[HN Gopher] Surprisingly little alcohol can affect heart rate va...
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Surprisingly little alcohol can affect heart rate variability
Author : patricksamy
Score : 134 points
Date : 2021-04-27 12:27 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.span.health)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.span.health)
| peter_retief wrote:
| I have stopped drinking alcohol completely for a few years and
| the benefits are noticeable. Good sleep patterns, higher energy
| levels, better concentration and emotional stability among the
| more obvious benefits.
| aksss wrote:
| My alcohol intake is down to about once a month, and that
| driven by social/networking type events. But similar results -
| it feels better to not drink than to drink.
| peter_retief wrote:
| I am from a family that considered drinking alcohol "normal"
| Drink with food at social gatherings and to wind down at the
| end of the day. My wife suggested that I quit completely, I
| never realised how it was affecting me until I stopped.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| At the end of the day alcohol is not good for your body. Even
| if the impact in minimal its always noticeable. Stopping made
| my life a lot better.
| blakesterz wrote:
| They close with this:
|
| However, a more critical review[0] of the epidemiological data
| that took into account genetic variants which impact the effect
| of alcohol intake on longevity shows that the described J-shaped
| relationship is not as robust as once thought. In conclusion the
| review simply states:
|
| The optimal level of alcohol intake for health and longevity is
| zero
|
| [0] https://academic.oup.com/ageing/article/49/3/332/5799035
| mumblemumble wrote:
| Great example of the hazards of trying to infer causation from
| epidemiological datasets.
| hypersoar wrote:
| The link doesn't refute the J-shaped curve, but rather that
| small to moderate amount of alcohol has health _benefits_.
|
| "Therefore, although there is a strong body of evidence that
| shows a J-shaped association between alcohol intake and
| mortality, it seems likely that the link between low-moderate
| intake and improved survival is not causal, and there is no
| 'safe' threshold intake below which drinking gives benefit.
| However, from an individual older person's perspective, low-
| moderate alcohol consumption carries only small risks, and
| these may be counterbalanced by the pleasure obtained from
| drinking."
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Or total/near-total abstainers may be so because of health
| issues. If small amounts of alcohol make you ill, you may not
| be great at handling other bodily assaults.
|
| Or abstainers lose out on job opportunities/social
| networking, end up in a lower socioeconomic class and lose
| lifespan because of the negative effects of that.
|
| Who knows.
| thinkharderdev wrote:
| The takeaway for me from the back-and-forth on alcohol
| consumption is that the effect size of moderate alcohol
| consumption on all cause mortality is close to zero. So
| whether or not you decide to drink alcohol in moderation
| should hinge on other factors. Do you enjoy having a glass
| or two of wine in the evening and suffer no noticeable ill
| effects the next day? Great, then have at it. Do you not
| enjoy drinking alcohol in any quantity or feel noticeably
| worse the next day even after one or two drinks? Great,
| then abstain entirely and don't worry about missing out on
| any alleged health benefits. Do you enjoy drinking alcohol
| but have a history of alcohol dependence in your family or
| find it difficult to stop at just one or two drinks? Maybe
| best to abstain.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| >The optimal level of alcohol intake for health and longevity
| is zero
|
| This is the conclusion of the most recent lancet study on
| alcohol and health. However, the lancet study comingles
| societal and personal health affects, which I find annoying
| (drunk driving, increased violence, etc)
|
| From everything that I've read, alcohol has a j-curve benefit
| to cardio health, and a j curve detriment to cancer rates. When
| you look at mortality rates vs alcohol consumption, the J part
| of the curve doesn't return to 'tee-totaler' non drinker
| baseline until you're at ~ 4 drinks a day, which is a _lot_.
| serverholic wrote:
| Epidemiology strikes again! I watch a lot of videos on
| nutrition and researchers often say that randomized control
| trials are too expensive so we need to rely on epidemiology
| despite its flaws.
|
| What I find crazy is that nations around the world collaborate
| and spend billions of dollars building a particle accelerator
| and yet we can't seem to find money to research something that
| affects every human every day of their lives.
| jxy wrote:
| I guess that is because particles in the accelerator are not
| alive, so you can accelerate anyway you want. Do you really
| want to round up a group of seniors and gives them different
| doses of alcohol and see how much you can accelerate their
| demise?
