How Does Alcohol Affect Your Sleep?

Everyone enjoys a good drink every once in a while, whether it’s a craft beer, an elaborate cocktail, or a glass of fine wine. But, the popular question usually is - does alcohol help you fall asleep and improve your sleep quality?

Alcohol is a depressant, and one of the biggest myths about it is that consuming a few drinks before bedtime can help you sleep better. Alcohol interacts with the brain's chemical messengers to impact sleep and wake cycles, affecting sleep quality and daytime alertness. But while drinking alcohol might help you fall asleep faster, that’s the extent of its sleep-related benefits.

Right away, we can answer the question this post poses:

Yes, the amount of alcohol can hurt your sleep quality.

We’ll discuss alcohol's effects on your sleep. Plus, you can use simple yet effective approaches instead of drinking before bedtime.

Why Does it Make You Sleepy?

Anyone who’s ever had a drink or more understands that alcohol consumption can make you sleepy at night.

Alcohol has sedative effects that impact sleep and daytime alertness. It slows down brain activity, makes you feel tired, and helps you relax, which can result in falling asleep faster.

Researchers have found that alcohol's sedative effects last only for the first part of the night. [1] Somebody who consumes alcohol before bed doesn’t wake up as often during the first few hours of sleep. If they happen to wake up, it’s for a shorter period.

How Alcohol Consumption Affects Sleep

People often think, “I wonder if alcohol makes you sleepy or helps you sleep?” A recent study found that 20% of Americans use drinking alcohol to fall asleep at night. [2]

The problem with this method is that even though it might help you fall asleep, what happens afterward would not be considered a good night’s sleep.

Note: Alcohol’s impact on sleep largely depends on the individual. However, it's important to understand that alcohol consumption does not guarantee a good night's sleep due to its disruptive effects on the sleep cycle, leading to sleep disruption, decreased sleep quality, and increased awakenings throughout the night.

Less Restorative Sleep

Restorative sleep enables the body to repair and replenish the cellular components required for essential biological functions that are depleted throughout an awake day.

Drinking alcohol before bed can generate the delta wave activity associated with deep sleep. However, it can also trigger alpha wave activity, typically occurring while you’re resting quietly, not full-bore sleeping.

These competing sleep patterns mean your body and mind will not obtain the restorative night’s sleep they need to be at the peak of their powers.

Did You Know: Individuals who drink alcohol before bed can experience insomnia symptoms and potentially feel excessively sleepy the following day. Additionally, more alcohol consumption can exacerbate sleep disorders, including sleep apneas, further disrupting normal sleep physiology and significantly impacting daytime alertness.

Physiological Changes

Drinking unreasonable amounts of alcohol may provoke acute physiological changes, including:

• Increasing your body temperature
• Skin flushing may occur
• Dehydrating the body

Neither of the above items contributes to getting a restorative night's sleep!

Note: Dehydrating the body can lead to night sweats, make you feel hot, and wake you up because you are thirsty.

Less REM Sleep Due to Alcohol

Alcohol can cause sleep disruptions and reduce REM sleep, the deepest stage of sleep during which dreams occur. This means that even if you get enough hours of sleep, you may still wake up feeling tired and groggy. More than usual wake-up events can further disrupt REM sleep.

Since alcohol inhibits REM sleep (Rapid Eye Movement), it adversely affects your motor functions, memory, and more.

Weakened Heart Rate Variability (HRV)

Consuming alcohol can impact your heart rate variability (HRV), which measures the time between your heartbeats. HRV is important because it reflects how adaptable your body can be.

Determining HRV and body temperature variations is critical to understanding normal sleep. Alcohol consumption complicates this because it weakens heart rate variability and increases it.

According to research by the Cleveland Clinic, alcohol intake can accelerate the heart rate and contribute to panic attacks in some individuals. [3]

HRV can decrease by consuming alcohol, so your heartbeats become more regular and less variable. This is because alcohol can disrupt the balance of your nervous system, causing your heart rate to slow down and become less responsive to changes in your environment.

Circadian Rhythm Disruption

Falling asleep fast after drinking comes with a price: there’s a strong chance you’ll wake up in the middle of the night. It produces adenosine, a chemical that signals it is time to go to sleep.

However, that quick (and unnatural) fix of adenosine disappears soon after it arrives, increasing the likelihood that you’ll wake up sooner than you should.

Read More: Understanding Circadian Rhythm and Sleep

Bathroom Breaks Frequently

Drinking before bed usually leads to one or more bathroom trips at night. Generally, your body prevents the urge to go to the bathroom while you sleep.

But between the potential to disrupt sleep we’ve already discussed and the fact that what goes in must come out, consuming alcohol in the evenings means you’re going to struggle to stay asleep.

Drinking alcohol can act as a diuretic, which increases the amount of urine your body produces and releases. More trips to the bathroom equals more sleepless nights.

Restricted Airflow and Snoring

While alcohol relaxes your mind, it has the same impact on your body. This includes your throat and jaw muscles, which, at best, can restrict airflow, leading to snoring, and, at worst, induce mild sleep apnea.

In addition, alcohol can also cause inflammation in the airways, making it harder for air to pass through and leading to further snoring.

As you can see, there are significant disadvantages to drinking before bed. Studies show that heavy drinking or moderate consumption can cause sleep apnea in people who don't have a sleep disorder. [4]

Did You Know: Studies suggest drinking alcohol increases the risk of sleep apnea by 25%. [5]

Sleep Apnea Symptoms

Sleep apnea can be a potentially serious sleep disorder in which breathing frequently stops and starts. Sleep apnea symptoms can include the following:

• Snoring
• Morning headaches
• Irritability
• Difficulty staying asleep throughout the night
• Gasping for air while sleeping

Talk to your doctor if you have symptoms or signs of sleep apnea.

Potentially Cause Insomnia

The biggest issue about consuming alcohol, it can cause insomnia. Drinking alcohol can potentially cause insomnia symptoms and feeling groggy the following day and has been proven to reduce REM sleep.

This can interrupt your sleep cycle. People who have been diagnosed with alcohol disorders report signs of insomnia.

Did You Know: 35-70% of alcohol users report sleep problems consistent with clinical insomnia. [6]

Realistic Dreams

Having alcohol in your system when going to bed can increase the person's chances of having vivid dreams, sleepwalking, or nightmares. This can diminish the quality of sleep. Additionally, alcohol can cause dehydration, which can lead to more vivid and intense dreams as your brain works to compensate for the lack of fluids.

Final Thought

While alcohol and sleep don’t mix, it doesn’t mean you should stop having a drink altogether or a glass of wine. You can take this information as far as you want. Maybe it helps you understand how it can affect your sleep.

Did You Know: Research has also associated binge drinking with disrupted sleep. [7]

You may reduce or stop drinking before bedtime on weekdays, or if you’re going to track the effects of alcohol more intensely, some products track HRV, including our non-wearable sleep tracker and body temperature trends—then see how those measurements and others change on the nights you consume alcohol.

It's crucial to be aware of the adverse effects of too much alcohol, which can significantly impair sleep quality and overall health by causing rapid fluctuations in blood sugar levels, leading to symptoms that can exacerbate sleep disturbances.

Did You Know: People should stop drinking alcohol at least four hours [8] before bedtime; this can help reduce the likelihood of someone’s chance of sleep disruptions.

The most important takeaway is a common refrain for those struggling to sleep: reflecting on your habits and potentially changing some of them might positively impact your overall sleep quality too. Alcohol is simply one habit that might hurt more than help.