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Once alcohol has been metabolised, the body often feels the impact of the ‘rebound effect’ in the latter half of the night, and moves to a lighter slumber from which it’s more likely to be woken up. A lack of this can lead to cognitive impairment, an inability to concentrate and daytime drowsiness,” Dr Sarkhel adds. “REM sleep is important for mental restoration, memory and emotional processing and is often when you dream. Our sleep structure has biologically evolved over the years – and changes aren’t good for our physical and emotional health. While this may sound beneficial, it’s not. Studies show that in the earlier stages of the night – when the body is metabolising the alcohol consumed – people spend more time in deep, slow-wave sleep and less time in REM.” “However, it also suppresses REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, which is a lighter kind of sleep. “Alcohol often has an immediate sedative effect and reduces the time it takes for us to fall asleep,” explains Dr Sarkhel. All this makes for a disturbed night and a sleeping pattern that goes against the grain.
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Multiple studies have confirmed the effect this can have – drinking disrupts our master biological clock, limits the production of melatonin (also known as the sleep hormone), elevates levels of adenosine (which makes us feel sleepy when we’ve been awake for a long time) and forces our liver to work harder. “It impacts our circadian rhythms and pushes our body out of sync.” “Alcohol affects the quality and the quantity of our sleep patterns,” explains Dr Arghya Sarkhel, lead consultant psychiatrist at the Living Mind clinic in London. *name has been changed Why should we limit alcohol before bed? I felt like a new woman – and it’s helped my self-esteem too.” That didn’t last long, though, and within about two weeks of giving up I was going to bed between 9.30 and 10pm and sleeping through till about 6am in the morning. With the wine, I’d be flat out in minutes but suddenly I found myself listening to every noise in the house, and looking out the window for ages. The first few days I struggled going to bed.
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It was making me anxious, depressed and miserable, and so I decided to make a change. I was snappy and irritable all the time, and I felt like I was taking it out on my children. When I woke up at around 6.30am with the kids, I’d be in a horrible mood. I’d fall asleep heavily at about 10pm, but only for about three hours and then I’d be wide awake.Ī lot of the time I couldn’t get back to sleep – and if I finally did, it wouldn’t be until 4 or 5 in the morning. Once I’d put my two kids to bed, a bottle of wine would help me de-stress. I started when I was a teenager, and at first it was just weekend drinking, but it soon built up.Īfter I split from my husband, I moved back in with my parents and then to my own home. “I don’t know if I ever had an addiction, although I do know that I struggled when I tried to stop drinking. Here, she tells us how stopping made her feel so much stronger – and helped her sleeping patterns… Lucy*, 34, used alcohol as a way to cope with feelings of anxiety, stress, low self-esteem and a lack of confidence.
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So, what exactly does alcohol do to our body to impact it in this way? “I used to wake up at 1am every morning” Research published in the journal JMIR Mental Health suggests that even just one drink can impair sleep quality. It meant I’d wake up feeling really shattered and anxious as a result.”īut it’s not just moderate and heavy drinkers that can suffer. My body was working hard to filter the poison out during the night, and so I wasn’t giving it the chance to rest and recuperate. “The quality of my sleep was horrendous – on those evenings when I drank I would just pass out,” she says. “For many of them, the issue gets resolved relatively quickly when they start to reduce their alcohol intake, but the effect it can have on their physical and emotional health is very noticeable.”Īs a former binge drinker herself, Aggie has also experienced this first-hand. “A lack of good quality sleep is a big problem for around 90 percent of all the people I work with,” she explains.