Does Drinking Beer Affect Your Ability To Sleep Well

[KoNG]

Yep Valerian is very good... They sure stink like crap though. Gotta hold the nose before ingesting. :blink:

Warren -

:lol: yep... forgot to mention that. i didnt put the cap on properly one night... swmbo and i could not work out what the weird stench in the room was the next day (but i was being blamed.. ).

 

[jupiter]

my old man has these problems. if has a few beers with dinner and before going to bed he only gets half a nights sleep. no beer and he sleeps until the alarm.

myself am quite the opposite. i can't get to sleep without having a few beers before bed. seriously, if i don't have a few beers to slow my head down i just lay there all night with my head going 50 million miles an hour thinking about work, the dirty dishes in the sink, how much money is in the bank blah blah blah. if i do fall asleep it is only for an hour or two.

a few beers and i'll sleep my full 8 hours undisturbed.

 

[Doc]

Well I am the complete opposite.
Beer relaxes me, slows down my brain and lets me get to sleep and have a good full night sleep.
No beer makes my brain work, and keep me away half the night thinking about crap such as work

Doc

 

[kfarrell]

What if we put Valerian in the wort? I think I'm on to something here!!!

 

[sluggerdog]

Well I am the complete opposite.
Beer relaxes me, slows down my brain and lets me get to sleep and have a good full night sleep.
No beer makes my brain work, and keep me away half the night thinking about crap such as work

Doc

I'm with you doc, also I notice if I don't drink for a few days (3-5) I really have trouble getting to sleep those nights, once I'm back drinking I'm out like a light.

I'd say it would be the thinking as well.

 

[Screwtop]

After drinking commercial megaswill I wake at 2 - 3 am and have trouble getting back to sleep. Home brewed no problem, except if there is dry (alpha) enzyme in the home brewed beer, then I wake, same as megaswill????

 

[Insight]

The only time I wake up in the middle of the night is when I need to go for a leak! That said, I'll feel tired the next day, indicating a lack of quality sleep during the night.

I'll throw an "old wives tale" into the mix - I've taken to downing 300mg of Magnesium before bed most nights (drinking or not) and beleive it has improved the quality of my sleep significantly. There's been any number of inconclusive studies done that confirm/deny this helps. I guess human physiology isn't as simple as we'd like!

 

[user 1153]

I have a few beers most nights and I sleep like a baby. (wake up every 2 hours looking for a nipple)

I'm the same. I actually find that the drinking helps me sleep more than not.

PS: I've never been a good sleeper. With or without drinkies I generally take in excess of 1 hour to fall asleep. On bad nights I can take up to 3 hours to fall asleep (beer or no beer). I've generally given in to the fact that I will never be a sound sleeper, BUT, the beer does make my sleep more fullfilling and uninteruppted.

 

[KoNG]

I'm similar to you Troy, i always take from 30- 90 minutes to fall asleep!! Even after 30 minutes reading etc..It's really annoying. but yeh beers can help with getting off to sleep, but then seem to disturb it through the night. valarian helps with both issues if i remember to take it early enough.

 

[Steve]

I can never remember going to bed! I guess thats classed as a sleeping dis-order sort of? :blink:

 

[newguy]

I have the same problem, but only if I have 4+ beers in an evening. I wake up in the middle of the night hot as hell, heart racing, and can't get back to sleep if my life depends on it.

I read somewhere that since alcohol is a depressant, the body tries to counteract by pumping you up (not sure what gets pumped up - maybe blood sugar and adrenaline?). Once you've been asleep a few hours, the alcohol levels start to come down, but the "pumped" reaction lags behind this by a few hours, leaving you energized and probably awake.

I tried to find the link/article but couldn't..... :angry:

 

[AngelTearsOnMyTongue]

The last thing I do before sleeping after a few beers is to drink a pint of water (or 3 if its a big night). I never have any problems sleeping. I do snore a lot more after beers though!

I sometimes have to get up for a pee at about 3am, but I go straight back to sleep.

