How Having Just 2 Alcoholic Drinks Affects Your Sleep, According To Science (Excerpt)
Source: https://www.bustle.com/
By JR THORPE
March 12, 2019
Many of us welcome a glass of wine or two with dinner, or a beer while watching Netflix, in the hope that it’ll help us drop off more swiftly and give us a better night’s sleep. Around 20 percent of adult Americans use alcohol to help them fall asleep, according to sleep specialist Dr Michael Breus. To some extent, it does help initially, but the science behind the connection between alcohol and sleep is complicated – and can set in a lot sooner than you’d think. Just two drinks can affect your sleep in multiple ways, and while the amount may seem small, the body’s reaction sometimes isn’t.
Two drinks per day goes over the ‘moderate’ threshold for alcohol consumption for women, according to the Mayo Clinic; one drink is 12 fluid ounces of beer, 5 fluid ounces of wine or 1.5 fluid ounces of a distilled spirit like whiskey. Very Well Health has noted that when we drink, our bodies require time to metabolize the alcohol, and on average it takes around one hour for each serving to be processed by the body. Two drinks will take two hours to process, and that processing time – and its consequences – can have some pretty remarkable effects on your slumber. If you don’t know why you’re waking up feeling groggy after two drinks, here’s the science behind it.