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Comment by bitexploder | Hacker News Reader

Avoid alcohol before bed. In any quantity. It is incredibly disruptive to sleep cycles. You will fall asleep, but quality is not good. There is a reason many studies use it to disrupt REM.

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> Avoid alcohol before bed.

Avoid alcohol, period. Your body and mind will thank you.

But good wine is delicious, so do enjoy alcohol (in moderation).

It is delicious but no amount is safe.

https://www.npr.org/2018/08/24/641618937/no-amount-of-alcoho...

Yes, understood. There are many things in life for which no amount is safe.

So do drink wine in moderation, if you enjoy it like me. Wine is one of the finest things in life. Coffee also is.

A joyless life of maximum safety is not worth living.

That is a good conclusion, I agree.

> It is incredibly disruptive to sleep cycles.

Extremely apparent too. It'll put me out real fast, but I'll be awake in a few hours and then repeat a few more times till the sun is up and you gave a splitting headache.

What is the time of day, before which, it is possible to drink a glass of wine and not have REM significantly disrupted?

I think you need a couple hours per unit (a 5% ABV beer, etc). You have ti have fully processed the alcohol and given your brain chemicals a little time to settle down. So you could conceivably drink a few beers or glasses of wine during the day and stop in the early evening and be mostly fine. But right before bed if it hits your first sleep cycle it is kind of a disaster because the whole first cycle alpha, to beta or however it sequences gets messed up and a lot of people float between REM and deep sleep without getting either in the first half of their sleep (assuming its 8 hours).

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