Drinking Alcohol Makes It Easier To Fall Asleep: True Or False?

"A lot of people think that alcohol helps them sleep, and in fact, it does help us fall asleep faster," Nishi Bhopal, M.D., a psychiatrist specializing in sleep medicine, explains to mbg. While booze will affect everyone differently, Bhopal says it typically reduces our sleep latency—the time it takes for us to fall asleep. (Sometimes dramatically, which is why it may feel like you fall asleep as soon as your head hits the pillow after a night out.)

This is because while alcohol has stimulant effects, it also has sedative qualities. Researchers still have questions about how exactly alcohol interacts with our brains and central nervous systems, but Bhopal explains that it seems to affect two key neurotransmitters: gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) and glutamate.

GABA is an inhibitory amino acid neurotransmitter, meaning it helps us relax and calm down.* Its counterpart, glutamate, does the opposite. It's an excitatory neurotransmitter that's active during the day. In a healthy system, GABA and glutamate are constantly balancing each other out.

While alcohol may help us doze off faster, its benefits end there. Bhopal explains that over time, as the calming effects of GABA wear off, we typically experience an upsurge in glutamate, which can make us feel awake and alert. If you're drinking before bed, this often happens exactly when you don't want it to: In the middle of the night.

"That initial sedative effect then wears off and what happens is you start waking up," Bhopal says. "It also disrupts and suppresses REM sleep during the night, so overall it has a negative effect on sleep architecture and sleep quality." By jolting us out of those deep sleep stages like REM, alcohol robs us of some of the key benefits of sleep: memory consolidation, mental restoration, and emotional processing. This can leave us feeling groggy, emotional, and out of it when we wake up after a night of drinking—even after spending a lot of time asleep.

Research suggests that to give your body enough time to process alcohol, you should stop drinking four to six hours before bed. Bhopal notes that abstaining from drinking during this window is not realistic for many people, so her advice is to pay attention to how alcohol affects your personal sleep quality and energy levels.