So you like to have a glass of wine or a beer bed. Maybe your favorite cocktail. It helps you sleep, right? Quiets your mind… helps you shut out the stress of the day. Or the noise of the kids. Maybe your partner's incessant snoring.
But what effect does that have on your overall sleep quality? How about sleep quantity?
Data suggests alcohol does help us fall asleep, and early in the sleep cycle, actually seems to improve deep nREM sleep (see my original “Week #1: Sleep and Light” post for a more thorough explanation.) But the effects are short-lived. Alcohol seems to increase the likelihood of middle insomnia, where we wake up in the middle of the night and eventually fall back asleep, and terminal insomnia, where we wake up and can’t fall back asleep. Thus, the net effect of alcohol consumption is less time spent sleeping. The quality of sleep also suffers.
Alcohol also reduces the amount of REM sleep we get, which is the stage of sleep when dreams occur. It’s also the stage of sleep where memory consolidation appears to occur. As such, alcohol may affect our ability to learn.
My Experience
Since I’ve been tracking my sleep with my Fitbit Inspire 2, which gives a sleep score from 1 to 100, I’ve found drinking the night before reduces my sleep score by about 10 points. The exact pattern pretty much follows what I described above. I fall asleep quicker, and usually have a long nREM deep sleep cycle or two, a short REM sleep cycle or two, then I wake up.
Sometimes I fall asleep. Sometimes I don’t.
The effects also get worse with consecutive days of alcohol consumption. One day is usually fine. Two days are tolerable. Three days? That’s when the wheels really start to fall off and I start experiencing all the negative effects of sleep deprivation. Moodiness, irritability, depression, difficulty concentrating, and just feeling generally shitty… all of these effects start adding up.
This pattern has led me to dramatically curtail drinking, especially when high-quality sleep is needed. Like work nights. I’ll address cutting out vices in general and alcohol in particular in a future post, but for now, just start paying attention to the effects alcohol has on your sleep. More significantly, pay attention to what effect alcohol has on how you feel the next day.
Should you stop drinking? That’s a personal decision. People usually have pretty strong opinions on the matter, but my stance falls along the lines of “it depends.” If it’s significantly disrupting your life, especially sleep, it’s probably something worth considering. Minimally, it’s probably a good idea to drastically cut down on the frequency of drinking and the amount you consume.
If you have any thoughts on the issue, head over to our Facebook Group and join the discussion!
~Jason
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