Alcohol and Sleep

[dolppl]

Trying to gain knowledge to add to my sleep encyclopedia. 

When I have a few adult beverages, the next day I am exhausted.  Not surprising.  Don't generally get any other 'hang-over' symptoms besides extremely tired the next day.  I assumed this was because alcohol relaxes me even more than usual and OAs go up considerably because of all that soft palate relaxation which makes for a crappy night sleep.

The other day I was feeling pretty good had a few drinks (maybe 6.....first drinks I had in close to 3 months) and went to bed.  Wore my CPAP for the whole night.  Woke up feeling unsurprisingly tired.  But the interesting thing was when I checked my OSCAR results they were some of the best results I have had since I started the therapy 2-3 weeks ago.  Surprising.

Through 17 nights, I average:
5 CAs/Hr
1 OA or Hypopnea/Hr.

On the hangover day I had:
2.17 CAs/Hr
0.47 Hypopnea/Hr
0 OAs

Anything to glean from this?

I keep feeling for some reason (just from my gut, not backed up by any science) that a big part of my sleep problem is somehow tied to my anxiety and that the centrals are stemming from a anxiety related tension in my chest and diaphragm and maybe having a few drinks before bed relaxed me and somehow helped out my centrals?

Am I way off on this line of thinking?

[OpalRose]

Centrals happen when your brain doesn't signal you to breath. No one really knows why that happens. Although some prescription medications have been known to trigger centrals. Whether alcohol has the same effect, I don't know.

I've also heard some say that a few drinks have given them some good sleep and others not so much...

It's hard to glean much from what your saying. Post a graph or two for comparison. Use the link below in my signature line to guide you.

[mesenteria]

Alcohol is a central nervous system depressant, a diuretic, and it is very hard on your liver.  And on your waistline.  

Your body will preferentially take calories from alcohol and fructose before anything else.  That is why we have expanding waistlines...we eat so much processed foods to which high fructose syrups (corn syrup, anyone?) have been added to improve the rates at which people consume them, and thence to replace them.  More $$$ for the 'food' companies.

Next come the carbs, and finally come the proteins and fats in terms of order of draw by your liver...which has to process EVERYTHING YOU INGEST.  Medications included.  Once your liver has all the converted glucose it can store (yes, your liver stores about a day's worth of glucose at a time, metering it out between meals and muscle use), it signals the pituitary gland via the hypothalamus to urge your pancreas to begin secreting the calorie storage hormone known as insulin.  Once your liver has all the calories it can use and keep, it wants the body to begin to store the rest, and that's what insulin does for you...it forces your lipocytes to store more and more fat.

I don't intend for my stance on this to sound like a morality play or a form of judgement, but I don't understand why a person would want several alcoholic drinks any more than they would want several glasses of apple juice, mango juice, or orange juice.  If one beer/shot will begin to cause your kidneys to stop conserving water, you'll be much worse off next morning for having two, three, four, or five such drinks.  You'll be dehydrated, your liver will have produced a LOT of acetaldehyde as a byproduct of the metabolism of alcohol, and you'll have had a poor quality sleep to boot, unless you were essentially 'passed out'.  I don't known enough to state that being in a stupor or unconscious due to overconsumption is worse or better than normal sleep.  But, in view of my first statement at top, my sense is that your breathing mechanism is going to be impaired.

[edfreeman]

I wear my Apple Watch and use a "sleep quality" app that monitors my heart rate and movements. On normal nights, I crush the "deep sleep" and "quality sleep" goals, staying perfectly still with a heart rate that dips into the low 50's bpm for over 3 and sometimes over 4 hours (quality sleep for another couple hours).

However, Friday night is steak night, and with that comes red wine, 1 glass while I cook/grill, 1 glass with the steak and fixings, and another afterwards, sometimes 2 depending on how good it is. Average is 1 glass per hour, and with the food I am hardly buzzed. Sleep quality is a mess. Heart rate only dips into the upper 60's, "deep sleep" is maybe an hour, "quality sleep" maybe 1-2, the rest is obviously not rejuvenating. I'm ready for a nap after an hour of awakening.

All this means is the very detailed post above me is quite real, the body is working to process that wine despite the consumption pace and minimal impact I feel while doing it. It is one night per week, and it shows prominently on the weekly trend.

I'm still having my steak, though...

[SarcasticDave94]

For myself, I had a lifetime of alcoholic consumption between ages 18-25, with too many close calls in driving impaired. Maybe this was only about 6 years, but upon starting, I'd quickly become an alcoholic. I quit cold 1 month after turning 25. I credit God for enabling me to be able to quit, and it didn't need AA to do it. 25 years later, I don't miss it. Not exactly the answer you want, but that's my alcohol stance for me.

Now, on to alcohol and sleep issues. I think it will impair healthy sleep, and it's possible it may alter and/or increase apnea events. That is my guess.

[Hydrangea]

Alcohol lowers my AHI.

But the more relaxed sleep also causes my jaw to slack. So if I'm using a nasal mask, I keep a FFM in my nightstand to pull out if I start leaking air out my mouth.

[slowriter]

Matthew Walker talks about the effect of alcohol and other sedatives on sleep in his new-ish book "Why We Sleep." You can also find clips on YouTube of him talking about this.

In short, it's pretty terrible for sleep; decreases deep sleep, increases fragmentation, etc.

[macheta]

Alcohol always makes me feel horrible when consuming it late at night. What works well for me is drinking three beers around noon. This allows my system to recover before bed time.

[booksfan]

I am not much of a drinker, mainly social. Wine with dinner with friends, a glass maybe two. The occasional cocktail, again socially, with friends. I have found on those nights, my AHI was higher than average. That is me. Since I would say my sleep quality isn't the greatest (~3-4 arousals per night, some trouble getting back to sleep), I am glad that those social occasions are minimal, once a month maybe, except while traveling. Even then I don't drink daily. And of course, almost not at all over the past couple of months! #socialdistancing

[Dormeo]

A very detailed article from the NIH:

https://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/...01-109.htm