The evidence is convergent. Multiple independent sources reach the same conclusion, the underlying mechanism is well-characterized, and even the field's most cautious voices treat it as worth doing.
the final concern with alcohol is that it's quite a potent Blocker of your rapid eye movement sleep or REM sleep or REM sleep and in subsequent episodes we'll go into great detail as to the incredible learning and memory creativity benefits that come by way of REM sleep also it's essential for our emotional regulation and recalibrating our moods
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Alcohol, if we're thinking about classes of drugs, they're in a class of drugs that we call the sedatives. It's sedating your cortex. And sedation is not sleep. But when we have a couple of drinks in the evening, when we have a couple of night caps, we mistake sedation for sleep, saying, "Well, I always when I have a like a couple of whisies or a couple of cocktails, it always helps me fall asleep faster." In truth, what's happening is that you're losing consciousness quicker, but you're not necessarily falling naturalistically asleep any quicker.
The third part of alcohol in terms of an equation is that it's quite potent at blocking your REM sleep, your rapid eye movement sleep. And REM sleep is critical for a variety of cognitive functions. um some aspects of learning and memory seems to be critical for aspects of emotional and mental health.
alcohol is probably the most misunderstood of all of those sleep aids and it comes back to our discussion about sleeping pills a little bit to that what I often hear from people are saying you know I'm pretty stressed in the evening I can't fall asleep I when I get into bed I'm too awake perhaps because they're not getting enough darkness or perhaps because of use of caffeine too much or because of that anxiety one of the problems with alcohol is that well it does three things to your sleep first the alcohol as we sort of mentioned before is also a drug that is a sedative so it works on the same class of receptors that sleeping pills actually does and when you have a nightcap what you're doing is again just sedating your brain you're just knocking yourself out so that's the first thing you think you fall asleep fast it you don't you're just losing consciousness quicker you're not falling asleep quicker the second thing is that alcohol will fragment your sleep so you wake up many more times throughout the night now typically they're so brief that you don't remember them but they have a measurable impact on your sleep physiology and as a consequence your own wellness biology the final thing that we've discovered is that alcohol is actually very good at blocking your dream sleep your rapid eye movement sleep
after the initial anxiety reducing effects of alcohol wearoff several factors contribute to a rise in anxiety levels firstly alcohol significantly disrupts sleep patterns while it may help in falling asleep faster It generally reduces the quality of sleep particularly REM sleep which is crucial for emotional regulation poor sleep alone can heighten anxiety in the following day