When it comes to sleep, alcohol may as well be coffee...

[elfs]

Under the headline of "What gets measured gets managed," I've been taking notes on what I eat and drink and do, in order to figure out what works and what doesn't with respect to getting a good night's sleep.

Here's what I've learned: to get a decent night's sleep, I must stop all caffeine by 4pm, possibly earlier. That's not a surprise, a lot of people tell you that.

I was annoyed to discover that I must also cut off all alcohol by 7pm. Any alcohol at all, even one glass of wine, after that appears to disrupt the first REM cycle by a significant amount.

Since my REM cycles are about 130 minutes long, that means that I lose 1/3rd to 1/4 of my useful sleep period. That's not good. So, lovely, I can't even have that useful glass of wine at night. Not if I want to get a decent night's sleep.

I did try the so-called "elephant tranquilizer": Step into the shower set to ALL COLD just before jumping into bed. Great Cthulhu's Ghost, that worked. As shocking as the experience might seem it wasn't that painful, and when I got under the covers I fell asleep instantly.

Comments

[shunra.livejournal.com]

In me, the alcohol thing is age-related. If I have even one glass of wine, my sleep is horrible (interrupted, dream-filled with the most disturbing, and I wake up irrevocably at an ungodly hour, usually 2-3 hours before the normal wakeup time.)

It didn't use to work that way.