| serverholic wrote:
| That's a strawman, a randomized control trial does not have
| to be dangerous. In fact, we already do randomized control
| trials, they are just expensive and uncommon.
| spacejockeys wrote:
| An experiment is not required, as the behavior
| (acceleration towards demise) may be observed and tracked
| at scale in the field
| [deleted]
| ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote:
| I know a few seniors who'd be down for that!
| barbazoo wrote:
| I think your last paragraph is spot on!
| nradov wrote:
| It's not just a money issue. It would be impractical and
| unethical to confine study subjects in controlled
| environments for long periods of time. That's what we would
| have to do in order to gather reliable data and eliminate
| confounding factors.
|
| Most human nutrition studies are only observational and
| barely a step above junk science. Don't take them too
| seriously.
| mumblemumble wrote:
| There are ways to at least mitigate some of those
| challenges and achieve a meaningful RCT without locking
| people up. Encouragement designs, for example:
| https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1008045618501
| serverholic wrote:
| Randomized control trials are done all the time. They can
| and are done ethically. I don't know where you people are
| getting the idea that RCTs are unethical.
| nradov wrote:
| Proper large scale, long term RCTs have almost never been
| done in the human nutrition field. In order to really get
| the "controlled" part of an RCT the researchers have to
| confine people somewhere that all of their food and
| beverage intake can be accurately counted. Obviously this
| is very expensive and researchers can't ethically confine
| people in controlled environments for years. At most
| those studies have been done with very small subject
| counts for a few months at a time: hardly sufficient to
| obtain reliable results.
|
| So as a practical matter most studies tend to rely on
| subject reported data, which is notoriously inaccurate.
| People forget to record little snacks, or don't weigh
| their portions, or lie about their behavior because
| they're ashamed.
| serverholic wrote:
| Where the did you get the idea that I'm suggesting we
| lock people away for years?
|
| Yes of course it's expensive which is why I said we
| should have larger scale studies with more test subjects
| funded by the government.
|
| Also, what does subject reported data have to do with
| RTCs? What are you even arguing about?
| nradov wrote:
| You're totally missing the point. If the study relies on
| subject reported data then there's no proper control
| regardless of number of subjects. More funding won't fix
| that quality problem.
| serverholic wrote:
| Why are you assuming this hypothetical study will rely on
| subject reported data?
| nradov wrote:
| What other method is there to gather nutritional data?
| The researchers either have to confine and monitor the
| subjects in a controlled environment, or leave them loose
| and rely on subject reported data. Maybe someday we'll
| have better technical solutions but for now those are the
| only practical options.
|
| If you have a better approach for study design then I'm
| sure nutrition researchers would love to hear it.
| serverholic wrote:
| You're making so many assumptions in your posts.
|
| Yes, to do a proper RCT you need to confine and monitor
| subjects in a controlled environment. YOU used the word
| "years" and nobody ever suggested a study that long. If
| you're implying that you need a study that long to gather
| meaningful results then that's just simply not true.
|
| Let me put this plainly, you can design RCTs that are:
|
| A) Safe for participants.
|
| B) Aren't too long.
|
| C) Don't rely on subject reported data.
|
| D) Still give meaningful results.
|
| These are not mutually exclusive and they are done all
| the time. These are gold-standard experiments in the
| nutrition field.
|
| Like you said, they are expensive to do and usually only
| have a small number of subjects. That's why I'm
| suggesting that wealthy governments should collaborate to
| fund massive-scale trials at maximum quality.
| bdcs wrote:
| I'm not so confident RCTs of nutrition are unethical. The
| data are too damn valuable for society to ignore. Perhaps
| participants could be informed and willing to partake in
| the challenge trials, which although these participants
| might not be reflective of the overall population, we can
| get a better sense than correlational studies.
|
| Humans are incredible explorers, self-sacrificing for the
| greater (perceived) good. We should consider continuing our
| legacy by understanding ourselves better through rigorous
| science. (And hopefully end the historical legacy of making
| thousands of other species extinct via our exploration.)
|
| I believe the Journal of Controversial Idea
| (https://journalofcontroversialideas.org/) will explore
| some of these topics, shortly.