Sometimes i dont even wake up when I go for a pee........


................I mean I go to the loo but cannot remember doing so in the morning.

I only have restless sleeps when I am trying to give up the ciggies.

ATOMT

 

[Kingy]

being a tree lopper/arborist i have to have a few beers each night to relax me,(i think its a dependency :unsure: ) i also take a magnesium tablet each night,helps to relax the muscles.

this has cured most of my middle of the night alcohol related wake ups. Also the harder i try to get to sleep the harder it is,in worst cases i get up and have a small glass of port or 2,depending on the time.(warms the tummy and settles the mind)

and really enjoy the peacefullness of the quiet night and appreciate the port with every sip, by this time im getting sleepy again and back off to bed.

 

[Ross]

I can sleep anywhere anytime - can pull over at the side of the road & have a 10 minute power nap.
Often take a 10 min power nap while working on the computer (hence the delay in answering queries sometimes ) I normally go to sleep between 12pm & 1am & awake at 5am. Seems to make little difference whether I've had a beer or not, but there again I rarely go to bed without drinking anything :chug:

cheers Ross

 

[domonsura]

I'll add my agreement to the no beer=no sleep thing. I've suffered sleep issues for years, I just have trouble getting my mind to shut up long enough to nod off. 2 or 3 (or 4 or 5 as the case may be) pints and I could care less about what my brain has to say anymore. Then there's the nights where after a few beers, brain comes up with BRILLIANT idea and won't leave it alone. This has sometimes resulted in getting back up at 3 in the morning and heading out to the workshop, as I'm sure not going to get any sleep that night. I've tried hops under the pillow, herbal teas (just make me pee....that would be the caffeine.....) I tried not drinking coffee or tea for a while because I drink too many cups of coffee throughout the day, but it doesn't fix the sleep problem it just makes me damn irritable. Some of the only things that ever made a difference to my sleep patterns were - Stopping smoking (huge difference) and quitting work as a Chef (massive drop in stress levels) and beer. Commercial swill makes me rowdy and crook and gets me into trouble. Homebrew makes me calm and content. Go figure. Perhaps THATS why my wife let me stop work to look after the boy and start making a brewery.......? That and the fact that it keeps me the heck away from all those gorgeous young pretties in the local bars........(read: trouble....can't help myself....)

 

[Tyred]

I don't have any problems sleeping, unless I'm on-call. I normally only have one longneck at night and that's quite early. It seems to help that I have a fair bit of water to drink before going to bed.

According to my wife, to much drinking makes me very difficult due to snoring.

 

[goatherder]

I'll chime in on this one too. If I have a few (say 4 or more standards) then I wake up around 3-4 am and struggle to get back to sleep. It takes me getting up and reading for a while to get back to sleep, usually just in time for the alarm. Glad to see I'm not alone. I hope there is a cure...

 

[bugwan]

This is all quite weird.... I've never had an issue sleeping after a drink. One tends to make me drowsy, five winds me up into action and 20 sends me into a deep sleep. No snoring etc.

I only get an average of 6.5 hours sleep each weeknight though, so I guess that makes for a tired boy. I just can't seem to get to bed until after midnight.

 

[grinder]

This is all quite weird.... I've never had an issue sleeping after a drink. One tends to make me drowsy, five winds me up into action and 20 sends me into a deep sleep. No snoring etc.

I only get an average of 6.5 hours sleep each weeknight though, so I guess that makes for a tired boy. I just can't seem to get to bed until after midnight.

My brew makes me sleep like a baby. I very rarely wake up in the night these days. I guess I may have become immune.
If on the odd occasion it does, I just swig down another quick one and I'm off again.

 

[paul]

When I was working a rotating shift for six years I had trouble sleeping unless I was drunk. During the day I was always tired.

These days I work only during the day and I sleep well every night drunk or sober.

The only time drinking affects my ability to sleep is after a bit night on it and I cant sleep cause I got a rager and one thing on my mind.