alcohol occur in part because it is a muscle relaxant (relaxed muscles help you fall asleep more quickly) and in part because it is a psychological (or emotional) relaxant, says clinical psychologist Michael J. Breus, Ph .D., Author of Beauty Sleep: Look Younger, Lose Weight, and Feel Good with Better Sleep, which helps you knock yourself out faster, especially if you’re feeling stressed.

Once your body begins to relax, it continues to relax while falling asleep. But beware! This is when alcohol causes your body to deviate from its normal, healthy course, Breus says. The powerful fast-elimination effects of alcohol rob you of some of the other stages of sleep you need. It forces you to stay in the lightest stages of sleep and makes it difficult for you to enter both deep and REM sleep, important stages for waking up refreshed and ready to face the day. This happens later in the evening, when your body has primarily metabolized the sugar into alcohol. His sleep becomes light and fragmented, and he is prone to frequent awakenings (often to go to the bathroom).

You may also have problems with snoring, nightmares, insomnia, and night sweats. (Because alcohol is a diuretic, as it is flushed out of your system, it can affect your body’s ability to maintain a normal temperature.) And if you suffer from obstructive sleep apnea, be very careful when mixing sleep with alcohol. As a muscle relaxant, it causes the muscles in the back of the throat to relax even more than usual, making sleep apnea symptoms worse. In fact, research from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, shows that men, especially, have longer episodes of sleep-disordered breathing after drinking alcohol.

The next morning

Half of the hangover that hits you the morning after a few extra glasses of wine is due to lack of sleep and the other half is due to dehydration. Will a single glass of alcohol have a negative effect? No, says Breus. It’s when you get to two, three, or four glasses that trouble starts. And if you drink wine, beer or hard liquor (brandy, whiskey, etc.) it makes no difference, what matters is the ethanol content of the drink (a generic name for alcohol). Here’s how beverages break down: a standard ethanol “drink” equals 10 ounces of regular beer (5% alcohol content); 3-4 ounces of wine (12% alcohol content); or 1 ounce of hard liquor (40% alcohol content).

Also, if you drink regularly, let’s say a glass of wine with dinner every day, you will develop a tolerance to the effects of alcohol, which means that you will not be as sedated as if you were out drinking on Friday and Saturday nights alone. Basically, it is better to drink a small amount of alcohol every day than to overdo it on the weekend. In no time, you’ll get used to its effects and drift into a good night’s sleep.

5 smart tips for sleeping

If you drink, here’s how to make sure it doesn’t interfere with your sleep:

1) Finish drinking at least 3 hours before bed.
2) Don’t overdo your drinking stick with one or two drinks a day.
3) Try not to stay awake too long after your usual bedtime, this only increases the sleep deprivation effects of alcohol.
4) Know exactly what a drink means: 1 beer = 1 glass of wine = 1 shot of hard liquor.
5) Follow Breus’s one-for-one rule: drink one glass of water for every glass of alcohol. This will slow down your alcohol consumption and help prevent dehydration. And drink a few extra glasses of water the next morning to help bring your fluid levels back to normal.