Have you ever wondered how alcohol impacts your blood-sugar levels and you sleep?
As the screenshots of my blood glucose levels and sleep pattern last Friday night demonstrate, even modest consumption of alcohol can materially disrupt our blood sugar and sleeping patterns.
Here are the key observations:
👉 The only time my blood glucose has been out-of-range all week was between 00:30 and 01:30 overnight on Friday (as per the red line above)
👉 The only thing I did differently was to have a few drinks on Friday evening (one beer at 6pm, one at 7pm and a glass of wine at 8pm)
👉 This blood-sugar low caused my liver to release a lot of glucose to get me back in-range, which then caused an elevated my blood sugar at 02:00 am
👉 This rise in blood sugar increased my ‘wake-function’ and directly corresponds with me waking up in the middle of the night (much earlier than normal)
This phenomena is well documented. While your liver is busy processing alcohol, it stops releasing glucose. As a result, your blood sugar level can drop quickly, putting you at risk for low blood sugar.
Whilst it may be surprising that only a few drinks can have such a noticeable impact, this is a great example of how understanding our individual biorhythms (and the way our eating, drinking, exercising and sleeping patterns affect us individually) can provide really tangible personal insights.
If you are interested in learning more about your biorhythm and what you can do about optimising it, please send me a DM!