Like a lot of people I enjoy the occasional alcoholic beverage. I also guess I’m probably pretty average in that the time I am most likely to have a drink is in the hour or two before bed. I’ve also experienced a range on hangovers in my life from “one too many” to “Dear God have mercy on my soul”. For the most part, though, I do try to be moderate in how much I drink.
But by how much does alcohol affect my night’s sleep? The worse sleep I get, the more I struggle through the next day. I wanted to figure out the cost I pay in sleep by drinking before bed.
My experiment on myself:
- One night with no alcohol before bed;
- One night with my favourite beer two hours before bed
To keep things consistent, I consumed no caffeine 10 hours before bed, and did comparable amounts of exercise both days.
I tracked both night using a pulse oximeter that records my pulse and level of blood oxygen (to measure snoring). I recorded my sleep from midnight to 5 a.m.
Night #1
My average pulse for the night was 46 bpm (beats per minute).
Night #2
My average pulse was 59 bpm!
Both nights showed at perhaps one brief instance of snoring, with only 1-2 drops of blood O2.
I went in without any particular expectation, and just wanted to see what came up. To see that my heart rate is 25% higher if I consume that much alcohol was significant, and honestly more than I would have guessed beforehand.
So how can this information be used?
1) If I chose to have a drink before bed, to reserve it for nights when I can sleep in the next day, or have less to do;
- I can chose to minimize the amount I drink before bed, or to put another way, consider the smallest amount to drink to be content with it;
- I can have my drink earlier in the day to move it farther away from when I sleep.
I’m all for the responsible use of alcohol. I enjoy a good drink, but I appreciate that there is a cost to my body. What I don’t want is for that cost to be invisible. This does inform how I’m going to consume alcohol in the future.
Additional resources:
”Why We Sleep” by Matthew Walker, PhD
If you have questions or comments, I can be reached at:
david@integratedstrength.ca
