How Does Alcohol Affect Sleep?

Transcript is here:

Speaker 1: (00:00)
Hey, Javier with Live Well Mattress and Furnishing Centres and in today’s Sleep Coach, I want to talk to you about the effects of alcohol on sleep. So first, let me tell you, this video is not me railing against drinking. I enjoy wine, I enjoy beer, I have no issue with that. I’m very comfortable with drinking. So just know that I’m not railing against drinking and I’m not trying to be some Debbie downer about it. Okay? What I really want you to know, and the reason I’m making this video is I want you to be informed about what it does to your sleep after you’ve been drinking. So now that we’ve got that out of their way, let’s talk about what alcohol does to you while you’ve been sleeping or while you’re trying to sleep. Okay? Number one, so alcohol, when you’ve been consuming it, it’s that calming feeling that that almost sleepy feeling that you get when you’ve been drinking, that is actually your body producing higher levels of Edina sign.

Speaker 1: (01:00)
It’s a hormone that your body regulates. And as the day goes by, as your, your wake awake for longer hours, the levels of a Dino sign actually go up. Okay. And when that the levels go up, your brain, it feels sleepy. It’s being told, Hey, this is downtime, let’s go to sleep. All right? So the alcohol will spike that hormone level. You’ll feel the calm, you’ll feel the sleepiness, you’ll think, Oh, it’s relaxing. I can go to sleep. Now you lay down to go to sleep. And the minute that, well not the minute, but when your body’s processing that alcohol, the spike is actually going down now and it keeps you from going into that really restorative sleep. It kind of keeps you at this level of where you’re barely asleep and where any noise will wake you up where you’re not really getting fully arrested. So the second thing it does is with that, that is keeping you on a level where you’re not fully arrested.

Speaker 1: (02:07)
Because remember, the level of Edina sign is still, it’s still coming down. It’s still fluctuating because the alcohol is processing. You never reach REM sleep, which REM is by science is defined as the stage of sleep where your brain gets restored, where you’re, the toxins in your brain are actually getting flushed out where in the morning with several cycles of REM sleep, your brain is clear, your brain is awake and you’re feeling very restored. So alcohol has kept you the entire night from feeling or getting to that restorative sleep base. Okay? So that’s the second thing that alcohol does. The third thing that alcohol does is as we all know, alcohol is a diuretic and it makes you go to the bathroom more often. So not only are you being kept in this barely awake stage, but you’re also probably getting up once or twice a night having to get up and use the bathroom where you get up and use the bathroom.

Speaker 1: (03:11)
Sometimes you’re able to go to sleep almost immediately. Other times it’s going to take you a little while to struggle to get back to sleep. That is the third effect. It’s a diuretic. Okay, so so far we have higher levels of a hormone that causes you to feel sleepy, but also that hormone, it spikes and goes down faster. The second one is it does not allow you, alcohol does not allow you to get to the restorative phase of sleep, which is the REM phase of sleep. You’re barely kept tracking along at a lower phase of sleep where any noise will wake you up. And the third one is that it’s a diarrhetic and makes you go to the bathroom more. So that is really what happens when you’ve been drinking throughout the night and you go to sleep thinking that, Oh, I’m still getting my seven hours of sleep.

Speaker 1: (04:01)
Well, you wake up in the morning and you still feel groggy and for hours through the day you’re feeling very sluggish. That’s what’s happened to you. I hope that this has been an informative video to you and I really, I’m hoping that nobody takes this as me railing against the consumption of alcohol because I actually have no issue with it. I’m just letting you know what it does so that way you know that alcohol can be an every once in awhile thing, which there’s no issue with that. Every once in a while having a good night with your friends, drinking not a problem, but just know that there is a price you’ll pay if you continue doing it and can take it a little too far. Your body will not be able to process. You will not get to sleep and if you do it night after night, then you’re going to be paying the price of sleep deprivation, which that’s another video.

Speaker 1: (04:50)
So until next time, this has been sleep. Coach, I am Javier Cassius with live LivWell mattress and furnishing centers. If this has been helpful to you, please share it with your friends. If you have any questions or any comments you want to leave, please do we answer them as quickly as we get them. If you have anything that you’d like to know more about this, please feel free to email us info@livwellfurnishings.com let us know. We’ll answer your questions. If you have suggestions for upcoming sleep coach videos, I would love to get your suggestions. Truth is, is that the topics, there’s bazillions of them. It’s just me trying to lower down to the ones that people will find the most helpful. So until next time, I’m Javier and this has been sleep coach. Have a wonderful day. Bye.