Alcohol’s Impact on Sleep: A Worsening Factor for Sleep Apnea

Also, try to avoid drinking at least two or three hours before bed (though several hours is typically better). This can help give your body time to metabolize the alcohol before bedtime to help reduce the risk of alcohol affecting your sleep. Keep in mind that even a small amount of alcohol can make OSA worse, so try to time alcohol consumption so that you’re sober when you go to sleep. Most studies assessed alcohol consumption by self-report eco sober house review using a standardized questionnaire; one study measured alcohol dependence used International Classification of Diseases (ICD-9) codes [13]. The remaining five studies did not provide additional information about how alcohol was quantified [25], [28], [29], [42], [46]. Ten of the 31 included studies reported alcohol consumption as a binary exposure, comparing any intake with no intake [5], [24], [25], [27], [28], [29], [34], [39], [42], [47].

As a result, less time will be spent in the deep sleep phase and more time in the active REM phase. This reduction leaves you feeling less rested, groggy and can affect mood, memory, and overall cognitive function. Yes, consuming an alcoholic beverage is an everyday occurrence worldwide, but if you have been diagnosed with a sleep disorder like Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA,) it may not be the wisest choice. Today, we’re answering 5 questions regarding drinking alcohol with OSA.

Alcohol increases the risk of sudden death

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That can contribute to snoring (the vibration of soft tissues) and complete obstruction that occurs in sleep apnea. Alcohol consumption leads to missing several REM cycles, which leaves your mind sleep-deprived. The REM cycle restores your brain while deep sleep restores your body. Since alcohol can put you directly into a deep sleep, it gives off the sensation of having had a restful sleep, but you can wake up mentally exhausted. This is why staying asleep for more than a few hours after drinking can be difficult.

STOP-Bang Score for Obstructive Sleep Apnea

Multiple studies have found that alcohol use increases a person’s apnea-hypopnea index (AHI), which measures how many times per hour a sleeper’s breathing pauses or becomes restricted. Drinking alcohol has also been tied to reduced blood oxygen levels in people with OSA. For anyone with sleep apnea, alcohol consumption can make the condition worse on the nights they drink, and leave you feeling even more exhausted in the morning. When you have a night of poor sleep due to obstructive sleep apnea, you may experience a severe drop in blood oxygen levels and a dangerous rise in carbon dioxide in the body. The latest clinical research shows that drinking alcohol, especially close to bedtime, leads to a higher AHI rate (that means you stop breathing more times per hour) and lower oxygen saturation in your blood. This can cause not only snoring but also sleep apnea — ultimately lowering the overall quality of your sleep.

• Continuous effect measures were estimated as mean differences (MD) with 95% CI.
• Apnea episodes can occur hundreds of times every night – after about 10 seconds of poor or no breathing, your brain is alerted to wake you up to breathe.
• The prevalence of OSA in the USA has been estimated at around 15% in men and 5% in women for people aged 30–70 years [7].
• If you think you have SA, take our sleep apnea risk quiz or order a sleep apnea test from our clinic.

Plus, we’ll share what Michelle Worley, Director of Clinical Operations at Aeroflow Sleep and Registered Nurse, has to say about your nightcap when you have OSA. It doesn’t matter if you have one drop of alcohol or several glasses. The tiniest amount can impact your sleep and cause you to snore at night. If you https://sober-home.org/ find yourself snoring every time you drink alcohol, it’s no coincidence. Those who attempt to withstand this condition without medical assistance put themselves at risk of negative health repercussions. The effects of sleep apnea are highly uncomfortable and may become more dangerous as the condition worsens.

Can Alcohol Consumption Cause Obstructive Sleep Apnea?

The relationship between alcohol and sleep apnea is most clearly established in people with obstructive sleep apnea. But alcohol use is also linked to other types of sleep-related breathing disorders and snoring. People with sleep apnea snore and snoring is exacerbated by alcohol intake prior to bedtime.

This can cause vibrating of the soft tissues, leading to snoring. When you drink alcohol, the effects on your airways can also lead to an increase in snoring. Observational studies in multiple countries have analyzed whether people who drink alcohol are more likely to have OSA. A meta-analysis of these studies found that OSA was around 25% more common in heavier drinkers compared to non-drinkers or lighter drinkers.

It happens when your airways repeatedly become completely or partially blocked during sleep, usually because the soft tissue in the back of your throat collapses. During these episodes, your diaphragm and chest muscles work harder than normal to open your airways. This can affect your sleep, lower the flow of oxygen to your vital organs, and lead to abnormal heart rhythms. The good news is you’ve already taken control of your health and sought help in the form of CPAP therapy.

