How to Stop Alcohol Insomnia So You Can Actually Sleep
Have you ever wondered why you’re always awake at 3 a.m. after a few glasses of wine? You fell asleep fast, but now you’re stuck wondering how to stop alcohol insomnia.
Many of our clients, before they come to see us, would have a drink after dinner, thinking it would help them unwind and get to sleep. And it would. After a couple of sips, they were so relaxed that they’d fall asleep without tossing and turning or overthinking.
But after a couple of hours, they’re up again, with all of the same stress and anxiety they had earlier (and sometimes more).
Worse yet, they couldn’t get back to sleep, as though the alcohol hadn’t helped at all.
What Is Alcohol Insomnia?
It’s a common myth that drinking before bed helps you to sleep. But before you grab that extra drink, let me explain why alcohol is far from a good sleep aid.
Sleep disturbance is actually a common side effect when someone drinks alcohol before bed. Whether you have one drink or engage in heavy drinking, it impacts your sleep.
Both the ability to sleep all the way through the night and sleep quality are impacted. To make matters worse, it also results in daytime sleepiness the next day.
Let’s talk about why these are the common symptoms of alcohol insomnia.
How Does Alcohol Interfere With Sleep?
It is true that alcohol’s sedative effect makes you drowsy and can help someone who has trouble falling asleep. Unfortunately, the way that alcohol interferes with sleep quickly counters the early sleepiness with later sleep disruption because it causes you to wake up more often and makes sleep less restorative.
Once the alcohol starts to break down in your body, it spikes stress hormones and increases the heart rate. When you’re drinking right before bed, the result is that these side effects happen a couple of hours after falling asleep, which will increase the likelihood that you experience these insomnia symptoms.
This explains why at 3 am the stress and anxiety feel worse than before the first drink.
It also disrupts REM sleep and deep sleep, both of which are needed to make your sleep restorative. So when alcohol is involved, dreams are often extremely vivid or nightmares.
Added to all of that, alcohol increases other sleep issues like snoring and sleep apnea, which interferes with the ability to get quality sleep after drinking.
We all know alcohol is a diuretic. Meaning that it makes a person pee a lot. This also interferes with a restful night’s sleep when the person is getting up all the time.
5 Helpful Changes To Stop Alcohol Insomnia
You know why alcohol insomnia happens and what it is doing in your body. But how do you actually stop it from happening?
Here are 5 things you can do to improve your sleep when you have had a couple of drinks.
Avoid drinking within 3 hours of bedtime.
Be intentional about the timing of your intake. Make sure to give enough time after your last drink for the body to process the alcohol before lying down for the night. This prevents the body from processing it in the middle of the night. Which, in turn, helps to get better quality rest.
2. Hydrate before, during, and after drinking.
Making sure to stay hydrated when drinking helps the body to avoid the side effects of dehydration. It also helps to dilute the alcohol so that it is processed more slowly, making the release of stress hormones in the middle of the night occur more gradually. This makes waking in the middle of the night less likely to happen.
3. Pee before bed
This decreases the likelihood of night wakings as it increases the time before a person has to go to the bathroom again. The hope is that you’ll empty your bladder enough that you’ll not get woken up in the middle of the night. Alcohol also irritates the lining of your bladder, making you more likely to feel the urge to pee, which is another reason why you’ll want to make sure you’re hydrated and peeing before bed.
4. Get some movement during the day.
Physical activity during the day helps to reset your body’s sleep-wake cycle and helps your body to settle into sleep more easily. If you get exercise during the day, when you're planning to drink, it will help your body still know what the right time is to sleep, and it will calm your nervous system so it will be less impacted by the middle-of-the-night cortisol.
5. Stick to a consistent calming bedtime routine.
Keeping to your normal sleep habits, including the time you go to bed and your actual sleep routine and sleep environment, will help your body remember that this is the time it normally sleeps. It will help your brain and body calm down and feel better about drifting off to sleep.
Remember that you don’t have to do this all at once. Start by making one change at a time, and you’ll be able to figure out what makes the biggest difference in your sleep.
