![]() ![]() The impact alcohol has on your sleep will be specific to you. You can log it in a journal or just check in with yourself in the morning. It can be as involved or simple as you want. But given the likelihood of REM sleep disruptions and frequent waking, it's not recommended that anyone use alcohol to treat their insomnia symptoms. On the surface, alcohol's sedative effects can feel like they would ease the symptoms of insomnia and help you fall asleep. And insomnia has the potential to contribute to alcohol dependence. It's a little bit of a chicken and an egg situation - troubles with insomnia can be made worse by alcohol consumption. ![]() It's estimated that between 35% and 70% of people who drink alcohol live with insomnia. Oxygen saturation measures how much oxygen is in your blood and how effectively it's able to carry it to your brain, heart and extremities.Īlcohol can also worsen insomnia, the most common sleep disorder, which is marked by difficulty falling asleep, waking up through the night or waking too early in the morning. It also contributes to the lowest oxygen saturation levels in patients with obstructive sleep apnea. Research suggests alcohol consumption increases the risk of sleep apnea by 25%. When you drink alcohol before bed and have sleep apnea, your throat muscles will be even more relaxed and collapse more often, which translates to frequent breathing interruptions that last longer than normal. In the case of obstructive sleep apnea, where the throat muscles and tongue are already impeding on your airway, alcohol makes the condition worse. Alcohol can amplify the effects of sleeping disorders On a larger scale, mixing the two can affect your liver's ability to produce certain enzymes. Potential side effects can include anxiety, high blood pressure, dizziness or breathing problems. Not so fast it's not recommended to mix alcohol and melatonin. We know what you're thinking: I can just take a melatonin supplement and combat the side effects. Sure, the cocktail is fun while it lasts, but let me tell you, when I'm staring at my ceiling at three in the morning, I wish I would have skipped it altogether. This side effect happens to me almost every time I have a drink at night. While this is common, it doesn't happen to everyone. This process can cause you to wake up and experience trouble getting back to sleep. As your body metabolizes the alcohol, the excitatory nerves rebound. But for most people, it doesn't last long. This means the excitatory nerve cells in your brain are suppressed, so you fall asleep. We mentioned that alcohol is a central nervous system depressant. You wake up more often after a few drinks Studies have shown that daytime alertness decreases the day following a night of heavy alcohol consumption. When you don't get enough REM sleep, you won't feel rested, and you'll see that influence your performance the day after. So while you may initially fall asleep quicker, you aren't getting the benefits of REM sleep through the night. Thus the deep sleep of alcohol is likely not to be restorative," says Dan Ford, sleep psychologist and founder of the Better Sleep Clinic. "Evidence now suggests the deeper sleep of alcohol is also associated with an increase in frontal alpha waves, markers of wakefulness, and sleep disruption. Remember, REM sleep is where dreaming happens. Research has shown that alcohol use interrupts your sleep cycle, particularly REM sleep. However, the quality of restorative, restful sleep decreases. Its relaxing properties make alcohol seem like a surefire way to sleep at night.
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