Does Alcohol Affect Other Sleep-Related Breathing Disorders?

It does not appear that drinking causes obstructive sleep apnea, but the effects of excessive alcohol use can create conditions that lead to sleep apnea. Alcohol use is unfortunately common in people with sleep conditions as some people find that alcohol use is the only way they can “relax” enough to get to sleep at night. However, even if you are “falling asleep” it doesn’t mean that your alcohol-induced slumber is actually the type of restful and restorative sleep that you need.

As one of those factors, alcohol can change your sleep architecture. Keeping you in a certain stage longer could prolong snoring or make it worse. But when alcohol enters the picture too close to bedtime, you increase your chances of snoring and disturbing others. This study followed 793 OSA patients, separating them into people that no longer drank and those that currently did.

What occurs during sleep?

If the title of this blog sounds like a typical Friday night for you, you are not alone. Regardless of how much you know about any of these three things (alcohol, snoring, OSA), you may not know how closely tied together they are. If you struggle with any of these three issues, please read on to learn more about their fascinating connection. Alcohol also changes the way your body progresses through sleep stages. Since you’re more likely to deal with apnea during REM and heavy sleep, prolonging sleep in these stages could aggravate OSA.

Before you pour yourself a drink at night, take a moment to think about the effects alcohol can have on your sleep apnea. Although it’s best to avoid a nightcap entirely, following the tips outlined above will keep your drink from hampering your shuteye. Researchers highlight that further studies examining the long-term effects of drinking are warranted.

This sleep-wake pattern is most recognizable by the snoring and grunts that occur when struggling for breath. Researchers have been studying how alcohol affects sleep for nearly a century. Because alcohol acts as a depressant on the central nervous system, its sedative effect can help you relax and fall asleep faster. But once alcohol metabolizes in the body, it disrupts your sleep and interferes with the vital processes during the deep sleep cycle. For the nearly 30 million Americans who suffer from sleep apnea, alcohol can worsen the severity of this sleep health disorder.

• Drinking alcohol is linked to trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, or waking up too early, also known as insomnia.
• Your REM (rapid eye movement) stage is where you not only dream but achieve the most restorative sleep to help your brain function properly the next day.
• Sleep apnea is a sleep disorder that causes breathing to repeatedly stop and start while you sleep.
• And we firstly showed that there was gender difference in the effect of alcohol on OSA and AHI in Chinese population.

More recent studies have shown that the “relaxing glass of wine” may be doing more harm than good. Not only could it be making it harder to get a good night’s sleep, but it could also be making you so relaxed that you sleep too deeply. After about the first hour and a half of sleep your body falls into a REM cycle, but alcohol can actually reduce the effectiveness of that sleep stage or even skip the first cycle. This is when you dream and it’s considered the most restorative sleep state. Typically there are six to seven cycles of REM sleep which is combined with deep sleep cycles (learn more about sleep basics here).

ES wrote the search strategy and undertook the literature searches, and wrote the draft of the manuscript. ES and JLB undertook study screening, data extraction, and quality assessment. JB and JLB provided critical revisions to the article, and all authors approved the final version of the article to be published. Forest plot of the association between levels of alcohol consumption in people with and without OSA. Binge drinking is defined as five or more alcoholic drinks for males or four or more for females on the same occasion—enough to raise your blood alcohol concentration to 0.08% or higher.

The effect can be worsened by alcohol’s tendency to relax all muscles, making waking up more difficult. We searched Medline, EMBASE and Web of Science databases from 1985 to 2015 for comparative epidemiological studies assessing the relation between alcohol consumption and sleep apnoea. Random effects meta-analysis was used to estimate pooled effect sizes with 95% confidence intervals (CI). Heterogeneity was quantified using I2 and explored using subgroup analyses based on study exposure and outcome measures, quality, design, adjustment for confounders and geographical location.

Alcohol can affect people with both types of sleep apnea, known as obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and central sleep apnea (CSA). Evidence suggests that patients with OSA who drink regularly often experience negative effects no matter what time of day they drink. As such, if you drink on a regular basis and are at risk for OSA, you may need to quit drinking or at least cut back on your consumption. This machine sends air pressure through a mask while you’re asleep. This air pressure is greater than that of the air around you, which helps keep your upper airway passages open to stop apnea and snoring. If your CPAP mask is uncomfortable, talk to your doctor about other options to help you sleep well.