It is anything but “sleep” with alcohol

JB
October 30, 2015
Janylbenyl, Randoms
4 Comments

Hey Lovelies

I made a huge mistake the other day. I had an unwanted insomnia and I instantly knew I had to do something about it. I had a lot on my mind that was just kicking the sleep away and I knew I would pay dearly for it the next day. I needed to get to work early the next day and I was sure to be extremely busy the whole day too. There are days when insomnia could be tolerated, that wasn’t just it.

I remembered something I used to do a few years back when I was running away from a lot of realities. I would get a little alcohol and sleep would sweep me away in no time. Before then, I could not stand alcohol at all. I was a total mess when it came to alcohol and I just knew how to stay away from it. Fast forward a few years after, I could handle one or two glasses of wine and I kept it at that.

This particular night, I was home alone and was stuck with a whole bottle to myself. I popped it open, took one too many glasses with the singular intent of forcing myself to sleep.

I couldn’t sleep. I was drowsy and sleepy, but the sleep was just tormenting. I am not sure how to explain it, I know I could say I slept but it also felt like I was aware of everything that happened around me. I also noticed that I woke up a lot the whole night. It was bizarre!

What started as me wanting to force myself to sleep early so I can feel refreshed the next day ended up as the biggest mistake ever. I felt worse in the morning.

The next day, I decided to google it. (So good to know that you can google everything btw)

What I found was interesting. So apparently, when you have alcohol before sleep time, it kinda messes with your sleep pattern because it doesn’t allow you to achieve the Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep. Normally, when you fall asleep, you stay in the non-rapid eye movement (nREM) phase for a couple of minutes after which you go into the REM phase. The REM phase is where you get to sleep deeply and enjoy the sweet and beautiful dreams 🙂

When you take alcohol before sleep time, it becomes hard to reach the Rem phase. What you will have instead is the nREM.

If I had allowed myself to sleep normally, I wouldn’t have slept early, but I would have fallen asleep eventually and I would have had quality sleep as opposed to the long and tormentful one that I had. It was the most turbulent sleep ever. At some point, I think I took a taekwando class in my sleep, taught a Tai Chi one and ran a marathon LOL

So happy it’s finally weekend so I can catch up on some much needed sleep.

Have a good one Lovelies

Love always