| grok22 wrote:
| Because it involves humans? I am only half-joking, but I
| think it's much harder to track and study large numbers of
| humans than it is to do esoteric particle physics
| experiments.
| ska wrote:
| To be fair, particle physics is a lot easier. Your argument
| holds in terms of investment though, if not in terms of
| expected outcome.
| herdcall wrote:
| That seems like a non sequitur ("The optimal level of alcohol
| intake for health and longevity is zero"). All I see in the
| article you referred (or the original article above) are
| several (valid) questions about the J shaped association, like
| confounding factors and survival bias. But these aren't
| evidence that the optimal level is zero. Merely
| challenging/speculating about the opposite view is not
| evidence.
|
| Also, as the paper itself admits, drinking small amounts of
| alcohol has low risks, and while it argues against causation,
| it doesn't even discuss possible causational factors. E.g.,
| consider the fact that alcohol can reduce stress, which we know
| has detrimental effects on health. Couldn't small amounts of
| alcohol be causally responsible then in improving longevity?
|
| Not to be cynical, but I feel the medical community finds this
| positive low-alcohol/longevity J association rather
| inconvenient and take every opportunity to debunk it. May be
| they're right, but if we're to discredit the massive
| epidemiological evidence, we need more direct evidence and be
| objective about it.
| Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote:
| That 'alcohol reduces stress' is true short term, its not so
| much true long term. Think of those nasal sprays that reduce
| congestion. They absolutely do that, breathe that stuff in
| and it opens your airway real good, but at the same time it
| irritates those tissues so when the effect wears off, the
| airway becomes even more blocked than before because of the
| inflammation from the irritation. Alcohol does a similar
| thing for brain chemistry. It artificially slows things down
| (making you feel calmer), but the body's response is counter
| that effect so when the alcohol wears off, the stress levels
| can be higher than they were before - leading people to need
| another drink to relax.
| watwut wrote:
| I did not encountered such sprays. The ones I used worked
| and once they were not needed I stopped - typically in few
| days.
| niyikiza wrote:
| Is there any evidence that alcohol does it that way?
| Sincere question.
| spekcular wrote:
| Did you read the studies (cited in that review) that do
| Mendelian randomization? They seem fairly conclusive in favor
| of the view that the optimal alcohol intake is zero.
| thinkharderdev wrote:
| I looked at the paper but I don't understand how they got
| to that conclusion. There is still a J-shaped relationship
| between alcohol consumption and coronary heart disease
| outcomes. Not questioning the conclusion I just don't
| understand how you get to it from their data (due to my own
| ignorance).
| spekcular wrote:
| Researchers are able to say that the J-shaped
| relationship is a result of factors correlated with
| alcohol use, instead of the effects of alcohol itself on
| the body, using a technique called Mendelian
| randomization.
|
| Here's a summary for the lay reader [0]:
|
| > One way to get around these limitations is through
| genetic studies. Some people carry a genetic variant that
| disrupts their ability to metabolize alcohol, causing
| them to develop skin flushing, irritation and other
| unpleasant symptoms when they drink alcohol. As a result,
| they tend to abstain or drink very little. If alcohol was
| good for heart health, these people should in theory have
| more heart disease compared to others. Instead, as one
| large analysis published in BMJ in 2014 found, they have
| "a more favorable cardiovascular profile and a reduced
| risk of coronary heart disease than those without the
| genetic variant."
|
| > The study concluded: "This suggests that reduction of
| alcohol consumption, even for light to moderate drinkers,
| is beneficial for cardiovascular health."
|
| (One fact not mentioned there is that for this technique
| to work and identify causality, the distribution of that
| genetic variant needs to be uncorrelated with all the
| other relevant variables. To my knowledge, this is true.)
|
| [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/10/well/eat/should-
| we-be-dri...
| thinkharderdev wrote:
| Ah, I get it now. Thanks!
| ouid wrote:
| I think the alcohol -> reduced stress pathway is unclear, and
| the reduced stress -> longevity pathway is also unclear,
| despite your claims.
| aksss wrote:
| For any benefit alcohol gives (heart health, stress level,
| etc), there are healthier alternatives to accomplish the same
| or better results.
