Can Alcohol Help You Sleep? Why a Nightcap Can Backfire

A drink before bed has been called a nightcap for generations. And it is easy to understand why. Alcohol can make people feel relaxed, sleepy and ready for bed. So surely that means it helps you sleep? Not necessarily. Alcohol may make it easier to become drowsy, but the quality of the sleep that follows can be a very different story. Falling asleep quickly is not the whole picture Good sleep is not simply about how fast you fall asleep. You also need to remain asleep and move normally through the different stages of sleep during the night. This is where alcohol can become problematic. The NHS notes that alcohol can initially make you sleepy but may contribute to poorer sleep later in the night. That means somebody may think alcohol is helping because they fall asleep quickly while overlooking what happens several hours later. The 3am wake-up This pattern will be familiar to plenty of people. You have a few drinks in the evening. You get into bed and fall asleep almost immediately. Several hours later you are wide awake. Sleep feels lighter. You may feel hot, thirsty or restless. Then getting back to sleep becomes difficult. Alcohol is not necessarily the only explanation, but it can be one of the factors worth examining if this happens regularly. More alcohol does not mean more sleep Because alcohol can cause drowsiness, it would be easy to assume that increasing the amount would produce stronger sleep. That is not a good strategy. The sedating effect of alcohol should not be confused with naturally restorative sleep. Sleep & Medicine Information | 8And alcohol can interact dangerously with sedating medicines. If you are taking any medicine that makes you drowsy, check the patient information and ask your pharmacist or prescriber about alcohol rather than assuming the combination is safe. Alcohol can become part of a sleep habit There is another issue that has less to do with the biology of sleep and more to do with routine. Suppose somebody struggles to sleep after a stressful period. They discover that having a couple of drinks makes them fall asleep faster. Soon the brain starts forming an association: drink -> relaxation -> sleep. What began as an occasional behaviour can become something they believe they need in order to sleep. That can make the original sleep problem more complicated. Try an experiment instead If you regularly drink in the evening and also experience poor sleep, you do not need to guess whether the two are connected. Run a simple experiment. Compare your sleep across evenings when you drink and evenings when you do not. Look at how quickly you fall asleep, whether you wake during the night, how early you wake, how refreshed you feel the next morning and whether you feel sleepy during the day. Patterns often become much more obvious when they are written down. What should you drink instead? There is not a magical bedtime drink that guarantees sleep. The bigger goal is creating a routine that tells your body the day is winding down. That might involve reading, listening to music, having a warm non-caffeinated drink, taking a shower or simply lowering the lights and reducing stimulation. The NHS recommends establishing a relaxing bedtime routine and reducing things that can interfere with sleep, including caffeine, nicotine and alcohol. What if you rely on alcohol to sleep? That is different from occasionally noticing that alcohol makes you sleepy. If you feel you need alcohol in order to fall asleep, or find yourself regularly increasing the amount you drink to produce the same effect, it is worth discussing this with a healthcare professional. There may be both a sleep problem and an alcohol-use pattern that deserve attention. Neither is something you have to solve simply by trying harder to sleep. Sleep & Medicine Information | 9The bottom line Alcohol can make you feel sleepy. That is not quite the same thing as alcohol helping you sleep well. If you fall asleep quickly after drinking but frequently wake later in the night, feel unrefreshed in the morning or struggle with daytime tiredness, your evening drink may be part of the picture. Sometimes improving sleep is not about adding another sleep remedy. It is about removing something that is quietly getting in the way. Sources & further reading • NHS Every Mind Matters – Sleep and mental health • NHS Every Mind Matters – How to fall asleep faster and sleep better