I generally drink a lot of liquid throughout the day and into the evening - coffee (pre-noon), tea, water, wine. This is the case even if I don’t drink wine. I have become really good at getting up to use the toilet several times a night without really waking up. If I don’t drink water in the evening, I will actually wake up thirsty in the middle of the night. There is no question for me that I have a better night’s sleep if I do not drink wine. This is subjective as I do not wear a device, but it seems to consistently be the case in terms of how restless my sleep is or I feel in the morning. There is also a noticeable difference on sleep quality between a glass of wine and a half bottle of wine. I generally finish drinking wine at least an hour before bed and have not found that the time matters as much as the quantity.
I really hate to say this: the best night’s sleep is alcohol free.
Drinking wine late is going to affect your sleep. Drinking the same amount of wine, but earlier, or drinking the same amount of liquid, but water, will reduce the effect. Drinking the same amount of liquid but earlier and water will reduce the effect even more.
Experiment with different “last call for alcohol” and “last call for liquid” times if you want to optimize your personal tradeoff between enjoying wine and not being thirsty vs sleep interruption. Of course how much wine you drink before “last call for alcohol” will also be a factor.
Neal has suggested somewhere on the board that for these reasons the ideal meal schedule for a retired wino is to switch lunch and dinner - have the main meal of the day at noon, and drink your wine with that meal, and have a smaller meal with non-alcoholic beverages early evening. I think there’s a lot to that.
Agreed. For the purposes of digesting alcohol and getting restful sleep, drinking wine with lunch is much better than with dinner. The downside is the afternoon gets blurry… (Although some may consider that a feature not a bug…)
I try to avoid drinking any alcohol for at least three hours before I go to sleep. For me, that means no wine after 7. I’ve also found that having two glasses or less is significantly less disruptive (in other words, I can get what I consider to be a very good night’s sleep) than anything more than that. When I drink that third glass, or keep drinking after 7, I know I’m in trouble.
I guess that works if you so lead such a leisurely lifestyle that you have nothing else to do physically or mentally for the rest of the day. For me, it would be a disaster.
I have gravitated towards my biggest meal being at mid-day. But even though I now sometimes take an afternoon nap, I don’t start drinking wine until early evening. My wine drinking time is usually accompanied by a small, light meal.
For now, at my current daily rate of wine consumption, doing the wine at lunch instead of dinner would not be an issue for the rest of my day other than the part where I’m supposed to go back to work. As I get older, this may change at some point
I had a radical prostatectomy 16 years ago and I still need to get up 2-3 times a night to drain willie. So it doesn’t work for everyone, unfortunately.
I’m 66+. In the last year or so I’ve found that not drinking wine after ~8 pm really helps my sleep patterns. Which fits with our lifestyle of generally eating earlier in the evening.
The good news is, as long as we are still getting up and making it to the bathroom, we’re still in the early to mid stages of geezerdom.
Could be either or both. Alcohol is a diuretic and can negatively impact sleep patterns through CNS effects.
Alcohol consumption within a few hours of bedtime can also contribute to gastroesophageal reflux. That’s another entity that is more common with age and which can interrupt sleep. You didn’t mention heartburn so maybe not an issue for you. Do you wake with a sore throat or a hoarse voice on mornings after a late night glass of wine?
Seems like the lesson from this thread is that we geezers can laugh at ourselves. [Compare with some of the posts from younger people who seem to take everything too seriously.]