| Mordisquitos wrote:
| I'm sure that there are many alternatives that would be
| healthier than alcohol for any given individual, be it
| exercise, social and economic stability, CBT, vacation,
| improved diet, better sleep, etc. However, in societies
| where alcohol consumption is an engrained feature of
| ordinary life and social interactions, is it even feasible
| to encourage every person to implement whichever of the
| myriad of alternatives would be more effective for them?
|
| I would argue that, at the public health level, focusing on
| a naive "zero level" of alcohol in favour of the "better
| alternatives" would at best be ineffective, not the least
| because the better alternatives can be promoted regardless
| of alcohol consumption. At worst they could even be
| harmful, if the encouraged abstinence were to discourage
| the social events associated with non-excessive alcohol
| consumption.
|
| On an individual level yes indeed, having 0 beers a week
| may be provably healthier than having 10 beers a week, all
| else being equal. And that's the crucial point-- _all else
| being equal_. Those beers are not drunk in isolation or
| without context. The individual may enjoy trying craft beer
| with their partner at dinner, or they may meet some friends
| at the pub and enjoy some slightly disinhibited laughs
| together. Could this person enjoy trying herbal teas with
| their partner? Perhaps. Could their friends meet up for a
| game of volleyball instead? Maybe. Is it realistic to
| expect similar alternatives to alcohol in the overall
| population? Very probably not.
| FredPret wrote:
| I worried about this a lot before I quit drinking.
|
| Now I can tell you that my social life is exactly the
| same as before - but I'm drinking water or near-beer or
| something fizzy instead. I don't care, my friends don't
| care, and if they did, they wouldn't count as friends
| anyway.
|
| Now if you're a frat member, maybe it's different.
| Ntrails wrote:
| My other half never thought she would be able to date me,
| because she wanted someone to share a bottle of wine
| with. Turns out, she can have a lovely time drinking wine
| and having a designated driver to get her home :)
|
| But I will say that being tee total has impacted my
| experience of social gatherings based around drinking.
| Sure, with good friends it couldn't matter less. But with
| work folks, acquaintances etc? Yeah, it matters
| FredPret wrote:
| Another thing to keep in mind is that non-alcoholic
| drinks as a sector are growing rapidly. We might see a
| sea change here within a generation, like we saw with
| smoking, where it simply isn't cool anymore.
|
| For anyone interested, I followed Allen Carr's Easy Way
| to Control Alcohol. It was a totally painless process for
| me
| aksss wrote:
| As an individual body, there is no benefit that alcohol
| provides your _system_ that cannot be achieved through
| healthier means (that I 'm aware of - tell me if I'm
| wrong).
|
| I'm not saying alcohol isn't effective, I'm saying that
| in all cases there are healthier ways (wiser ways) to
| achieve the positive effects.
|
| I'm not saying alcohol isn't efficient, I'm saying the
| work required to implement the healthier methods for the
| same effects is worth the extra effort.
|
| At the public health level, I don't think there's any
| harm in condemning alcohol. I'm not saying prohibition,
| and I enjoy a good tequila or whiskey or wine or beer -
| it's great stuff. But the least of our members of society
| - those with the worst problems - are often making their
| lives worse with alcohol not better. I see no issue in
| messaging that repeatedly. Responsible and irresponsible
| people will always drink, but messaging the harm it
| causes more often could not hurt American society. I
| don't think that's naive at all. You may be confusing
| messaging "zero level" with a legal prohibition, and I
| don't think that's a valid equivalency. Exercise is good
| for you, abstaining from alcohol is good for you too.
| Just like abstaining from fast food. It doesn't mean
| everyone will comply, nor should you expect that. But
| messaging that this stuff is not healthy seems wise to
| me. Instead you see a steady drip of "a drink a day may
| be good for your heart" crap, that is assuredly endorsed
| and promoted by the beverage industry, and not with the
| health of society in mind.
| watwut wrote:
| That is not standard we apply ... to pretty much anything
| else people consume. No single food or drink will make
| you live longer.
|
| This is all just an attempt to create moral panic with
| pretension it is all concern about health. So people are
| free to point out that.
| thinkharderdev wrote:
| I'm not sure I understand the conclusions of that paper. The
| ADH1B variant is associated with lower alcohol consumption and
| also with lower cardiovascular risk but within that population
| there is still a J-curve relationship between cardiovascular
| disease and alcohol consumption.
