Previously, many doctors advised when insomnia take a glass of cocktail or wines before bed. From this method have long refused, but many people still take alcohol as a sleeping pill. What, in addition to the obvious danger of alcoholism, is bad, this method of fighting insomnia?
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Some people believe that the portion of the alcohol in the evening helps them relax and fall asleep faster, but others after it can not sleep at all. Practically all people after 1-2 gland, drunk in the evening, sleep is restless and intermittent. Instead of sleeping hard, the man wakes up for the night many times. Sleep after taking alcohol always turns out to be shorter.
The dose of alcohol, which is contained in a glass of cocktail or wine drunk at lunch, or in a glass of afternoon liqueur, is unlikely to stay in your blood until the night to call insomnia, but a glass, drunk 1-2 hours before sleep, this is another matter.
You can check it on yourself. If you are accustomed to do this, drink 1-2 glasses of alcohol before bedtime, and the next day, write down how they spent the night and how they felt during the day. Next week do not eat alcohol in the evenings at all and see how the dream will be and how you will feel. After that make your choice.
If every evening you usually drink a few glasses and it is difficult for you to stop immediately, you can refuse alcohol gradually. Try to restrict ourselves to one glass, then, in a few days, go to portions with a lower alcohol content and gradually completely eliminate alcohol, replacing it with fruit juice.
So, if you hope that the alcohol will contribute to your sleep, know about the dangers waiting here. First of all, alcohol worsens sleep quality, and, moreover, you can develop alcoholic dependence. Many patients with alcoholism recognize that they started drinking regularly to better fall asleep.
In challenging chronic alcoholism, sleep characteristics are sharply different from the norm. As a rule, sleep is very disturbed, there are hundreds of arguments for the night often. In such patients, it was noted «Premature aging» Sleep: Many awakening, shortening or lack of delta sleep, reduction of sleep periods with BDG, intermittent and surface character sleep, often increase in total time staying in bed, disordering daily rhythm sleep-wake, sometimes excessive day-to-day sleepiness. These unpleasant manifestations are preserved for many months and even years after the person stopped drinking. Anomalies in sleep characteristics have both children whose mothers consumed alcohol during pregnancy.
In some people, alcohol causes or strengthens sleepy apnea (respiratory stop episodes during sleep), which is sometimes manifested only in the form of a strong snoring or suggestion, but in some cases can threaten a person's life, especially if he has chronic lungs or heart disease. Alcohol worsens the situation, causing the relaxation of the throat muscles and suppressing the wake-up mechanisms.
At University Pcs. Florida in Gaynesville was held such an experiment. In 20 men aged 20 to 65 years, the characteristics of sleep were recorded in an hour after receiving 4 glasses of vodka. The number of episodes of sleepy apnea increased after such a dose of alcohol 5 times. «With diseases of the heart and lungs, even moderate alcohol consumption before bedtime is risk» - Scientists from Florida came to this conclusion.
In some cases, patients with chronic alcoholism with a refusal of alcoholic insomnia for a while may be aggravated - frequent awakening arises, anxiety, nightmares. Sometimes such patients start drinking again to get rid of insomnia associated with the cancellation syndrome. A vicious circle is created.
However, if the chronic patient continues to refrain from alcohol, its sleep can dramatically improve for 2 weeks, although with significant severity and duration of alcohol addiction it may be necessary for a longer time.
It happens that the dream is restored extremely slow - even after 2 years of complete abstinence, it may still be worse than in healthy people. In some cases, sleep is not normal at all. It is unclear whether such violations are reflected in irreversible damage to the brain alcohol, or the dreams have always been bad, and they began to drink, trying to resolve this problem. Please accept the fact that to get rid of the insomnia associated with the abolition of alcohol, you will leave a lot of time, perhaps years; If you find it difficult to cope yourself, please contact a specialist.
Bill Cynes, 48-year-old car trader, bachelor, was a very sociable guy, loved to eat and drink. He was never married, but he always had a girlfriend. Being an optimist, he created in 1980. new enterprise, bigger than followed. After some time, the demand for his products fell. For 6 months, Queens went bankrupt. Girlfriend left it. Now he ate and drank alone and added 11 kg in weight for 2 months.
Cyens have worsened sleep. At night, he often woke up, and in the morning climbed with difficulty. At first it seemed that it was just because of the hangover. But bad well-being and day drowsiness continued. The doctor considered that insomnia is possible, associated with stress, and wrote off.
However, with the beginning of the reception of tablets, the dream worsened even more. Queens woke up more and more often and then could not sleep for a long time. Double dose of sleeping bag aggravated the situation. Now in the afternoon I wanted to sleep, that it became impossible to work by the seller in the company, where Bill got up after he lost his company. In addition, there were problems with a heart - he felt that arrhythmia, then heartbeat.
Return to the city of the former girlfriend, probably saved Queens life. They decided to spend time along the old memory, and she was shocked by seeing. A man who 4 years ago was always firmly sleeping at night, now woke up literally every minute, at the same time gasping and catching the mouth. In addition, he grumbled and rushed in bed like a fish, pulled out of water. The woman led him to the center for the treatment of sleep disorders, where he was diagnosed with sleepy apnea.
Alcohol + sleeping pills = danger!
In this case, insomnia, it was quite possible, was first caused by stress. However, when Cynesproved, he had a tendency to sleep apnea. Alcohol consumption led to an amplification of apnea, so the patient began to wake up often, the swallow air. Then he began to take sleeping pills, and since they suppress respiratory activity, respiratory disorders during sleep intensified. The combination of factors such as an increase in body weight, the use of alcohol and sleeping pills led to severe sleepy apnea syndrome, as a result of which the cardiac arrhythmia developed.
Remember most important rule: never take alcohol with sleeping pills. Such a combination can lead to serious side effects and even to death.
Treatment should have first eliminated the most acute problem. After a surgical operation to get rid of the apnea, our patient began a long way to restore former health - passed a course of treatment from alcoholism, then gradually refused to sleep. Finally, we picked him a course of exercise to reduce body weight. Now, after another 4 years, this man sleeps firmly.
