Hi there, it's Matt here and welcome back to the podcast. So, today we're going to be talking about nightcaps and not the not the physical kind, by the way, which I've never had the pleasure of wearing. I probably should try it. But instead, the liquid kind because this episode and the episode that will come after or all about alcohol.
So we're going to talk a little bit about what alcohol is as a chemical. Then we'll speak about how alcohol impacts your sleep and then we'll explain why it is that alcohol has these harmful impacts on your sleep. And alcohol is perhaps one of the most misunderstood sleep aids that there is out there as we're going to learn in these next two episodes. It is anything but a sleep aid and
Even though people may feel as though a we drink in the evening or several drinks in the evening, maybe helping their sleep. In fact, it's harming your sleep and alcohol will impact your sleep in three specific ways. First alcohol is in a class of drugs that we call the sedatives and sedation is not sleep. But when we've had a drink in the evening, we mistake the
/ for the latter, we mistake sedation for sleep, and I should probably explain in a little more detail. What the difference is between those two because sedatives such as alcohol will effectively switch off brain cell firing particularly in your cortex sleep. On the other hand is very different as we learned about in the first episode of this podcast. It's during sleep and
Actually, during deep sleep, when hundreds of thousands of brain cells, all of a sudden decide to sing together in this amazing feat of coordination and they all fire together and then they all go silent together and then they fire together and then they all go silent together and that's very different to sedation. And if I were to show you the electrical signature of your sleep, when you have a
Alcohol on board versus a natural night of sleep, you would recognize that those two. Electrical signature patterns are very different. So, that's the first issue regarding alcohol. We shouldn't mistake sedation for sleep. But when we've had a few drinks in the evening, we tend to think that we fall asleep more quickly and in reality or were actually doing is losing Consciousness, more quickly. We're not going into naturalistic sleep.
Second issue with alcohol is that it fragments your sleep. In other words, alcohol will litter your sleep with many more Awakenings throughout the night. And one of the problems, by the way, with these short Awakenings is that you typically don't remember them, but it still leaves your sleep peppered or littered with all of these brief Awakenings. In other words. Your sleep is less continuous and a good example of this is a recent.
Context, para, mental study conducted in a sleep laboratory. And if you take a group of healthy adults and you give them a body standardized dose of alcohol, one, that would probably just put you right at the legal blood-alcohol content, limit for driving and then you let the Sleep recordings offer, the sort of the jury verdict as it were relative to a placebo night of sobriety sleep, especially
Actually in the second half of the night was far more fragmented. When alcohol had been taken on board, indeed, come the last four hours of the night, those participants spent ninety four percent more time awake. Having had alcohol in the evening relative to when they were sober and because of that fragmentation of your sleep caused by alcohol, despite the fact that you don't remember it, you wake up the next morning and you don't feel
all restored by your sleep. You don't feel refreshed by your
sleep.
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podcast.
The third concern with alcohol is that it will block your rapid eye movement sleep or what we often think of as dream sleep in.
Fact, alcohol is one of the most potent suppressors of REM sleep and that's perhaps concerning considering that REM sleep is associated with a constellation of different benefits, both for your brain, and also for your body and will speak about those in subsequent episodes, but this includes things such as learning and memory creativity rebalancing, your moods, and your emotions and downstairs in the body. REM sleep is associated.
The recalibration of numerous different hormone systems, including, for example, testosterone, and more recently. We've discovered that REM sleep is significantly associated with your longevity and the less REM sleep, that you have predicts a shorter lifespan. So in other words, REM sleep seems to be critical for numerous aspects of Health and Wellness, even for the fundamentals of Life, which brings me onto one of the strange.
Side effects of alcohol. Now, some people clear and I'm not suggesting. It's you listening to this. But let's just say some hypothetical people may have gone out on a Friday night or a Saturday night and they've had a good number of drinks and the next morning. They may end up experiencing very Vivid, very strong and very intense dreams. Why is this? Well, it turns out that your
Marine keeps a clock counter of how much REM sleep. You should normally have and how much REM sleep that you have lost as a consequence of alcohol, being in your system and the Brain throughout the night. Then starts to build this incredible hunger for REM sleep, this drive for REM sleep because it's been starved during the early part and the middle part of the night, as the alcohol has been washing around in your
System and then if you sleep late into that subsequent morning into a Saturday or a Sunday morning after a few too many drinks, your brain will try to get back some of the REM sleep that it has lost. So then, as you're sleeping late into that subsequent morning, after a night of a few too many drinks, your brain is clever, having kept a clock counter of how much REM sleep. You should have had, but how much REM sleep you have not been able to achieve.
We'll try to get back some of the REM sleep that has been absent. This is what we call a REM sleep rebound effect. In other words, the brain in those last few hours of the night, when your liver and your kidneys have. Finally, cleared out, the alcohol will not only try to get the normal amount of REM sleep that you would have. But it will also try to get back some of the REM sleep that you have lost and as a consequence, that's why you have these really intense.
Tense, really Vivid dream experiences. And again, just to make mention the brain never gets back. All of the REM sleep, that it's lost. It will only get back some of that REM sleep during the REM sleep rebound effect. So that's a little bit about what alcohol is, and the three different ways in which alcohol can disrupt your sleep and also some of the ways that it can give you some rather strange rather vivid dreams on the morning.
After but exactly. Why is alcohol having these disruptive impacts on your sleep. Why is it sedating? Why is it fragmenting your sleep? Why is it blocking that REM sleep? That's what we're going to cover in the second episode on sleep and alcohol, but for now, I will simply say, thank you for listening. Thank you for subscribing, and I will see you in the next episode. And thanks so much again, to the sponsors.
Has of this episode too, but mostly thanks to you for listening. Take care, and I will see you next time.
