38 replies to this topic

[dunbar]

I have been drinking wine before bed daily for years now.
I feel bad about it. But the thing is without my pre-bed wine I have a hard time sleeping.
When I go to bed I want to be really tired and I also like the feeling which the wine creates.
Without it I lie in bed and then think about depressing things.
Daily alc is probably not very healthy even though I read that 1 drink per day is okay.
But what also worries me is the question what alc before bed does. What if it inhibits the release
of growth hormone at night? That would be bad.
I wish there was a sleeping pill which creates the same feeling which you get from 1-2 glasses of wine.
You feel so light, like a feather.

Edited by dunbar, 04 January 2014 - 12:11 AM.

[olaf.larsson]

I dont think you need to be worried as long as you dont start drinking more. There is some evidence that drinking little alcohol is beneficial for your cardiovascular health.

I dont think anyone can give you an answer if there is any difference drinking before sleeping compaired to drinking at other occations.

[theconomist]

1 to 2 red wine glasses a day may actually be beneficial for you. There's lots of research on(moderate) alcohol consumption and health .

[platypus]

How about drinking that wine 3 hours before bedtime? If you drop a melatonin at sundown and take care of not getting any blue light in your eyes, you should get naturally sleepy anyway. Drinking that wine so close to bedtime is deteriorating the quality of your sleep afterwards so it would be better to try to wean yourself off that crutch.

[spirilla01]

I´ve been doing the same for some years now, 2-3 glasses at night and yes, it did concern me quite a bit. But thing is, I sleep perfectly with wine and and a timed released 750mcg melatonin.
Sometimes , I stop drinking wine for a few weeks, and I always don´t feel I sleep so good .

[Next]

I love beer. I've been drinking about 1 every 2 days. I don't think I can change this despite the fact that I have a good friend who is a twin. He brews his own beer and drinks 4-5 drinks a day twice a week sometimes more. Myself and other friends notice differences in their youthful appearance. This may also be attributed to diet however.

Anyone else like this?

Edited by Next, 04 January 2014 - 10:35 PM.

[niner]

I have been drinking wine before bed daily for years now.
I feel bad about it. But the thing is without my pre-bed wine I have a hard time sleeping.
When I go to bed I want to be really tired and I also like the feeling which the wine creates.
Without it I lie in bed and then think about depressing things.

This last part seems like the real problem. You're using the alcohol to medicate away these depressing thoughts. If you could find a different way to deal with these things, then maybe you would be able to sleep without alcohol. Sometimes that means changing things in your life, which can be painful. Other times there are things we can't change, but we can change the way we think about them. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy might be useful there. It doesn't sound like you're drinking a huge quantity of wine, assuming the glasses are not too big. Health problems are probably related to how drunk you get.

I like alcohol, probably a little too much.

[dunbar]

Hi,
no I cannot find another way to deal with my issues. I cant escape them. They are there.

Alc 3 hours before bed would not help me. I need it right before bed to become tired and sleep.
No I dont drink more. I do not tolerate alc very well. If I drink too much I feel miserable or wake up during the night and my heart races.
I usually drink 1-2 glasses. But I worry how unhealthy this is on the long run and also how it affects sleep.
I imagine that alc affects the release of hormones during the sleep. This is probably bad. What if it inhibits HGH release?

I have melatonin at home but havent yet tried it. Could you take this and still drink alc?

Do you really feel melatonin? Is it strong?
I tried 25mg agomelatine in the past and it made me a bit sleepy.

[YOLF]

How about drinking that wine 3 hours before bedtime? If you drop a melatonin at sundown and take care of not getting any blue light in your eyes, you should get naturally sleepy anyway. Drinking that wine so close to bedtime is deteriorating the quality of your sleep afterwards so it would be better to try to wean yourself off that crutch.

TVs produce lots of that blue light and will keep you up at night too. FYI

[YOLF]

Hi,
no I cannot find another way to deal with my issues. I cant escape them. They are there.

Alc 3 hours before bed would not help me. I need it right before bed to become tired and sleep.
No I dont drink more. I do not tolerate alc very well. If I drink too much I feel miserable or wake up during the night and my heart races.
I usually drink 1-2 glasses. But I worry how unhealthy this is on the long run and also how it affects sleep.
I imagine that alc affects the release of hormones during the sleep. This is probably bad. What if it inhibits HGH release?

