Why does drinking make me tired

How Does Alcohol Disrupt Sleep? Good sleep health requires six to eight hours of continuous sleep, which drinking alcohol before bed makes nearly impossible Insufficient Sleep is Detrimental to Overall Health Regular drinking can become habitual and makes it harder to get to sleep than without drinking.

Inspire Malibu. Share on facebook Facebook. Share on twitter Twitter. Share on linkedin LinkedIn. Share on pinterest Pinterest. Recent Posts. Are E-Cigarettes a Gateway Drug? Read Post ». So, if you're drinking alcohol, ensure that you stop in plenty of time before going to bed to allow your body time to break down the alcohol. As well as this, the circadian rhythm is responsible for regulating mood.

Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that controls the sleep and waking cycle, and helps to keep us happy and energised. Regular alcohol consumption lowers serotonin levels in the brain. Low serotonin levels are linked to poor sleep and low mood. Alcohol also reduces melatonin levels. Melatonin is a hormone that is produced at night and it plays a key role in adjusting your body clock and helping you to feel sleepy.

Serotonin is converted into melatonin. As I mentioned above, alcohol consumption inhibits REM sleep, so this may affect your serotonin production, which could ultimately affect your sleep. Join Now. Consider taking Balance Mineral Drink if you're feeling tired and need a little boost. It has a tasty strawberry flavour and can be mixed with water or milk to give you a sensible dose of zinc as well as other energy-boosting nutrients like magnesium and vitamin D.

Read more customer reviews. Also available in the following size: 21 x 5. You may think that because you've drunk 3 glasses of wine or 3 pints of beer that you're sufficiently hydrated.

However, this is not the case! Alcohol can cause you to urinate more often, as it is a diuretic - a substance that increases urine production. Alcohol also decreases the release of vasopressin a hormone that regulates the amount of water in your body , which results in your body flushing out water much faster than normal.

This can cause dehydration which, in turn, can trigger headaches, which could impact your sleep and make you feel tired the morning after.

Also, if you're dehydrated and drink water to help your headache, you may need to urinate even more, which again interrupts your sleep with frequent bathroom trips, leaving you feeling tired the next morning!

So, again, avoid alcohol before going to sleep to prevent frequent trips to the bathroom! Furthermore, dehydration causes a build-up of acids in the body which the kidneys may struggle to process effectively. One of these acids is uric acid a product of the metabolic breakdown of purines. High levels of uric acid in the blood can lead to gout. Additionally, regular alcohol consumption can increase the risk of gout.

Symptoms of gout mainly include joint pain and swelling of the lower body joints such as the ankles. This can disturb sleep and again make you feel tired the next day.

Most alcoholic drinks tend initially to raise your blood sugar levels. However, these then rapidly decline as insulin is released, potentially leading to low blood sugar levels.

Symptoms of a hypo may include feeling dizzy, sweating and fatigue. The symptoms can be very similar to drunkenness, which could lead to confusion.

So, if you're diabetic and decide to drink alcohol, make sure that you carry hypo treatments around with you 15 to 20g of a fast-acting carbohydrate - for example, 3 glucose tablets.

At first, the drinks tend to make people feel super sleepy, but they then jolt those same people wide awake and make them jittery just a few hours later.

What's behind this odd effect? The answer has to do with alcohol's powerful effects on the central nervous system, said A. Alcohol enters the bloodstream quickly, usually within about 20 minutes of a person drinking it. It's a small molecule, so once alcohol is in the bloodstream, it can easily cross the blood-brain barrier and affect brain cells, known as neurons, Morrow said.

Related: Why do we sleep? In the brain , alcohol targets protein molecules, including GABA-A receptors, which are present on more than 80 percent of all neurons. Normally, these receptors are the destination for GABA gamma-aminobutyric acid , a neurotransmitter chemical messenger. Typically, GABA binds to these receptors and opens a channel, letting chloride ions move inside of neurons. Once chloride ions enter a neuron, they act like light-switch dimmers, slowing down that neuron's firing.

If neuronal firing drops too much, it can cause coma and ultimately death, she said. Alcohol enhances this effect, she explained.