How alcohol affects sleep

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Everyone knows that alcohol relaxes and causes drowsiness. Moreover, a number of sociological surveys show that about 20% of people sometimes use alcoholic beverages as a sleep aid. Alcohol does help you fall asleep faster – but what about the quality of that rest? Baazar editors told what happens to the body when you drink alcohol before bed.

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Alcohol can disrupt sleep cycles. What it is? When we fall asleep, the brain “switches” to the delta activity mode – this is the phase of deep sleep, which allows you to rest well and contributes to the formation of memory. When you drink alcohol before bed, the brain cannot fully go into deep sleep mode, because the alcohol does not turn off the brain's alpha activity. Simply put, you are sleeping, but your head is not resting. It is almost impossible to fall asleep in this state: sleep will be restless, and the state in the morning will be broken.

Another reason to give up alcohol at night is the disruption of the body's circadian rhythms. Even if after a couple of glasses of wine it will be much easier for you to fall asleep, the probability of waking up in the middle of the night (and more than once) increases significantly. The fact is that alcohol stimulates the rapid accumulation of adenosine in the brain: it causes drowsiness, but its effect quickly wears off, and you do not have time to rest. As for the sleep hormone melatonin, which is supposed to control the depth and duration of your sleep, its production is disrupted under the influence of alcohol.

In addition, alcohol drunk at night relaxes all muscles: including muscles throat Because of this, the probability of the occurrence of night apnea – cessation of breathing lasting at least 10 seconds, which is periodically repeated during sleep, and snoring also appears.

In order to avoid all these unpleasant consequences, it is not necessary to give up going to parties. Simply, when going on a late holiday, immediately determine the time when you will go home and go to bed. Three hours before that, you should stop drinking alcoholic beverages and start drinking more water. Thus, by the time you fall asleep, the concentration of alcohol in your blood will be lower, and this will allow you to sleep peacefully with minimal unpleasant consequences.