Property Developers Push for Open Drinking on City Streets

Educating patrons to safer alcohol drinking habits

Robert Pomplun servingalcohol.com 

Five expert-backed tips for having your drink and sleeping later too: How Alcohol Messes With Your Sleep - And What You Can Do About It

 Five ways to protect your sleep from that last glass of wine before bed.

Source: HuffPost

Abigail Cuffey

July 10th

1. Allow three to four hours between drinking and hitting the sheets. If you plan to crawl into bed at 10 p.m., be sure to finish that glass of wine by 7. (It takes your body about three hours to metabolize 8 ounces of wine, Dasgupta says.) Of course, the exact time may vary depending on your size, your gender and your alcohol intake. Alcohol tends to affect women more acutely, according to Carter, who suggests a four-hour window for women and men alike.

2. Use the "two for one" rule. Guzzle two glasses of water for every alcoholic drink. This will help your system flush out the alcohol, Carter says. (Drink even more water if you're having wine or a sugary drink, since your body will need to flush out the alcohol and the sugar.)

3. Cut the cava. Bubbles can cause bloating and gas, which distend your stomach, providing more surface area for alcohol to be absorbed (and mess with your sleep), according to Dasgupta. Similarly, think twice about drinks with fizzy, carbonated mixers.

4. Drink with food ? and pay attention to your alcohol intake. Doing your drinking and your eating at the same time is a good idea because you're typically munching on meals a few hours before bed, which allows more time for your body to metabolize and more time for you to squeeze in those crucial glasses of water. But there's a catch: Eating will slow the "hit" of the alcohol, Carter says, so you might actually end up drinking more to feel the buzz.

5. Always abstain if you're taking sleeping pills. Medications like Ambien and over-the-counter drugs like Benadryl don't mix with alcohol, says Dasgupta. Alcohol is a respiratory depressant (that is, it makes breathing hard), and a majority of sleeping aids work on the same receptors in the body that alcohol does, which means you're suppressing your ability to breathe even more. Hence, alcohol amplifies the effects of the sleeping pills, which can be quite dangerous.

It's important to note that alcohol worsens sleep disorders. More than 18 million adults have sleep apnea, a condition in which breathing is interrupted during sleep, according to the National Sleep Foundation. Since alcohol results in extra breathing difficulties, it's a double whammy for the health of anyone with the disorder, according to Dasgupta. Booze can also increase the symptoms or effects of parasomnia (sleepwalking) and restless legs syndrome. So if you have any of these conditions, you'll want to be extra careful with your consumption.