Sleep is essential to every human being, and especially in college students. Students have a million and one things going on from clubs, to studying, to class, all while trying to maintain a decent sleep schedule. In addition to all of the different academic elements of a college student’s life, they’re trying to maintain an adequate social life as well. College students try and make sleeping a priority, often times through naps. They also try and make having a social life a priority, often times by drinking alcohol. So, how do the two affect one another? Well, alcohol definitely has its affects on sleep in more ways than one.
Some people may use alcohol to help them sleep. In a recent survey, 28% of insomniacs reported that they use alcohol to improve their sleep. When ingested by normal individuals, alcohol can help someone fall asleep faster, but its keeping them asleep that is a different story. “Alcohol is metabolized rapidly and blood concentrations are negligible by the middle of the night for most individuals who have a few drinks prior to bedtime, often resulting in withdrawal symptoms thereafter.” Sleep is interrupted by multiple awakenings, nightmares, sweating, etc. when one goes through withdrawal of alcohol during sleep. Due to these interruptions in sleep, it cuts down one’s overall sleep time resulting in a much shorter night’s sleep.
In a study on how alcohol affects sleep, researchers used an EEG to examine the effects in adolescence. The subjects were 18 to 21 year old female college students. There were 24 participants who were all female social drinkers. Some were given presleep alcohol and some were given placebo, and then both were given standard polysomnography followed by EEG recordings. In conclusion, the alcohol increased slow wave sleep-related NREM delta power. However, the alcohol interfered with sleep due to increased delta activity. Basically, the subjects were able to fall asleep well, but staying asleep was the issue from so many sleep interruptions due to alcohol consumption.
This study did a good job by having some subjects be the control and some be the experimental by having some consume alcohol before sleep and some take the placebo. This is a good idea because it will create clearer results because the experimenter can easily compare the results in sleep of those who consumed alcohol and those who did not. Also this study is a single-blind because the researcher knows which subjects are getting what, but the subjects do not know if they’e actually getting alcohol or the placebo, which prevents any participant bias. On the other hand, the subjects being studied may be too narrow of a group to produce reliable and trustworthy results. The only age group being studied here is 18 to 21 year olds. To make these results more reliable, the researcher needs a much larger variety of age ranges into adulthood and elderly age. Additionally, only females are being studied here. Males should be included because females are not the only college students who socially drink at this age, and men should be accounted for as well to see how alcohol affects their sleep.
People need to be able to balance sleep and other tasks while being awake. Yes, having a social life is important but sleep is just as important if not more. To ensure a good night’s sleep reduce your alcohol intake for sweet dreams.
Although I have never used alcohol to help me fall asleep, this was definitely a relatable topic for us Penn State students. You did a nice job at presenting the study and then analyzing and applying it to the concepts we have learned in class. I agree that the study could have broadened its participants to both genders and a wider range of ages. I think it would also be interesting to see if the study took into account what kind of alcohol brand was given to each participants to see if some had stronger effects than others. However, it is still important to not use alcohol as a sleeping aid. Here are some alternative solutions I found that are better to turn to when having trouble sleeping.
I have totally used alcohol to help me sleep – little did I know it was making my mind wired instead. This blog was very informative. All college students need to read up on this topic. Sleep is important and we can not have an actual good nights rest by letting alcohol, or even coffee and sweets disrupt the neurotransmission functions of your brains. Beer can really make someone tired and want to fall asleep. Although you are correct – they will wake with terrible dreams or just have an overall unsettling rest! I agree highly on the statement in which there should be a wider range of people in this trial. Ages 18 to 21 works for a college test, but this also affects other ages. In addition, it affects the other gender. Hopefully they will do a study on this in the near future and you can elaborate your thoughts!
I never thought of alcohol being bad for someone to sleep. But after reading about the trial, I can see how it does affect it. I agree with you though, they should have used males in the trial as well. Another trial that could be done could be here at Penn State. Get 20 males and 20 females, 10 of each use alcohol and the other 10 do not before bed. Then they should be monitored overnight to see how well they sleep. Also what should be added which was not is how they feel in the morning, reacting to the alcohol/no alcohol. That would be interesting to see. In this article they speak about how alcohol and sleep do not go well together.
I really enjoyed this blog because it was super relatable to college students. My friend’s mom used to tell me that his mom drank alcohol before bed to help her get to sleep, but little did she know that it could be counterproductive. I definitely understand that alcohol helps you fall asleep, but it cuts down on REM sleep, which is what our body needs. We learned this in psych class. However, you can catch up on REM sleep, which is called REM rebound. So the next time you fall asleep, you will go quicker into REM sleep because you need that. I definitely agree with your statement, “to make these results more reliable, the researcher needs a much larger variety of age ranges into adulthood and elderly age.” The study that you described only used 24 participants. They need to include a larger age range, as well as a larger number of people in the study to make their findings more accurate!
You do a very good job explaining your thought process. You make the study very easy to understand. I find it very helpful that not only did you explain the positives from the study, but also the downfalls of it. However, I would try and incorporate more studies next time. We know from class that we can’t draw conclusions from just one study. However, overall this was a really well-written post and definitely might make people change some of their habits!
I really enjoyed this article. My one friend always jokes about never dreaming after a night of drinking, quoting “You did all this to me, and now you expect me to entertain you?”. Makes you wonder if there isn’t something chemically happening that prevents you from getting a good night sleep. Social Drinkers, who aren’t alcoholics, I feel also get bad sleep after drinking heavily. I read that Alcohol actually affects your REM sleep, preventing you from getting into that deep deep sleep where you wake up feeling relaxed and refreshed.