After a night of drinking, it’s common to wake up feeling fatigued and not at your best. Alcohol has many effects on the mind and body, including disrupting your natural sleep cycle. Specifically, it can prevent you from reaching the important rapid eye movement (REM) sleep stage.
What’s the connection between alcohol and REM sleep? Read on as we discuss the effects of alcohol on sleep in-depth in the rest of this article.
Understanding REM Sleep
Your body progresses through four distinct sleep stages throughout the night. One of those is called REM sleep.
During REM, your brain activity increases significantly (close to its activity levels while awake), and most dreaming will occur in this stage.
Throughout this time, your eyes will move back and forth in multiple directions under the eyelids due to the effects of dreaming and the amount of brain activity going on. That’s why it’s called the rapid eye movement stage.
What Are Each of the Four Sleep Stages?
The four sleep stages you progress through go as follows:
- Stage 1: This is where you start to drift off to sleep. Your body will begin to relax, and your brain activity slows down here. It’s easy to wake up during this stage, but you will fall into deeper sleep if you aren’t disturbed.
- Stage 2: As you enter stage 2, your body will shift deeper into sleep. The body’s temperature will start to drop, heart rate will slow, muscles will relax, and brain activity will slow to only short bursts. These changes are meant to make it harder for you to wake up.
- Stage 3: When you get to stage 3, you’re entering deep sleep. Your pulse and breath rate will decrease even more while your brain activity shifts to slow, steady waves (known as delta waves). Stage 3 is highly restorative and helps with full body recovery.
- Stage 4 (REM): As mentioned, REM sleep is where your brain activity picks up and you begin dreaming. The REM stage is essential for mental recovery and functioning, including memory, creativity, and learning. Therefore, having alcohol disrupt this stage can really throw you off mentally the next day.
The body will typically go through these stages several times throughout the night, spending more time on the later restorative stages as you sleep longer.
How Alcohol Affects Sleep
Alcohol is known as a depressant, meaning it slows the central nervous system, which affects many mental and physical functions.
Particularly as it relates to sleep, it slows down your brain activity. Studies show that it can cause someone who had several drinks before bed to fall asleep faster and even drift into stages 2 and 3 of sleep quicker.
While that might have you asking, “Does alcohol help you sleep?” that’s not the case. The research shows that while alcohol can cause you to fall asleep faster, its effects lead to disrupted sleep throughout the night, where you may partially or fully wake up or not get the most out of each sleep cycle.
One of the main reasons why that happens is because, as the body processes alcohol, it interferes with your circadian rhythm, which coordinates sleep-wake cycles. It often causes people to wake up or partially wake up halfway through the night. Some people may even wake up and have trouble falling asleep again.
Research even shows that those who frequently drink heavily can have these effects on the circadian rhythm extend much longer. That can lead to alcohol insomnia, where it’s hard to fall asleep, and it can take a few weeks of abstinence from alcohol before sleep patterns recover in those cases.
Therefore, moderating how much you drink is important for sleep quality. It’s also important to get treatment for alcohol addiction if heavy alcohol use is an ongoing problem.
Alcohol’s Impact on REM Sleep
A study from the Journal of Alcohol, Clinical and Experimental Research found that alcohol reduces the total amount of REM sleep throughout the night at all doses.
During the first half of the night, the effects on REM are usually dose-related, so the more you drink, the more your REM is disrupted.
However, the study found that alcohol delays the onset of REM sleep at all doses, which significantly reduces the total amount of REM you get throughout the night.
Health Consequences of REM Sleep Loss
REM sleep and health are heavily connected, especially for cognitive health since it’s the most restorative stage for mental function. Alcohol sleep disruption that reduces REM sleep can lead to several health consequences that affect someone’s well-being. Those include:
- Lower mood
- Increased risk of mood disorders, such as depression
- Daytime fatigue
- Memory issues
- Weakened immune system
These issues can get progressively worse when someone drinks excessively for a long time.
Long-Term Risks: Chronic Sleep Disruption and Alcohol Use Disorder
Since sleep problems and health issues can worsen as someone drinks more and more, it can lead to a cycle of dependence. Someone may be feeling out of it when drinking is affecting their sleep, and drink more to try to feel better. It may even help temporarily since starting to drink alcohol feels good and can cause a rush of euphoria, but then the problems worsen further.
This pattern can make it hard to stop drinking and can lead to a dependence on alcohol, where someone feels like they need to drink to function normally.
Studies also show that long-term sleep disruption has many health risks, such as increased risks of:
- Cardiovascular disease
- Significant weight loss or gain
- Metabolic problems
- Type 2 diabetes
- Cancer
Mortality rates also increase with the duration of sleep disruption due to the health risks and medical conditions it can cause.
Restoring Healthy Sleep After Alcohol Use
After one night of drinking, restoring your sleep cycle can be as simple as making sure you rehydrate, eating a healthy and well-balanced diet, and going to bed and waking up at a normal time the next day.
However, when someone struggles with alcohol addiction, recovery requires more support and has a longer timeline. As mentioned before, it can take a few weeks as the alcohol leaves your system for your sleep to get back to a healthy level when drinking and sleep problems have been happening for a while.
A medical detox program is usually the best fit in these cases. Many issues can come up while detoxing from alcohol, such as mood swings, dehydration, and even severe withdrawal symptoms like seizures. It’s important to have consistent medical support at a treatment center to ensure comfort and safety.
Completing a full rehab program at a residential addiction treatment center can also increase chances of success after detox. Residential treatment will provide you with a structured and supportive environment where you attend therapy, work on lifestyle change, and build strategies to maintain sobriety long-term.
When to Seek Help
Common signs that alcohol use is getting out of control and requires treatment are:
- Trying to stop drinking and not being able to
- Experiencing withdrawal symptoms like mood swings, insomnia, or shaking when you stop drinking
- Continuing to drink despite it causing negative consequences in your life, like reduced sleep quality, relationship problems, or poor performance at work
- Isolating or not participating in activities you used to enjoy because of alcohol’s effects on your life
If you or a loved one is experiencing any of these signs, recovery is possible, and you can make it through this.
We’re here to provide support at United Recovery Project. We offer several treatment options that can be customized to your needs, including medical detox, residential treatment, and outpatient treatment programs.
You don’t have to go through the struggles of alcohol and sleep disruption on your own. Contact us today to schedule a free consultation or learn more about our treatment options.
References
- Suni, Eric. “Stages of Sleep: What Happens in a Sleep Cycle.” Sleep Foundation, Sleep Foundation, 8 Dec. 2023, https://www.sleepfoundation.org/stages-of-sleep
- Gardiner, Carissa, et al. “The Effect of Alcohol on Subsequent Sleep in Healthy Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.” Sleep Medicine Reviews, vol. 80, 1 Nov. 2024, pp. 102030–102030, doi:10.1016/j.smrv.2024.102030. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1087079224001345
- Meyrel, Manon, et al. “Alterations in Circadian Rhythms Following Alcohol Use: A Systematic Review.” Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry, vol. 99, Apr. 2020, p. 109831, doi:10.1016/j.pnpbp.2019.109831. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0278584619303975
- Ebrahim, Irshaad O., et al. “Alcohol and Sleep I: Effects on Normal Sleep.” Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, vol. 37, no. 4, 24 Jan. 2013, pp. 539–549, doi:10.1111/acer.12006. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23347102/
- Medic, Goran, et al. “Short- and Long-Term Health Consequences of Sleep Disruption.” Nature and Science of Sleep, vol. 9, no. 9, 19 May 2017, pp. 151–161, doi:10.2147/nss.s134864. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5449130/
