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Even people who are not prone to alcohol abuse, drinking a couple of glasses of wine or a snifter of cognac “on occasion”, know about one of the side effects of alcohol: often occurring drowsiness. According to sociological surveys, there are a fairly large number of supporters of the opinion that “a glass before bed” is a pleasant alternative to drug therapy for insomnia. Indeed, alcoholic beverages help you fall asleep faster, but the quality of sleep after drinking them inevitably deteriorates. This is evidenced by the latest studies of American experts.
Experts at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine were looking for evidence-based evidence that after alcohol you want to sleep. Volunteer participants in the experiment noted that within 15-25 minutes after drinking a glass they began to feel sleepy, symptoms such as muscle relaxation and deterioration in coordination of movements appeared.
It is during this period that alcohol molecules are absorbed into the blood and, thanks to the chloride ions contained in them, begin to slow down blood circulation and affect the neurons of the brain.
Due to the individual characteristics of the body, people react differently to alcohol, the time for the manifestation of such an effect may differ, but sooner or later more than 90% of the subjects demonstrated “inhibition”.
Why alcohol makes you sleepy
In the final work of scientists, the very mechanism of the influence of alcohol on sleep is considered in detail. The most energy-consuming organ is the brain. If we draw an analogy with a computer: even in the “sleep mode”, when a person indulges in a relaxed rest that is in no way connected with intellectual work, almost a quarter of the energy produced by the body goes to its functioning.
The surface of red blood cells is covered with a special lubricant that becomes electrified during friction, so all red blood cells are unipolarly negatively charged and repel each other. Destroying this protective layer, alcohol “nullifies” the electrical voltage, and red blood cells begin to stick together, forming clots. As the dose of the drunk increases, like a snowball, these blood clots also grow in size.
In this state, red blood cells lose their ability to provide tissues with oxygen, and the small vessels of the brain suffer the most. Deprived of nutrition, tissue cells begin to die. The feeling of oxygen starvation encourages to inhale more clean air, but blocked capillaries prevent this, oxygen is not delivered to the brain. At this moment, a protective reaction is triggered: to slow down the metabolism in the poisoned organism, sleep occurs.
Sleep after alcohol: relaxation or fainting
Doctors pose the question even more harshly, comparing the sleep processes of a very tipsy person with loss of consciousness, and in the most severe cases, with a coma. A small amount of alcohol, used as a sleeping pill, seems at first attractive and generally safe. It is possible to fall asleep faster, sleep is comparable in depth to that caused by antidepressants. But this is where the insidiousness lies: the phase of REM sleep is skipped, which is just the most productive for rest and is designed to restore the psychophysiological activity of a person.
There is another unpleasant aspect: despite the fact that falling asleep is accelerated, sleep is usually superficial, disturbing, interrupted by frequent awakenings. The morning will also not bring a feeling of renewal: a person, as a rule, feels overwhelmed, prone to daytime sleepiness.
Alcohol and sleep should not be combined
Most often, people with sleep disorders or just terry “owls” who need to get up early the next day resort to drinking on the eve of bedtime. As a one-time action, it may work, but it is dangerous to make it a permanent practice.
That’s how, imperceptibly, gradually getting used to. If, due to the creative profession and lifestyle, it is difficult to avoid evening libations, then you should follow a few rules:
- drink no later than 3 hours before going to bed;
- take care of a complete snack;
- avoid drinking champagne and sparkling wines – the gas they contain stretches the walls of the stomach, increasing the area of absorption of alcohol;
- maintain the proportion of “two to one” – for one glass of alcohol, drink a couple of glasses of water (not sweet, not carbonated) to facilitate the removal of alcohol from the body;
- in no case should you combine drinking with sleeping pills – this is fraught with a sudden stoppage of breathing.
Most experts agree that small doses of alcohol contribute to falling asleep faster and have little effect on the quality of sleep, while drinking a lot of alcohol worsens and shortens it.
However, the risk when using alcohol as a substitute for sleeping pills is that after some time a tolerance to the dose used may develop, as a result of which the person is forced to increase it. This can lead to the formation of alcohol dependence.
Individual susceptibility excludes recommendations of a general nature: there are no average conditionally safe norms for alcohol consumption. Understanding the potential risks and hypothetical benefits associated with alcohol consumption is an important factor in preventing possible harm to health. In other words – “everyone chooses for himself.” And it is better to make this choice consciously, not to the clink of glasses.