Dry January formally launched in 2013 as a public health campaign challenging people to give up alcohol for at least one month. Today, it is more of a cultural phenomenon – debated on talk shows, embraced by health publications and reportedly over-documented on social media. But if Eater writer Jaya Saxena remarked in 2020: ‘Criticism of anyone’s sobriety, even if limited to a month, is an irresponsible, pickpocketing.’ And although it has become monetary and trendy, Dry January is still the right thing to do. It is good for you to give up alcohol, and the safest amount to drink is nothing.
In 2018, researchers from the University of Sussex wanted to document what really happens when you participate in Dry January, which is why they fed 800 participants. A myriad of effects were observed – 88 percent saved money; 71 percent realized that they do not need to drink to enjoy themselves – and 71 percent achieved the holy grail of health effects. They slept better.
Sleep, you may not realize, is a lot, very well. It plays a critical role in metabolism, learning and memory. Sleep is essential for the brain and every tissue in the body. Sleep is the difference between robust mental and physical health, and vice versa. Alcohol interrupts the benefits of sleep in a variety of ways.
Why is alcohol bad for sleep?
The answer is complicated. Initially, alcohol can act as a sedative and reduce the time between waking up and falling asleep, a process known as sleep delay. But despite the sleep cap’s reputation, this is not always true. Sometimes alcohol has a stimulating effect when consumed at a low dose, and when the alcohol level in the blood rises within the first hour after ingestion.
But alcohol also disrupts sleep, especially the period of rapid eye movement (REM). In part, this is because the sedative effects wear off. According to a 2009 analysis, the calming effects of moderate consumption (i.e. two to three standard drinks) can last several hours. Then, about two to three hours after the alcohol concentration in the blood was close to zero, the brain shakes it off. The study gives the following example:
Metabolized at about one glass of wine per hour after 5 drinks at 22:00, the alcohol level will be almost zero at 03:00, with an increase in excitement from this time onwards. REM rebound occurs in the second half of the night associated with intense dreaming or nightmares. These effects contribute to sleep fragmentation. ”
In other words, in healthy, non-alcoholics, the quality of sleep during drinking is interrupted the second half Of the night.
The more you drink, the worse your sleep is likely to be. According to a 2020 study published in Earth, “Heavy alcohol consumption over a long period of time leads to increased tolerance and this tolerance is accompanied by adaptation of the neurotransmission systems.” A 2018 study evaluating 4098 Finnish subjects found that low amounts of alcohol – less than two servings per day for men or one serving per day – reduced sleep quality by 9.3 percent, the moderate amounts sleep quality by 24 percent reduced and the high amounts by 39.2 percent.
In a 2015 study published in the journal Alcohol, scientists found that the primary cause of poor sleep after alcohol addiction was a disruption of sleep homeostasis – the body’s system to regulate the need for sleep. Alcoholics, they write, both during drinking periods and when they remember themselves, still suffer from a “multitude of sleep disorders” such as insomnia and daytime sleepiness as a result of this disruption.
“The common idea was that alcohol promotes sleep by altering a person’s circadian rhythm – the body’s built-in 24-hour clock,” said lead author Mahesh Thakkar, a professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia, in a statement. explain.
“However, we find that alcohol actually promotes sleep by affecting the person’s sleep homeostasis – the built-in mechanisms of the brain that regulate your sleepiness and wakefulness.”
What does this mean on an individual level? How exactly alcohol’s affect sleep depends on a number of factors, including its health history, how much to drink, drink, and other statistics such as age and gender.
Research suggests, for example, that men’s quality of sleep is more affected than women. Although findings for women are not clear, it holds more than 168 grams of alcohol per week compared to men abstaining, if it wakes up several times a night.
And if someone suffers from insomnia, the negative link between alcohol and sleep can be two-way – alcohol can cause insomnia-like symptoms and people who misuse alcohol to fall asleep.
Generally, you are advised not to drink if you want to drink and also want to sleep well within four hours of going to bed. (Other studies have found that ‘happy hour’ in the late afternoon can disrupt sleep as much as six hours before bedtime.)
And if you generally want to sleep better, Dry January is always an option.