| nabla9 wrote:
| > The optimal level of alcohol intake for health and longevity
| is zero
|
| The whole "little alcohol can actually be healthy" meme is a
| good example of corporate sponsored research combined with
| publication bias.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publication_bias It went on 15-20
| years before better and larger studies debunked it.
|
| Alcohol use and burden for 195 countries and territories,
| 1990-2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of
| Disease Study 2016
| https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
|
| >Alcohol use is a leading risk factor for global disease burden
| and causes substantial health loss. We found that the risk of
| all-cause mortality, and of cancers specifically, rises with
| increasing levels of consumption, and the level of consumption
| that minimises health loss is zero. These results suggest that
| alcohol control policies might need to be revised worldwide,
| refocusing on efforts to lower overall population-level
| consumption.
| lm28469 wrote:
| > The whole "little alcohol can actually be healthy" meme is
| a good example of corporate sponsored research combined with
| publication bias.
|
| It also is what everyone drinking a few glasses of wine here
| and there want to hear
| allturtles wrote:
| Isn't "The optimal level of alcohol intake for health and
| longevity is zero" exactly what abstainers want to hear?
|
| I don't think we should rely on any group's anecdotal
| espousal of the health benefits of their choices.
| thinkharderdev wrote:
| It is the typical story where whatever you like doing ALSO
| has to be healthy and good in all respects. So it can't
| just be "I like having a glass or two of wine in the
| evening to unwind." Likewise it can't just be "I think
| eating animals is morally wrong so I don't do it." It's
| like the human mind instinctively rebels against having to
| weigh tradeoffs.
| antonvs wrote:
| > These results suggest that alcohol control policies might
| need to be revised worldwide, refocusing on efforts to lower
| overall population-level consumption.
|
| It ought to astonish me that people unironically think this
| way, but then I remember one of the most dangerous and life-
| shortening human tendencies of them all - the desire to
| control others.
| polishdude20 wrote:
| Yeah let's ban ATV's, swimming in the ocean, driving a car
| and eating cake while we're at it.
| jimmar wrote:
| For making global policy, the Lancet study is great. It's not
| the perfect study for determining an individual's risk
| factors. I looked at that Lancet study in detail trying to
| determine how much risk alcohol consumption poses to me
| personally, but it was challenging. For example, the #1 risk
| they associated with alcohol was tuberculosis--something I'm
| not concerned about at all.
| 1_player wrote:
| OT: "Heart Rate Variability (HRV) gives us an idea about the
| state of our autonomic nervous system"
|
| This answered a big medical doubt I have had for the past week.
|
| For ages my heart rate has been at a stable 95-105 resting BPM
| with very little variability, which is quite high and
| understandable given my low fitness. I've recently radically
| changed my diet, and in 2 weeks my resting BPM has gone down to
| around 65 (!), changing rapidly up to 100 BPM if I move unless
| I'm staying completely still.
|
| I was unsure of what this radical change meant, but apparently
| whatever I was doing before was very bad for me, and whatever I'm
| doing now is much better. Given that my diet change has also put
| my anxiety in remission, it makes sense that there's a strong
| connection between less overstimulation in the brain and more
| relaxed circulatory system.
| jamestnz wrote:
| HRV describes the steadiness (or not) of the timing between
| beats, as measured in milliseconds. It sounds like you are
| describing something else here, like your resting rate and how
| much/quickly it responds to exercise.
|
| For an example of HRV, let's say you're showing a heart rate of
| exactly 95 BPM for a one minute period, which means an average
| of one beat every 0.6316 second. If the actual beats were very
| close to occurring exactly once every 0.6316 sec like
| clockwork, then you have a low HRV.
|
| At some later time, you also measure 95 BPM during a one minute
| period, but this time you find the period between beats is much
| more variable. Sometimes it is 0.627 seconds, and sometimes it
| is 0.641 seconds. The beats aren't falling like clockwork, they
| are all over the place.
|
| The second example is a high HRV, both examples having the same
| heart rate.
|
| Accurate beat-measuring equipment is required to calculate HRV
| (e.g. a heart-rate watch and an app).
| 1_player wrote:
| Ah good, thanks for the clarification.
