1. How does alcohol impact sleep?
Most growth hormone (GH) is secreted during sleep. Recovery depends on it.
Three alcoholic drinks reduce the GH increase during sleep to one-fourth of what it
would normally be. Six alcoholic drinks reduce it to zero. Thus, while about one drink
(particularly red wine and beer), depending on your body weight, provides health
benefits, more than two, and definitely three drinks can seriously curtail your training
recovery. I myself drink some (~1/2 glass) of red wine or dark beer with dinner most
days. Red wine is especially healthy because of its anti-oxidant content, whereas beer
is high in folate, the vitamin that restricts homocystein production from alcohol intake
(if the levels of homocystein rise, as occurs when you drink alcohol not high in folate,
there is increased risk for cardiovascular disease).
2. What is a hang over?
A combination of poor sleep and dehydration. Alcohol may help you fall asleep, but
it keeps you from falling deep enough into sleep. You can end up waking feeling more
physically tired than if you had not slept at all. Rather than a night of training recovery
you will have spent a night breaking down muscle tissue which in itself will take time to
recover from.
Most growth hormone (GH) is secreted during sleep. Recovery depends on it.
Three alcoholic drinks reduce the GH increase during sleep to one-fourth of what it
would normally be. Six alcoholic drinks reduce it to zero. Thus, while about one drink
(particularly red wine and beer), depending on your body weight, provides health
benefits, more than two, and definitely three drinks can seriously curtail your training
recovery. I myself drink some (~1/2 glass) of red wine or dark beer with dinner most
days. Red wine is especially healthy because of its anti-oxidant content, whereas beer
is high in folate, the vitamin that restricts homocystein production from alcohol intake
(if the levels of homocystein rise, as occurs when you drink alcohol not high in folate,
there is increased risk for cardiovascular disease).
2. What is a hang over?
A combination of poor sleep and dehydration. Alcohol may help you fall asleep, but
it keeps you from falling deep enough into sleep. You can end up waking feeling more
physically tired than if you had not slept at all. Rather than a night of training recovery
you will have spent a night breaking down muscle tissue which in itself will take time to
recover from.
© Clyde F. Wilson
Sleep and Alcohol
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