Journey to the Sunnyside

Sleep updated
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[00:00:00] Welcome back to Journey to the Sunnyside. I'm Mike Cardenbrook and on today's 10 minute Monday, I'm going to go to our listeners where in our weekly emails, we ask for feedback on topic ideas for future podcasts, and I'll be answering. I'd love to hear a podcast about people who lean on alcohol as a sleep aid and struggle with insomnia on nights when they don't drink.

So if you struggle with sleep, you're going to want to tune into this episode I have a personal connection to this because that's actually was a big struggle for me back when I didn't have control of my drinking and in this episode we're going to uncover why this happens and how you can improve your sleep while still enjoying in moderation a couple glasses of wine maybe in the evening or go out and still hit happy hour and have this mindful drinking approach without it totally disrupting our sleep or something that we rely on.

And so I want to start this episode with sharing my own personal experience, and I've mentioned this in [00:01:00] other episodes, and I'm pretty open about all of my past here. And one of the things that I used alcohol for was for sleep. It was not only the way for me to mark the day's end. And what I noticed was if I had a certain amount of wine, I would make it through the whole night.

Of course I would wake up feeling tired, groggy, but I would sleep through the night. And if I didn't have that amount, what would happen is it like two or three in the morning, I would wake up heart pounding. I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep. And that was pretty miserable in itself. And then my other experience would be, all right, I'm not going to drink tomorrow night.

And so the next night would come and without the wine, I would have a really hard time sleeping through the night. A lot of the times I would be able to fall asleep, but it was I was waking up every single hour and That was pretty miserable in itself. So it was like, okay, if I drink too much, I wake up feeling [00:02:00] crappy.

If I drink and don't drink enough, I wake up in the middle of the night. And then if I don't drink anything, I'm waking up all night long. And it was just this vicious cycle. And I know that a lot of people have written in and actually expressed the same thing happened. And so I wanted to talk about it here.

Maybe not exactly, but I think one of those three instances, many people have probably had that themselves. And let's talk about why that happens. And the big part is that alcohol has a sedative effect. It's a depressant and it depresses our central nervous system. And this lets us fall asleep. And even though we're sleeping, it reduces our REM sleep, it disrupts our natural sleep cycles, our whole body's out of whack, and that's why we wake up feeling like we really didn't get a night's sleep, even if it did kind of knock us out, so to speak, for the whole night.

What happens though, the reason you're getting up at 2 and 3, is because your body has this rebound effect, where the brain becomes more hyperactive after the alcohol [00:03:00] sedative effect starts to wear off. And even your cortisol levels could start to rise and there's even metabolic things going on as far as your blood sugar and a multitude of things because alcohol really does just throw us off.

And so that's why a lot of the times when you're drinking, your entire circadian rhythm, your sleep schedule gets thrown off and you wake up and then that is also coupled in with a lot of times there's anxiety. So that's. Difficult, but that's what's going on is basically your body's trying to rebound, trying to bring itself back to homeostasis from the alcohol.

And the reason that many times, if you're not drinking the following day, it's really hard to get back to sleep and get back into your rhythm because there's just not enough time. Your body is still working to get back to normal. Just because you're not drinking that night. It's just not enough time. So Unfortunately that [00:04:00] leads to a cycle that happens and people say I can't sleep without it Even if your sleep is crappy people will just I know that I did Got some peace being able to at least turn the lights off even if I woke up feeling crappy And then they say, I'm tired of feeling crappy when I wake up and then you can't sleep, which is a whole other miserable experience.

And so it's really about recognizing, okay, this is really what's going on. It's longer than one day, the next night. And actually, depending on how long you've been drinking, it could be. Several nights, it could be even a couple weeks or longer, depending on the amounts that you're drinking, for how long, and of course, your own genetics and how you respond to alcohol in your life.

So let's talk about some practical tips that you can do to minimize the impact when we are still drinking mindfully. and still enjoy it without totally disrupting our sleep. So the first one is to realize the amount that you're drinking. There are quite a few [00:05:00] studies that cite different numbers, but one that always stood out to me was that past one drink, every drink that you have after that decreases your sleep quality by 20%.

And usually what I'm seeing out there is the magic number is that once you have more than then you really are probably going to start to have some issues with your sleep. And so if you can stick to around two, probably three for a man or less, then you'll be setting yourself up for more success. Number two would be to set a cutoff time.

So you want to stop drinking at least three to four hours before it's time to go to bed. This is going to allow the alcohol to metabolize and you're going to have that rebound effect. Number three would be to hydrate and replenish. So. Balance out the alcohol intake with water, replenish nutrients. You can take things like magnesium.

That's going to help calm your nervous system. And specifically, [00:06:00] magnesium glycinate is probably the most bioavailable form that can help you. First of all, it's going to help with your sleep. It also is going to replenish some of those minerals that you lost in the diuretic effects from alcohol. And then another one on even non drinking nights is you want to create this sleep friendly environment, use things like blackout curtains.

You want to have a cool room temperature. You could use things like a white noise machine. Those all can improve your sleep quality. And of course, a consistent routine as in going to bed and waking up at the same time, this is going to help regulate your internal clock. And then I'm going to throw in one that I started doing years ago that has made a big difference.

And that is. Reduce screen time in the evenings, TV, computer, cell phone, but then also around your house. If you're going into your bathroom to brush your teeth and you're turning that light on and just flooding your eyes with really bright light. Right before you can get in bed that can [00:07:00] actually disrupt your sleep.

So you can either think about doing those nightly routines with kind of like a nightlight or a soft light. Or brush your teeth before, you know, you're gonna go get in bed. Maybe an hour before, you sit down, you read, or do something quiet, and you have already brushed your teeth at that time, and you shut the book and go get in bed, or you're reading in bed.

That, I think, has made a big difference for me. I know, I kind of sound like a grandpa saying that, but the truth is, it does work. And then one other one that I'd like to add in, especially on those nights, if you wake up in the middle of the night, that I found that works really well for me is I use an app that will do meditation.

So if I woke up in the middle of the night and I just can't get back to sleep, a lot of times in the past, I'd lay there and just in my own head, my own thoughts, and then it just kind of spirals and gets out of, Out of hand at that point. And what I found worked [00:08:00] really well was I use one called slumber.

There's a couple other apps, no affiliation to them. Of course, that one just does a bedtime story, kind of like an adult bedtime story. They also have meditations or guided meditations in there. And that kind of. frees my mind from getting into that overthinking mode and allows me to fall back asleep. So those are a few practical tips that you can do on both the nights where you're going to have a couple drinks and then the nights when you're not having drinks.

And I want to part with just saying that don't think about alcohol in terms of, oh, I can't sleep without it because it's actually the reason that it's causing And so if you really want to get back to normal sleep, it might be something for you to think about taking a break and just allowing your body to get back into that sleep rhythm.

And then when you come back to having drinks in moderation. You're doing things like keeping the amounts low [00:09:00] with plenty of time before you go to sleep, and then staying consistent with those other routines that I mentioned here. So I hope this has been helpful. I hope this kind of explained a little bit of things if you've actually been going through any of what I mentioned or my own personal story.

And I hope your holidays are going great, and I'll see you in the next lesson. Cheers to your mindful drinking journey.