If you are in the first few days: Insomnia is a symptom of alcohol withdrawal. So, you might not yet have noticed a big improvement in sleep quality.
It is well known that getting drunk significantly reduces sleep quality. You surely already know that sleep is important for maintaining good health. In this post, I'd like to introduce a sleep process that you probably didn't learn about in school: The Gylmphatic System
Chances are good that you weren't taught about the glymphatic system because it was only discovered in the past ten years. In short, the glymphatic system is your brian's sytems for removing toxins during sleep. While you sleep, your brain cells shrink in size while remainig in place. They squeeze toxins out of their in cells and into the cerebrospinal fluild in the spaces formed around them. If don't want to read through pages of articles about the system, check out this 6 second video of the system in action.
Hopefully, this adds some new appreciation to the added sleep quality that staying away from booze gives you. In addition to helping ward off dementia later in life, you'll wake up better rested than ever. If you've been boozing a lot before, within a week of sobriety and good rest you may start of have mornings where you wake up say "woah" from a deepest sleep/brain cleanse that you've had in a long time. Yesterday was the first day of my challenge to have that experience. :)
@Native @carnold03 @Chempergrill @Donky_punch @psymin
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[–] Native 0 points 5 points 5 points (+5|-0) ago
Fantastic post and yes, I slept like a champ last night Joe Rogan actually had a great interview with a sleep expert that I would recommend like you said three of the most interesting insights:
Alcohol, drugs and marijuana inhibit sleep. Which is a contradiction for many boozers feel like they have really good sleep when we drink and have incredible dreams. Here is actually what happens if you sleep for 8 hours and lets say that you had 6 drinks, you will spend 6 hours of your sleep detoxing and your brain won't be able to get into REM sleep then finally once your body is free of alcohol your brain will enter REM however because it has been delaying REM for 6 hours your brain will go into level 10 REM for the remaining 2 hours and that's why many people experience these powerful dreams. Problem is that it's not enough time to cycle through
If we don't get enough sleep it increases the risk for dementia because our brains don't have the time to detox and so the negative chemicals compound in our brains.
We never get our sleep back. We can NEVER recover from a bad nights rest. Let's say that you had only 5 hours of sleep one night and decide to sleep for 10 hours the next night to make up for the night before, it doesn't cancel out. Just because you got an extra 2 hours the next night it doesn't magically add 2 hours to the 5 previously.
[–] Chempergrill [S] 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
Thanks man. That's a great summary and I'm glad you're sleeping well. #1 really hits home on the experience of drunk-sleep for me. I'll need to check that video out.