I have a veritable library on insomnia. I only scanned the chapters on waking up early – not my problem – but the alcohol being turned into a stimulant by the liver seems to be the consensus. The only solution was either to drink less or just do with less sleep when you have wine.
And you’d be surprised how little sleep you can get by on for a few days at a time. Take it from somebody who can’t go to sleep!!!
the more i drink the deeper i sleep. maybe it’s just me. i know the science behind alcohol and sleep, which several people have alluded to, but i always sleep well after any amount of wine. then again, i tend to sleep like a bear all the time.
Not that I enjoy it, but I can power on for days without sleep.
As for booze effecting sleep, gets worse with age.
I sleep better the more wine I drink. Oddly enough the same holds for caffeine. Guess I hit the genetic jackpot.
Who needs sleep? Cuts into my drinking time!! ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
I was once told with wine that you either pay up front or pay later.
<JKim wrote:Maybe I’m imagining it, but I feel like I get really bad headaches drinking crappy wine. Doesn’t seem to happen with good stuff. Or it might be me rationalizing my purchases.>
This happens to my brother as well and another reason he likes to drink my wine! lol I believe I read somewhere long ago that this is due to sulfites and it seems some of the lesser priced wines include more of those. I’m sure someone on the board can elaborate?
Unfortunately, it is a known fact that alcohol does indeed disrupt sleep patterns and it has different effects on different people but most everyone here has nailed the various side effects.
Concidentally, I came upon this thread last night after returning from the 2012 Wine and Cheese Show. Having had trouble sleeping for the last few days myself, I decided to abstain from both alcohol and carbs for the rest of the evening, dining on only baked Tilapia, a crudité with homemade blue cheese dip and water.
The result is I slept like a baby with no waking up in the middle of the night for any reason.
I certainly don’t overindulge in alcohol but I do eat quite late and the combo of later alcohol and carbs was probably what led to the bad week of sleep. It seems I’m going to either have to eat and drink a lot earlier or cut back or maybe even cut out alcohol altogether on the evenings. Hey, I love wine but I really LOVE good sleep!
Sorry, just to make clear, the advice and experiences of the posts in this thread is what gave me the insight and inspiration to drop both carbs and wine for the night.
Besides, we all know alcohol goes better with breakfast.
I’m all for magnesium supplementation, but 1200mg seems like quite a lot (depending on the type - some are better absorbed then others). I take 200mg of Magnesium Glycinate Chelate twice daily (morning and evening), and that has eliminated a problem I was having with leg cramps during the night. It’s improved my quality of sleep also (beyond just eliminating the leg cramps).
I found this suddenly started for me a few years ago. It took some experimentation to identify that caffeine after 3 PM caused me to wake up ~3 AM. It was surprising because prior to that drinking espresso until 5 or 6 PM had no effect on sleep.
Thankfully, wine was not the culprit in my case.
Hmm… OK what are the risks of too high a magnesium level? PS: Diarrhea & Dizziness With Magnesium Overdose | Healthfully
None of this is mentioned in Jacob’s link which feels… less than optimally responsible on the part of the source that Jacob’s link points to.
PS: To be clear, my comment about responsibility here is about the linked article, not Jacob. Sorry for any confusion on that point.
Rick I’m sorry you feel that way.
Respectfully, I’m not really getting it? The writer of this link has no nutritional background nor does she reference anything that is pertinent to magnesium supplementation as she implies in her article. The enema, laxative and tetracycline cases that she used as references all were referring to dehydrated states which in turn will cause an imbalance with potassium, choline, and magnesium in the measured blood serum. If you decrease the amount of water in the cell then you will have high levels of tested minerals. I would be curious to see if there are also a high level of the other two micronutrients. Unfortunately they are measure thru urine analysis making it harder in this case.
my 2 cents
Let me clarify - my comment about ‘less than responsible’ wasn’t about you but about the linked article itself. I just read my above post and I can see how that isn’t clear. I’ll edit that too to make it more clear.
That was one quick link. There are several others from people who note that very high levels of magnesium in the blood can cause health issues. I’m NOT a doc, but the link you give is from a guy who’s a strength coach and, well, sells supplements. I’d like to know, from medical sources, whether there’s a risk in supplementing and getting high levels of magnesium. I think of these things in ranges - there’s a ‘too low’ range that shades into a ‘normal’ range which in turn shades into a ‘higher than normal’ range. What I’m wondering is whether, if one gets into the higher than normal range, there are health risks. Several links out there mention cardiac risks, etc.
I realize the easy answer is to go get tests etc etc, but that can be expensive and some of us have insurance that won’t cover things like that which aren’t pretty obviously tied to a medical condition.
All good Rick.
Unfortunately the medical community can be a little bit behind in regards to alternative medicine. If you are curious about how our hormones are influenced by the daily stress’ we place on our by bodies I would suggest a must read book by Dr Mark Houston called “What your doctor may not tell you about heart disease.” Its a short read and reveals a lot of factors about things that are overlooked during the health physical and what we can do via lifestyle modifications to combat them.
Bumping this thread in lieu of starting a new one…
I’ve noticed that wine in particular, and especially red wine (no matter how high quality - and admittedly only a little more than white wine), disrupts my sleep in a way that beer and liquor do not. Drinking earlier in the day helps a lot, but I’m curious if the same holds true for others.
As a late 30-something, I’m also curious if I should expect this to continue getting even worse as I age. I didn’t have this problem in my 20s.
Nobody actually sleeps better after drinking alcohol. That is, the quality of your sleep is not better. You may feel that you do, because you fall asleep faster and/or stay asleep better, but the beneficial things that happen in your brain during unadulterated sleep don’t happen as well or at all if you’ve had alcohol. You may not care, because at least you seem to be sleeping, but you aren’t getting what your brain and body really need as well as if you hadn’t had anything to drink. You can think of it like taking a different kind of sleeping pill - Ambien may put you out, but it’s not real sleep and the mechanism by which you reach the state of “sleep” is different.
For more science and detail, read Why we Sleep by Matthew Walker. Absolutely fascinating and a great read.
I don’t mean to sound judgmental - I drink most nights in spite of knowing the difference between fact and perception.
Right. It will help me fall asleep, but it won’t keep me asleep.
An experiment for her:
Get some Afrin nasal spray in the spritzer bottle and take 3-4 sniffs each nostril at wine time and see how her sleep does.
Immediate disclaimer: yes, somebody’s uncle’s friend’s relative used Afrin too much and became dependent. I am talking a one time trial.
Some people have changes in their nasal airway that occur with products of natural fermentation. This can alter airflow for sleep and contribute to headaches and hangovers because people tend to breathe more through their mouth after drinking and this can lead to some of the dehydration affects of alcohol.
Have her try it just once and see if there is any benefit.
If it works, once a week is no issue.
Some people respond to pretreatment with azelastine or olopatadine nasal sprays, as well.