| criddell wrote:
| Would you mind sharing your diet changes?
| 1_player wrote:
| Gone 100% carnivore
| ulnarkressty wrote:
| Would very much like to try this for myself, but I would
| rather look for a more sustainable diet. Do you think it
| was a matter of missing nutrients, or rather intolerance of
| some sort to the carbohydrate sources?
| 1_player wrote:
| Massive inflammation due to multiple unknown factors,
| making me even more intolerant to the simplest of food
| and spices. Carnivore is basically the ultimate
| elimination diet.
|
| Oh yeah, and my brain works noticeably better than it has
| for the past 15 years. It's 100% reproducible for me, but
| I just need a lapse of judgement, the wrong food, and
| it's back to the dark pit of doom and extreme tiredness.
| angrais wrote:
| How do you know it's the increase of meat and not another
| factor, such as prior consumption of grains or such?
| zabzonk wrote:
| > A healthy HRV reflects a healthy balance between sympathetic
| and parasympathetic stimulation.
|
| How do you know this?
| gnu8 wrote:
| I'm not a cardiologist but this detail seems believable on its
| face and it is supported by the surrounding statements. Do you
| disagree with it?
| alexslobodnik wrote:
| People can test this for themselves with a common fitness
| tracker.
|
| The Apple Watch records this data.
|
| Anecdotally, 1.5 drinks within 5 hours of going to sleep raises
| resting heart rate by 5%-10%. My friends who have an Apple Watch
| have similar results.
|
| My personal data on HRV and booze is too erratic to draw
| conclusions.
| alexfromapex wrote:
| Did they control for electrolyte loss?
| Sindrome wrote:
| My Apple watch tells me my heart rate is spiking every time I
| have more than 5-6 drinks in a night.
| zonethundery wrote:
| Having a hard time figuring out the implications of this.
|
| We know HRV is "good" as a general matter, as orderliness of
| heart-rate variation is predictive of mortality post-infarction
| [sorry no cite; read some papers in the 90's w/ convincing plots
| of instantaneous heart rate vs ihr 10 beats ago].
|
| The linked research shows an increase in power of the middle part
| of the spectrum (fft of intrabeat heart rate), which is usually
| linked to respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA, or the change in
| chest cavity pressure while breathing changes your heart rate).
|
| Anyway, it's interesting, but maybe the value is in the pathway
| discussion rather than any specific end-effects on health. Would
| love to hear from people closer to this topic , or OP's specific
| interest in the matter.
| cutthegrass2 wrote:
| The article briefly mentions RHR (resting heart rate) also.
| Anecdotally of course, but I notice my RHR being ~5 - 8 bpm lower
| when I abstain from alcohol for a few days.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| n = 1, but using my oura ring, I can see a diff of 10% higher
| RHR pmb during my sleep when drinking a single glass of beer
| after diner.
|
| It surprised me a lot.
| blunte wrote:
| I have worn a Garmin watch with HR monitor for months at a time
| off and on for the last few years.
|
| My resting heart rate while sleeping is typically 64-68 without
| alcohol and 65-85 after drinking several glasses of wine. There
| is such a marked difference in RHR in the two scenarios that
| you could tell if I drank simply by looking at my heart rate
| chart during the night.
|
| Interestingly, I attempted to start running for one month about
| a year ago. My endurance is poor, but I would run/walk for
| several kilometers. Within the first week and continuing
| through that month, my RHR while sleeping was 52-62. Not only
| was it significantly lower, it took a long time after stopping
| exercise for the rate to return to what it usually is.
|
| I don't know what this all really means, but it is fascinating.
| Studies or not, I imagine that not drinking + regular cardio
| exercise is better for long life than the alternative
| combinations.
| chubot wrote:
| Yup, I also noticed this. I wore a pulse oximeter every night
| which measures your heart rate, and it jumped from around 60
| to 80 just because of alcohol one night. Crazy!
|
| That was the biggest effect I saw by far, more than all the
| sleep apnea variables I was trying to measure!
|
| Granted I don't drink often, and metabolize alcohol poorly,
| but still that's a huge difference.
|
| FWIW I'm not out of shape; I commuted 1h / day by bike for
| over a decade, and was a medically normal weight, which is
| maybe 20-30th percentile in the population.
