You have one glass of wine, ok…2, at dinner. You get in bed, tired, and chill from the wine (or drink of your choice) and quickly drift off to sleep. Then BAM! Around 2 – 3:00am you wake up and can’t go back to sleep. The alcohol you drank at dinner had an initial sedative effect, but converted to acetaldehyde while you slept. You don’t need to remember that word, just that it is a stimulant in the body and that’s what is now keeping you awake.
This is not an abstinence lecture about alcohol, more ‘food for thought’. But here’s the thing: you can not do anything well without proper sleep. Your brain can not function and your body will not repair. No amount of dieting, training, supplementing, or biohacking can replace sleep. If you are serious about longevity and living life well, sleep must be your first priority…
I decided to see just how much alcohol effects my sleep, a 48-year old female (on HRT). You all know that I am not big on wearables or data but for this little experiment I did turn on my Garmin and did some data collection. Pause for gasp!
I think we all know whether we slept well each night and how many times we wake up without data tracking, but I wanted to see that data for myself. So, I tracked my sleep for 2 weeks and had alcohol on 3 nights in that time period. Here’s what the data showed:
The data on the left is a pretty normal night for me as far as score, duration of sleep, and REM cycles. You can see what happened the evening I had a margarita, a Campari and soda, and a glass of white wine at dinner. Despite a much longer duration (I was on vacay and clearly having a good time!) I got a horrible score and had fewer and shorter REM cycles (this is the truly restorative sleep we need) as well as less deep sleep.
I know what you are thinking: it’s a fluke, no way that happens every time. I’m with ya! That is exactly what I said to Sam. So, I obviously tested it again. You know what’s coming…
A normal Thursday night sleep, yay! Friday night I had 2 glasses of prosecco at dinner and another horrible score to show for it when I woke up. The funny thing is, I actually almost always sleep through the night regardless of alcohol, partly because I take progesterone (love that HRT) before bed. So even if you are not waking up around 2-3am, you still may not be getting restorative sleep.
So, what? Well, I think I may take up day drinking as it seems to effect my sleep less (and maybe start wearing kaftans?). Kidding, but not kidding. For all of you: if you have a way to track sleep for a couple weeks…maybe give it a try. See if alcohol effects the type and quality of sleep you get.
Full disclosure: Sam turned his Garmin on as well and alcohol did not really effect his sleep data much at all. Full, full disclosure: Sam is a freak of nature so I don’t know that he is the best test subject.
Sam Here – I have noticed that for male clients, higher testosterone and more muscle mass tend to minimize the sleep disruption of alcohol. So, if alcohol is effecting you more in middle-age, have a chat with your doc and get an updated male hormone panel to see where you sit. But please don’t increase your testosterone dose so that you can drink more…you’ll feel much better all-around if you try drinking less… 🙂
I do believe it effects women more than men in mid-life, sorry ladies! But, I know quite a few men that do not sleep as well when they have alcohol. Like all things we ingest, some people process alcohol much better than others. Maybe it is time to see where you fall on the spectrum, and stop poor sleep from holding you back.
Stay in the game.