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What Causes What
MECHANISM− DECREASES

Alcohol intake → Sleep duration and regularity

Higher Alcohol intake decreases Sleep duration and regularity.

Evening alcohol, 1.0 grams per kilogram in men and 0.85 in women, cut total sleep time from 436.6 to 421.3 minutes and sleep efficiency from 91.2 to 88.0 percent in thirty-one social drinkers on a randomized crossover with overnight PSG.

Review · High confidence

Supported by an experiment or a tightly identified design. Read the caveats.

Mechanism

Pabon, Greenlund, Carter, and de Wit ran a randomized crossover in thirty-one social drinkers, fifteen men and sixteen women, mean age 25. Each person drank alcohol (1.0 g/kg in men, 0.85 in women) or a juice placebo from 8 to 9 pm, a month apart, then slept under PSG from 11 pm to 7 am. Peak breath alcohol was 0.10 percent. On alcohol nights, total sleep time was 421.3 minutes against 436.6 on placebo. Sleep efficiency was 88.0 percent against 91.2. REM was 16.5 percent of the night against 20.0. N2 was 54.2 percent against 51.4. Mean nocturnal heart rate was 65.0 against 56.4. Sleep latency, arousals, awakenings, N1, and N3 did not move. The drink felt like a sedative. The record was shorter sleep, less REM, more light N2, and a faster heart. Evening sedation tracked the extra N2 (r = 0.5). Those sleep and heart-rate shifts did not track mood or task scores the next morning. Emanuele and Emanuele reviewed heavy drinking and the male reproductive axis. That paper is here because alcohol is the lifestyle exposure that comes before sleep, not because it recorded a night of PSG. Spiegel, Leproult, and Van Cauter restricted sleep in eleven young men. Evening cortisol rose and glucose tolerance fell. That protocol is the downstream sleep night, not an alcohol-plus-PSG night.

Caveats

Pabon is one high dose on one laboratory night. The sample is thirty-one social drinkers around age 25 who reported a binge in the past six months and no alcohol-use disorder. Women were not on hormonal contraceptives. The authors combined sexes. The lab was quiet. Latency and awakenings did not change. Morning mood shifts were modest. Digit span was better the next morning, which the authors did not treat as a settled benefit. Emanuele 2001 is a review of the male HPG axis, not a sleep trial. Spiegel 1999 is a restriction protocol in eleven men, not alcohol plus PSG. Heart rate rose on the Pabon night; it is not the target of this edge. These minutes are one trial, not a dose curve for a glass of wine.

Effect

qualitative. One 1.0 g/kg night (0.85 in women) cut TST from 436.6 to 421.3 min and efficiency from 91.2 to 88.0%. REM down, N2 and nocturnal HR up.

Nodes

Lifestyle & environmentAlcohol intakeLifestyle & environmentSleep duration and regularity

Cite this page

What Causes What. “Alcohol intake → Sleep duration and regularity.” https://whatcauseswhat.org/edges/e-alcohol-sleep (atlas updated 2026-09-02).

https://whatcauseswhat.org/edges/e-alcohol-sleep

Papers