Real-world effects of alcohol on heart rate, sleep, and physical activity by age and sex
Research article
Summary
The researchers set out to understand how a night of alcohol consumption changes heart rate, sleep, and next-day physical activity in everyday life, and whether these changes might differ by age and biological sex.
Using data from nearly 21,000 adults who wore a wearable sensor, the researchers compared each person’s nights with alcohol to their own nights without alcohol.
After consuming alcohol, resting heart rate during sleep was higher, heart rate variability was lower, people slept less, and they were less active the next day.
These dose-related changes were larger in females than males, and larger in younger than older adults.
The researchers also looked for simple habits that might lessen these effects. Consuming alcohol earlier in the day, getting more sleep after consuming alcohol, and keeping exercise lighter on alcohol consumption days were each linked to smaller adverse effects.
The study findings offer population-level evidence that even low volumes of alcohol use can affect nightly recovery and next-day physical activity, and offer practical guidance to lessen some of the adverse effects of alcohol consumption for people who decide to engage in alcohol use.
Meaning
This study provides large-scale, real-world evidence that alcohol consumption, already at moderate levels, disrupts overnight cardiac autonomic function, impairs sleep, and attenuates next-day physical activity.
These effects were more pronounced in females and younger adults, but importantly, were moderated through simple behavioral strategies.
At the population level, the study findings support evolving public health recommendations that emphasize minimizing alcohol intake, while also offering simple yet effective guidance to mitigate health impacts when alcohol consumption does occur.
Abstract
Alcohol consumption acutely disrupts physiology and behavior. Yet, the modifying effects of age, biological sex, and health behaviors are not well understood.
In this retrospective cohort study, the researchers analyzed 5,109,185 person-days from 20,968 participants and fit generalized additive models to estimate within-person associations between alcohol intake and nocturnal resting heart rate (RHR), heart rate variability (HRV), sleep duration, and next-day physical activity.
Models were stratified by age and sex, and adjusted for alcohol consumption frequency, body mass index, weekday/weekend, and season, and accounted for between-person differences via person-mean centering.
The researchers also assessed whether alcohol use earlier in the day, longer post-alcohol consumption sleep, and reducing physical activity attenuated disruptions.
Acute alcohol consumption was linked with dose-dependent increases in nocturnal RHR and reductions in HRV, alongside decreases in sleep duration and next-day physical activity. These changes were more pronounced in females than males and in younger than older adults: consuming one alcoholic drink more than personal average, compared with one less, was associated with an increase in RHR by 2.8 bpm in females and 2.4 bpm in males, while HRV declined by 3.8 ms in females and 3.3 ms in males.
Consuming alcohol earlier in the day, obtaining longer post-alcohol consumption sleep, and reducing activity each reduced these effects.
Alcohol consumption acutely disrupts cardiovascular regulation, sleep duration, and next-day physical activity, with stronger disruptions in females and younger adults. Behavioral modifications may mitigate these disruptions.
Funding
This work as supported by WHOOP, Inc. through salary support provided to authors GJG, WvH, DMP, FF, JK, CC, and KEH. No specific grant numbers are associated with this work. WHOOP, Inc. (https://whoop.com/) provided general institutional support but had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.