Can drinking help you sleep? The harm of alcohol to sleep

Many people are used to drinking milk before going to bed, but many people also believe that drinking can help sleep, so those who like it drink it as a matter of course, and those who don’t like to drink also think about drinking some red wine when they have trouble sleeping, so that they can sleep better at night and fall asleep more easily.

So, can drinking alcohol help you sleep? The so-called drinking alcohol to help you sleep is actually similar to alcohol. Alcohol can inhibit the central nervous system of the brain and prevent it from being too excited, which will cause drowsiness and a feeling of wanting to sleep. It also takes effect very quickly and has an anti-anxiety effect.

Drinking alcohol before bed can reduce sleep quality

Although alcohol can help us fall asleep as quickly as possible, its effect after falling asleep is very "negative". The sleep caused by drinking is completely different from normal physiological sleep. The brain activity after falling asleep after drinking has not been rested, and it is even more active than when not sleeping. When the alcohol has been completely metabolized, there will be a rebound effect, which will make the sleep in the second half of the night shallower, and you will wake up frequently during the sleep process, which is often said to be "uneasy sleep", and the time of deep sleep will be greatly reduced, and you will wake up early the next morning.

Drinking alcohol can cause sleep apnea

Studies have shown that people who drink alcohol are more likely to have narrowed airways and snoring than those who do not drink alcohol, and are more likely to suffer from sleep apnea. Alcohol can relax the muscles supporting the jaw, which in turn makes the airway blocked. Therefore, if you want to reduce the symptoms of sleep apnea, you should not only lose weight, but also pay attention to quitting drinking.

Alcohol interferes with rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, causing disruptions in this sleep cycle.

After drinking, alcohol will disrupt sleep, forming many small intervals of sleep, which is what we often call "fragmented sleep", leading to a serious decline in sleep quality. This interruption caused by alcohol is very short, and people often do not perceive it clearly, and will not attribute this problem to drinking. However, when you wake up the next morning, you usually feel bad, and you are listless and lack sufficient energy.

Have you ever been drunk and woken up the next morning feeling like you slept very hard the night before, but you have no memory of what happened the night before? This is commonly known as "blackouts". In fact, alcohol seriously interferes with REM, causing the brain's synthesis and linking functions of short-term memory to completely fail that night.

Affects the body’s digestion and detoxification functions

Drinking before going to bed is most likely to cause "stomach discomfort", affecting gastrointestinal digestion, and causing many harms to the human body over time. In addition, alcohol contains many harmful substances, such as methanol, fusel oil, lead, etc. After these substances enter the human body, they must rely on the liver's detoxification function to be excreted from the body. During the day, the human body's metabolism is more vigorous, and the toxins in the alcohol are relatively easy to be excreted (such as from sweat and urine). However, after drinking and falling asleep at night, the human body's metabolism slows down, and the liver's detoxification function is also weakened accordingly. Harmful substances are easy to accumulate, so it is extremely detrimental to health.

In summary, drinking before bed does not help you sleep. For people who drink before bed, alcohol initially acts as a sedative, but then it also causes sleep quality disorders. Alcohol does not actually help you sleep, even though it may seem to make you fall asleep faster, but the quality of sleep after drinking will be significantly changed and disturbed.

If sleep is regularly disrupted by drinking before bed, especially for a long time, physical and mental health, such as learning, memory and other neurocognitive functions, will be significantly damaged.