Can Alcohol Cause Chronic Insomnia?
Surprisingly, alcohol use can actually cause or contribute to chronic insomnia and other sleep abnormalities.
Regular alcohol use can interfere with the brain's ability to sleep. And when drinking becomes a habit, you may start to notice that you can’t get to sleep without it, even though, as we discussed earlier, it interferes with the quality and longevity of sleep.
Many of our clients would end up in a situation where they couldn’t get to sleep without a drink, but would then notice that they were waking more frequently in the middle of the night. So the pattern they were stuck in made it feel impossible to get quality sleep.
If you're caught in this cycle, your sleep isn’t going to be off forever. It just might take some effort and time to help your brain learn how to rest again.
Insomnia After You Quit Drinking
When you quit drinking alcohol, your insomnia may increase for the short term. Many of our clients find that their sleep problems increase for a bit before they start to improve.
What’s happening is the brain has started to rely on alcohol’s sedative effect to get to sleep. In the short term, it can mean that it can take longer to fall asleep without it. It may take the brain a bit to recalibrate after the alcohol is removed.
It’s also important to mention here that if a person has an alcohol use disorder, they may experience more insomnia for a longer period because of the body’s alcohol dependency.
We actually recommend that individuals who have become dependent on alcohol seek help with the initial process of quitting, as sudden withdrawal could cause dangerous side effects.
In fact, alcohol withdrawal insomnia is part of the initial stages (the acute withdrawal syndrome) of quitting drinking. This is where insomnia can be very intense as alcohol is clearing the body. This is one of the most common alcohol withdrawal symptoms and one that may require medical intervention.
Many recovering alcoholics find that it can take anywhere from months to a year or two for the body to readjust after coming off alcohol if there is a true physical dependency. The insomnia symptoms are a part of the long-term recovery process.
After stopping your alcohol intake, you might want some support in learning how to sleep again. Keep reading to learn how to get that support.
When It’s Not Just The Alcohol (And You’ve Tried Everything Else)
You may have tried everything we’ve mentioned, including decreasing or stopping your use of alcohol. And yet, you're still struggling to fall asleep or stay asleep throughout the night.
You might be thinking that you will never get a good night’s sleep again or may have to turn to sleep medication.
You may have even tried sleeping pills, but they didn't help, or the common side effects were too much.
Evening alcohol use may be masking other factors that make it hard to sleep at night. When alcohol is no longer being used for sleep, our clients often realize that when they get into bed, the stress of the day is all-consuming. Or overthinking gets out of control.
Without alcohol, memories of past traumas or things that the person would prefer to forget keep coming up over and over again. It might also feel like the body just can’t calm down and relax.
Many clients realize that the alcohol was masking all of these problems, and they return to the belief that they’re not good sleepers. This then contributes to more sleep anxiety.
If this is happening to you, it doesn’t mean that you're a bad sleeper; it just means that you might need more support to start getting some good sleep. It might be time to get some professional help with insomnia treatment to overcome your poor sleep.
CBT-I Can Help You Get Restful Sleep Again
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) targets all of these reasons you might be struggling to sleep and more. CBT-I is one of your best treatment options as it tackles the root of your sleep struggles, like beliefs, behaviors, and underlying issues that are getting in the way.
Together with your therapist, you will help your body learn to rest again. You’ll learn to find safety in sleep and trust your body to help you get there.
CBT-I is more than sleep hygiene and relaxation techniques; it’s collaborative therapy to help you get to the underlying cause of your insomnia, so you don’t have to mask these problems with alcohol.
Rhythm Wellness Can Help You Get Better Sleep
If you have decided that it’s time for a change and you aren’t sure what the next step is, reach out to Rhythm Wellness. Not only can we help you determine if you need to seek the support of Alcoholics Anonymous, another type of alcohol recovery support group, or a treatment center for substance abuse and medical supervision. We can also help you determine if CBT-I is right for you.
We'll show you how to stop your alcohol insomnia so you can move on with your life. Your first step is to schedule a free consultation with Rhythm Wellness.
