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Q: A cocktail or a glass of wine helps me fall asleep on long flights. But are there any disadvantages to drinking on a plane?
After all the hustle and bustle of boarding and the effort of cramming your body and luggage into small spaces, a drink or two can do just the trick.
But the results of a small study published earlier this month suggest that there are some risks associated with consuming alcohol on planes, especially on longer flights when you’re planning to sleep. We asked experts about the new research and how it fits with what they already know.
How Altitude and Alcohol Affect Your Body
As a plane climbs, the oxygen levels in the cabin drop, and that causes the oxygen levels in your blood to drop, said Dr. Colin Church, a pulmonologist and senior lecturer at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. Drinking alcohol can increase your heart rate, he added, and it’s been shown to lower the oxygen level in the blood while sleeping.
The new study was the first to examine the combined effects of altitude and alcohol, said Dr. Eva-Maria Elmenhorst, a researcher at the Institute of Aerospace Medicine in Cologne, Germany, who led the study.
For the experiment, she and her colleagues recruited 48 healthy adults between the ages of 18 and 40. Half completed the study in a sleep lab with normal air pressure. The other half slept in bunk beds in a room height with an air pressure similar to that in an airplane.
Participants in both groups slept from midnight to 4 a.m. for two nights, one night sober and one night after drinking nearly four ounces of vodka, an amount of alcohol comparable to that in two beers or glasses of wine. They wore devices to measure their blood oxygen levels, heart rate and sleep stages.
The participants who slept at normal air pressure had an average blood oxygen level of 96 percent during the fasting night and 95 percent during the drinking night. But for those who slept in the altitude chamber, oxygen levels were 88 percent when fasting and 85 percent after drinking.
According to Dr. Ashish Sarraju, a cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic, says normal blood oxygen levels in healthy people are usually above 95 percent.
Regarding heart rate, the average during sleep at normal air pressure increased from 64 beats per minute when fasting to 77 beats per minute after drinking; and at a height of 73 beats per minute when fasting to 88 beats per minute after drinking.
Lower oxygen levels in the blood and an increased heart rate are evidence of strain on the cardiovascular system: the heart has to work harder to compensate for the drop in oxygen levels, according to Dr. Sarraju.
If you’re young and healthy, this kind of strain on your heart can make you a little tired, said Dr. Sarraju. But if you have a heart or breathing condition, such as heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or sleep apnea, it can make you dizzy and short of breath, and drinking can increase your chance of having a medical emergency during the flight, he said.
Alcohol is also dehydrating, which can slightly increase the risk of developing disease blood clot in your legs or lungssaid dr. Church.
How Drinking Alcohol on a Plane Can Affect Your Sleep
Alcohol is a depressant, so drinking close to bedtime can help you fall asleep faster, says Dr Alanna Hare, a sleep specialist and chair of the British Sleep Society. In the study, those who slept in the altitude chamber took an average of 19 minutes to fall asleep when sober, and 12.5 minutes after drinking.
But as your body breaks down the alcohol overnight, your “sleep quality really goes down,” and you wake up more often, said Dr. Bhanu Kolla, a sleep medicine physician at the Mayo Clinic. As a result, you’re likely to feel less rested the next day, he said.
In the study, participants who slept in the altitude chamber spent less time in deep and REM sleep than those who slept in normal air pressure. Alcohol further disrupted their sleep: They woke up more often, and compared to 22 minutes of REM sleep when sober, they logged 14.5 minutes after drinking.
Alcohol can also relax the muscles around your upper airway, causing snoring — and for people with sleep apnea, symptoms can worsen, said Dr. Kolla.
What to do on your next flight
According to Dr Sarraju, it is best not to drink alcohol before or during a flight, especially if you have a heart or lung condition or sleep apnea.
If you don’t have any of these conditions, one drink is probably OK, said Dr. Kolla. But pay attention to how you feel afterward: If “you don’t sleep well on the flight, and wake up with a headache,” you might want to avoid drinking alcohol next time, he said.
Instead of alcohol, Dr. Here are some alternative ways to relax. “Don’t put pressure on yourself to sleep,” she said. But make it easy on yourself. Bring a travel pillow and eye mask, and use earplugs or listen to calming music, noise, or a podcast with headphones.