Dr. Matt Walker

The danger there is that many of those awakenings with alcohol, you don't remember because they're too brief.

But then you wake up the next day and you think, well, I didn't have a problem falling asleep.

I didn't have a problem staying asleep.

but I just feel rough.

I just don't feel restored by my sleep.

And you don't add two and two together.

The final concern with alcohol is that it's quite a potent blocker of your rapid eye movement sleep or REM sleep.

And in subsequent episodes, we'll go into great detail as to the incredible learning and memory creativity benefits that come by way of REM sleep.

Also, it's essential for our emotional regulation and recalibrating our moods.

So for all of those reasons, I would say two things.

First, if you are struggling with sleep, not feeling restored by your sleep, keep in mind your alcohol intake.

And also just in general, be mindful of that if you are thinking about your sleep and want to preserve it.

I love that notion of, and people will often say, I just get up, I go to the couch or the sofa, and that's where I'll wake up in the morning.

Also, they'll say, when I travel and I go to a hotel room, I just can sleep fine.

Now, for some people, it's the inverse, but for those people, it's the contextual difference, meaning the change of the environment is so unfamiliar that it has not been bound to the association of wakefulness.

It's related to sleep or at least the opportunity to sleep.

Sometimes, even I've heard from some people, and there's no studies or data on this,

Even turning yourself around now, this is hard if you have a partner in bed, but you just switch top to bottom of the bed and you take your pillow and you pull the duvet all the way down and you put the pillow at the opposite end where your feet used to be and you get into bed.

And even just looking around and sort of having a difference, that alone is so subtle, but it can make a real difference.

So again, just keep these things in mind.