I have melatonin at home but havent yet tried it. Could you take this and still drink alc?

Do you really feel melatonin? Is it strong?
I tried 25mg agomelatine in the past and it made me a bit sleepy.

Melatonin is very powerful, it's the stuff in your brain that puts you to sleep and alcohol IIRC induces melatonin production. Melatonin must be taken 2 hours before bed or it will help you sleep in rather than sleep. The studied dose is 300mcg to aid with sleep. More and it won't work as you'll develop a tolerance to it and eventually will be dependent on it to get to sleep. If that happens, Stay up for two days without sleeping and then fall asleep naturally.

[Brainy]

I think sleep goes like this, you need to change the wave-lenght in your brain. I had trouble falling asleep for years before... about 4 years ago i started to listen to positive hypnosis tape before going to sleep. I listen to this guy walking me down step by step 20 stairs with the sound of the ocean in the background. Within 30 mins you are deep asleep. But the main thing is to realize in which state your brain is when you listen to the tape. Anyways i listen to 2 or 3 different hypnosis tape every night for about 3-4 months and after that it was periodicly when i couldnt fall asleep. Now i NEVER had a problem falling asleep. i go to bed close my eyes and i fall asleep. I have full control on my sleep. You can get those audio session on audible.com or other website that sells audio recording. put it in your phone on speaker.

[dunbar]

Only 300mcg melatonin is needed?
But then why do they sell melatonin from 1-10grams?
The stuff I have contains 0,5gr melatonin.
Then I guess I start with 1 tablet.

I can also sleep without alcohol but I dont want to. When I go to bed I want to be really tired and fall asleep fast + I like the feeling
which the alc creates. It relaxes me before going to bed. I enjoy this. In fact I feel best during this time of the day before going to bed.
Then my problems dont seem to affect me that much. I dont want to miss this.

I'm scared of hypnotic messages.

Edited by dunbar, 10 January 2014 - 06:46 PM.

[Darryl]

Alcohol also appears to have a J-curve dose response for all cancer mortality. It appears to be working as a hormetin, inducing xenobiotic/antioxidant response and heat shock response transcriptomes.

The most interesting cellular mechanism for me is induction of aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 (ALDH2), which clears both acetaldehyde, the initial metabolite of alcohol, and also other reactive carbonyls (including those resulting from oxidative stress, lipid peroxidation and early glycation products).

Its the acetaldehyde, rather than alcohol, that mediates most harmful effects. There was an interesting study that compared alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) genotypes with alcohol induced breast cancer risk. Those who metabolized alcohol to acetaldehyde quickly were at much higher risk. Heavy drinkers with less active ALDH2 are at much higher risk of stomach cancer. If the acetaldehyde, which forms DNA adducts, is the main carcinogenic agent, then those expressing fast ADH/slow ALDH2 would be a much higher risk from a given alcohol intake than those with slow ADH/fast ALDH2 genotypes. Incidentally, more active forms of ALDH2, which reduce the severity of aversive hangovers and flushing, are strongly associated with alcoholism. Perhaps hangovers offer a useful gauge of how much genetic damage one is doing.

There are other ways of inducing aldehyde dehydrogenase 2. Lipoic acid works, as do other Nrf2 inducers. Probably best to drink your Nrf2-inducing hangover cure (may I suggest rosemary & and turmeric seasoned broccoli sprout puree) before your binge.

[dunbar]

I dont binge, I drink 2 glasses wine maximally.

[Sinter]

Hi,
no I cannot find another way to deal with my issues. I cant escape them. They are there.

Alc 3 hours before bed would not help me. I need it right before bed to become tired and sleep.
No I dont drink more. I do not tolerate alc very well. If I drink too much I feel miserable or wake up during the night and my heart races.
I usually drink 1-2 glasses. But I worry how unhealthy this is on the long run and also how it affects sleep.
I imagine that alc affects the release of hormones during the sleep. This is probably bad. What if it inhibits HGH release?

I have melatonin at home but havent yet tried it. Could you take this and still drink alc?

Do you really feel melatonin? Is it strong?
I tried 25mg agomelatine in the past and it made me a bit sleepy.

Yes, its probably not healthy to be so stressed. I think thats the real issue you need to fix. Have you tried meditation?

Edited by Sinter, 04 February 2014 - 09:01 AM.

