Does Hydration Affect Sleep?

Does Hydration Affect Sleep?

The tossing, the turning, the frustration. Is there anything worse than a sleepless night when you just want to get a good night’s rest? If you’re not sleeping well and aren't sure why, the answer might be as simple as how much water you’re drinking throughout the day. While you might not have thought about it before, dehydration and sleep are more closely linked than you realize.

The Importance of Hydration for Sleep

During the day, staying hydrated improves your brain function and cognition. Adequate fluid intake helps to improve focus and energy levels and wards off migraines. Going to bed hydrated means that you’re less likely to have brain fog and headaches, which can help you have a more restful sleep.

Dehydration and lack of sleep can be a vicious cycle. Even mild dehydration can throw off your body’s natural rhythm, which results in bad sleep and feeling sluggish the next day. Sleepiness during the day then leads to higher chances of dehydration during the daytime. The key is to make sure you’re hydrating during the day to avoid this pattern at night.

Dehydration and Sleep Quality

So, does dehydration affect sleep? Staying hydrated is important for your overall health as water plays a crucial role in so many of your body’s natural functions. This includes getting restful sleep at night. Research shows that if you're dehydrated you’re less likely to sleep well and experience quality sleep throughout the night. One study showed that adults who slept six hours or less each night had lower hydration levels than those who slept eight hours.

One factor that impacts dehydration and sleep is the hormone vasopressin. Your body releases it when you’re in deep sleep to increase water absorption in your kidneys. It’s released little by little as you sleep so that you don’t have to wake up to drink water during the night, resulting in less sleep disruption. Inadequate hydration during sleep can cause your mouth and throat to dry out, which can wake you up and cause an interruption in your sleep cycle. 

Can You Become Dehydrated While Sleeping?

The link between dehydration and sleep deprivation is real since your brain takes its cues from your hydration status. When your body temperature starts to rise, like when you’re sleeping in a hot room, you’re brain sends a message to your body to create sweat to cool you down. Night sweats over a period of time can lead to fluid loss. Sleeping in high temperatures is also uncomfortable, so experts recommend an environment that’s between 60°F and 70°F.

You lose water during the night through natural functions, such as breathing. When you go for long stretches without drinking, like during sleep, you usually wake up thirsty. This is your body’s way of telling you you’ve gone through dehydration during sleep and it’s time to replenish your liquids. To fight this, you can drink water in the hours leading up to bedtime, but be careful not to drink too much, as waking up at night to use the bathroom is another sleep disruption.

The Link Between Sleep Disruptions and Dehydration

Poor sleep quality or a shorter sleep duration are linked to higher chances of dehydration. In fact, people who sleep poorly and feel fatigued or have headaches in the morning may find that dehydration is actually the culprit, not just the lack of sleep.

This may go back to the hormone vasopressin. At night, your pituitary gland uses this hormone to tell your kidneys to hold water in, releasing more of it later in your sleep cycle. If you wake up early or frequently, less vasopressin reaches your kidneys. This means your kidneys don’t get the message to hold in water and you can wake up dehydrated.

Improve Sleep and Hydration With These Effective Strategies

So, how can you improve both your sleep and enhance your hydration at the same time? The simplest answer is to hydrate throughout the day by hitting your target water intake. Staying hydrated means drinking 35 mL of water per kilogram of body weight throughout the day. This keeps your body running at peak performance and ensures that you don’t need to drink too much water before bedtime to avoid being thirsty at night. In fact, you should stop drinking water about an hour before bed.

Frequently Asked Questions About Hydration and Sleep

By now, you have a good idea as to how dehydration affects sleep, so it's time to hydrate smarter throughout the day. Piurify’s Hydrogenator Bottle and Hydrogenator Pitcher infuse regular water with hydrogen. This gives your water antioxidant properties that you can’t get from plain old water. Hydrate the right way with the power of hydrogen-infused water throughout the day to set yourself up for a night of restful sleep. Check out Piurify’s line of hydration products to up your hydration game and improve your beauty rest.

How does dehydration affect sleep?

Dehydration can affect your sleep pattern and wake you up during the night. 

What are the signs of waking up dehydrated?

If you wake up feeling immediately thirsty, have muscle cramps, a headache, or dry skin, you should start drinking water to rehydrate [BetterUp].

Can drinking more water help you sleep better?

Your body doesn’t rehydrate as you sleep, which is why it’s even more important to hydrate throughout the day. Setting a hydration goal and schedule can make rehydration easier to remember and achieve.

Does dehydration cause snoring or sleep apnea?

Dehydration can cause your mouth and throat to dry out and thicken your mucus, which makes it harder to breathe and can lead to snoring. More worrying is the fact that chronic dehydration has been linked to sleep apnea. This is a sleep disorder that causes you to stop breathing while sleeping, and this condition can have serious side effects. 

How does dehydration affect sleep quality as we age?

Even though it’s not a direct link, research shows that older adults sleep for shorter periods and have more sleep disruptions. As we know shorter sleep durations are linked to dehydration.

Is it possible to rehydrate during sleep?

Your body doesn’t actively hydrate during sleep, but the above-mentioned tips can help you better hydrate before sleeping so that you retain more water.

Do electrolytes help you sleep?

Your body needs electrolytes to rehydrate. While sports drinks and hydration enhancers are hydration trends that are good options for replenishing following heavy workouts, there’s no real reason to replace water with a sports drink, especially before sleep.

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