How Does Alcohol Affect Your Sleep?

After a night of drinking it might be easy to crawl into bed and immediately fall asleep. You feel like you fall asleep and don't wake up for eight or so hours, yet when you do wake up you feel like you slept for half an hour. Why is this? How does alcohol affect your sleep?

Alcohol is sometimes known as a "night cap," but too many drinks and that alcohol is going to interfere with your normal sleep process. You skip the first stage of sleep and go right into a deep sleep. Deep sleep is meant to help the body restore itself, however since you are skipping the light sleep, once the alcohol starts to wear off you are going to get into the light sleep, waking up easier.
So even though you get that deep sleep right away you are going to find yourself waking up more consistantly.

You are also going to find that if you drink a lot, you have to get up more frequently to use the toilet. Since alcohol is a diuretic, the body is trying to lose the extra fluid so you are going to sweat more and become dehydrated.

Ever felt so relaxed after a night of drinking? Alcohol relaxes the muscles in your body, including your throat, mouth and nose. This makes air flowing smoothly a difficult process, causing you to snore more loudly, often waking you up.

Avoiding alcohol too close to bedtime can help give your body time to process all of the alcohol before you go to sleep. It typically takes an hour to process one unit of alcohol.

By avoiding alcohol before bed, you are going to have a more restful sleep and you will find that you will wake up more refreshed than if you were to continue drinking right until you went to bed. Alcohol affects your sleep and can harm you overall health.