Does Alcohol Affect Your Sleep? This is How Neurofeedback Can Help.
With a mixture of COVID and the holidays keeping us at home, it’s been an easy escape to run to alcohol for most of us. You may have formed some new habits that you aren’t loving to pass the time. If that’s the case, then it might be helpful to learn how this affects your sleep patterns. Many people are losing sleep and energy from drinking alcohol without even realizing it. Let’s take a look at how reducing alcohol levels and neurofeedback training can improve your sleeping habits.
Let’s Talk About REM Cycles
There are 4 different cycles that your body is supposed to repeat 4-5 times throughout the night. Each cycle consists of different speeds of your heartbeat and breathing. As you get to the third cycle, your heartbeat is the slowest, and then speeds up again at the last cycle (which is where you are usually dreaming). The last cycle is the most important, and most of the time is usually spent here in the later rounds of the cycles. A lot of people believe that this cycle is the most restorative.
Alcohol can cause you to fall into a deeper sleep quicker, but for a shorter amount of time. This causes your body to have spent less time in the last, most important cycle. This is what causes you to feel tired throughout the day. (1)
How Does the Cycle Affect Me?
When you drink alcohol, you might feel tired throughout the day but not be able to fall asleep at night. That’s why some people continue to keep drinking at night so that they can fall asleep. They think that this will cause them to sleep better, but ultimately, it’s doing the opposite.
Insomnia is when you constantly cannot fall asleep, stay asleep, and are tired throughout the day. Sleep apnea is when it’s difficult to breathe at night. Nobody wants anyone to hear them snoring loud each night. (1)
How Much Alcohol is it Okay to Drink?
This is up to you, but it is considered moderate drinking when women have no more than one drink per day and men have no more than two drinks per day. Use your discretion as far as the alcohol content in each drink, but typically 5 ounces of wine can be considered one drink. It’s also helpful to stop drinking at least four hours before bedtime. (1)
Some Tips to Helping you Sleep Better
- Don’t use your phone or watch TV in bed.
- Regular exercise.
- Stay away from caffeine and alcohol before bed.
- Put your bedroom at a cool temperature.
- Try to maintain a sleep schedule of wakeup and sleep times. (2)
How Does Neurofeedback Help with Insomnia?
A number of quality studies have been published that show the effectiveness of neurofeedback in normalizing a patients sleep patterns without the use of any medications or alcohol at all. Neurofeedback research is based upon the principle that insomnia is connected with what is called hyper-arousal within the brain and central nervous system. This hyper-arousal is bio-electrical, or brainwave based in nature. If you want to learn more about insomnia from our website, click here.
Neurofeedback is an innovative form of brain training that retrains brain waves through auditory and/or visual stimulation by simply watching a movie, listening to music, or playing a video game.
Neurofeedback works on a subconscious level, through a psychological process called operant conditioning. The brain is conditioned to reduce unwanted symptoms through positive and negative reinforcement. This form of brain training is an alternative and holistic form of treatment to medication. It is non-invasive, uses no medication, and is painless and long-lasting. With brain training sessions completed twice a week, which averages between 40-50 sessions in total, many clients can reduce or cease their medication usage once their brainwaves are retrained and functioning correctly.
If you are sick and tired of being tired and unable to sleep, please call us at (844) 272-4666 or fill out the contact box below to discuss your options with SYMMETRY Neuro-Pathway Training.