[dunbar]

No. The issue with meditation is that it's connect to eastern mysticism and I'm not into that.
I don't think there is neutral meditation which you can simply separate from the whole eastern stuff.

[bracconiere]

What the doctors look at are MCV,MCH,AST/ALT,GGT, hepatic, renal panel. might some other ones too, but that's what I've learned so far.

[nupi]

No. The issue with meditation is that it's connect to eastern mysticism and I'm not into that.

Repeating it does not make it any more true, really. Kabat-Zinn's material is about as disconnected from any religion/philosophy as can be.

[niner]

No. The issue with meditation is that it's connect to eastern mysticism and I'm not into that.
I don't think there is neutral meditation which you can simply separate from the whole eastern stuff.

I hate to do a "me too" post, but nupi is right. This is really a profound error. Meditation can be totally separated from the whole eastern stuff, although there's really nothing wrong with the eastern stuff. I suppose meditation came out of an Eastern tradition, but so what? It is what it is. It works.

[dunbar]

Ok, then can someone explain me what to meditate on when you remove the eastern stuff?
I mean do you still sit there trying to empty your mind or what exactly do you do?
And do you have to do stuff like trying to control your breath or chant mantras or make ommm noises?

[nupi]

Ok, then can someone explain me what to meditate on when you remove the eastern stuff?
I mean do you still sit there trying to empty your mind or what exactly do you do?
And do you have to do stuff like trying to control your breath or chant mantras or make ommm noises?

How about you go read about it yourself instead of making up ridiculous excuses?

[timar]

And do you have to do stuff like trying to control your breath or chant mantras or make ommm noises?

Breathing exercises are actually key to meditation. You can skip the mantras etc. but such hypnotic, repetitive patterns can help to induce a trance-like state of conciousnes. It's easy to make fun of it if you have never really tried such techniques.

I highly recommend Andrew Weil's audiobook Breathing: The Master Key to Self-Healing. It follows an integrative approach to breathing techniques, drawing from recent neuroscience as well as from ancient schools of meditation. The first CD is devoted to theory and gives an explanation of how intricately breathing is linked to the somatic nervous system (owing to the remarkable fact than it is controlled both voluntary and involuntary) and our state of mind and the second CD teaches simple but powerful, no-frills breathing techniques.

Edited by timar, 06 February 2014 - 09:50 AM.

[dunbar]

But this is exactly what I don't want.
I don't want anything which is connected to esoteric stuff and I also don't want to get into any trance.
I simply think that you cannot separate these things. I mean those who invented the whole breathing stuff also
linked it with mysticism right? Then you can't simply do the breathing exercises only and avoid all the theories
behind it.

[PWAIN]

Dunbar, you come across as someone who doesn't actually want to deal with the problem but rather just justify what you are doing to your self.

You are using alc as a crutch so you don't have to try deal with your problems. Thats fine if you are willing to bear the consequences. If not, then you have been provided with some alternatives.

Maybe it is time to step out of your comfort zone....but then that is for you to decide.

[niner]

Then you can't simply do the breathing exercises only and avoid all the theories behind it.

Actually, you can. Meditation is a thing that works, if you do it right, regardless of what you believe. It's just a technique for quieting the mind. If you want to go farther with it, that's really your choice, but you can certainly make use of it for health benefits and nothing more.

[bracconiere]

All this anti-alcohol talk on a site with a "nootropics" forum, legal speed.

[timar]

But this is exactly what I don't want.
I don't want anything which is connected to esoteric stuff...

Then better never use the Pythagorean theorem, as Phythagoras was a well-known mystic. Generally, you should stay away from mathematics or chemistry, which have been intimately connected to mysticism and alchemy, respectively, until the 19th century.

[theconomist]

All this anti-alcohol talk on a site with a "nootropics" forum, legal speed.

That statement demonstrates the extent of your knowledge of nootropics.

[platypus]

No. The issue with meditation is that it's connect to eastern mysticism and I'm not into that.
I don't think there is neutral meditation which you can simply separate from the whole eastern stuff.

Meditation is exercise for the brain, ignore the eastern connotations.

[dunbar]

What can meditation do for a person?
Can it make you feel good even though everything is simply terrible and you know it?

How shall I "deal" with problems such as being sick which I cannot deal with?
I have stuff which is simply incurable. I wish I had something which I could deal with and solve.