| tw04 wrote:
| It just means you're out of shape and as you get into shape
| your HR reflects it. I saw similar after "summer of covid"
| and now getting back to running every day and limiting
| alcohol to once a week.
| sjg007 wrote:
| Elite athletes have RHR in the 40s. Exercise improves the
| heart.
| clairity wrote:
| be careful of the inverse inference though. a rhr in the
| 40s doesn't necessarily mean you're in good health. a low
| rhr could indicate a myriad of other cardiovascular issues
| (something of a personal concern for me).
|
| but contrary to the article, an evening whiskey ~3 times a
| week (in my experience) seems to be optimal for delivering
| antiseptic benefits with few/no downsides.
| nradov wrote:
| I also wear a Garmin watch with HR monitor. Having a couple
| glasses of wine with dinner doesn't seem to noticeably change
| my RHR while sleeping. There are probably differences between
| individuals.
|
| An RHR that gets into the 85 range could indicate a cardiac
| problem. Might want to get that checked.
| blunte wrote:
| Probably due to _significant_ quantity of alcohol... and
| certainly not a good idea.
| fraa-orolo wrote:
| Since we're talking anecdata anyway, it could be from decreased
| sleep quality instead of direct causation.
| antibuddy wrote:
| That might indeed be a factor; however the processes to get
| rid of the alcohol (it's toxic after all) might be to blame
| as well.
| batiudrami wrote:
| I am fortunate enough to live in a country where we only had a
| lockdown for about 4 weeks of 2020, and during that time I
| didn't drink. See if you can see from my sleeping heart rate
| when that was: https://i.imgur.com/7VlYQ67.png
| mannykannot wrote:
| You appear to be demonstrating the opposite of what is
| claimed here: your heart-rate variability seems to have
| decreased when you were not drinking alcohol.
|
| When I went back to the article to check this, however, I saw
| that, while the text says that alchohol has "a negative
| effect on HRV", and their model explains this, the diagram
| shows alcohol _increasing_ the HRV. As the text 's version of
| the observed results and its explanation for them are
| consistent, I assume the diagram is incorrectly labelled.
|
| Update: Thanks to everyone for correcting me on what HRV
| means here.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| That image is of GP's heart rate, not heart rate
| variability.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| HRV is not a measure of change in your resting heart rate
| over time, its a measure of the difference on a per beat
| basis. Even if your BPM is 60, your heart doesn't beat
| exactly once a second, it will actually vary in length by
| some number of milliseconds back and forth. This is what is
| measured when talking about HRV.
|
| It is believed to occur as the parasympathetic and
| sympathetic nervous system "fight" over raising and
| lowering the heartrate. The symbiosis between them lands on
| a steady rate per minute with fluctuations on a per beat
| basis.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_rate_variability
| tcskeptic wrote:
| Heart rate variability really does not mean variability in
| heart rate (such as is shown on the graph linked) it is
| more at the 50-100ms level in change in _timing_ between
| hear beats. The graph does seem to show a reduction in RHR
| but does not address HRV (as I understand it)
| mathattack wrote:
| I've been largely alcohol free since the new year. Prior to
| that I thought alcohol helped me rest. Now even one or two
| glasses of beer or wine messes up my sleep. The contrast helps
| me understand it better. Of course this anecdote shouldn't be
| construed as robust data....
| intergalplan wrote:
| I've been working on switching most drinking for weed--for
| health reasons. Seriously. It's the best and lowest-side-
| effect sleep aid I've used. Hopefully it's not secretly doing
| horrible things to me, but my sleep quality's been amazing
| since I started to take a little a couple nights a week. Most
| consistently-decent sleep of my life.
| mathattack wrote:
| I haven't replaced it with anything else. At some point I
| will try to kick caffeine but one vice at a time. :-)
| JohnWhigham wrote:
| Weed inhibits REM sleep. You may feel rested, but you're
| actually harming yourself long term.
| intergalplan wrote:
| Damnit. Well, it's that or lots of 5-6 hour nights, or
| worse. Or bad hangovers and other weird shit from
| sleeping pills. Maybe time to get a sleep-tracker watch.
| WindyCityBrew wrote:
| Do you drink a lot of coffee or other caffeinated drinks,
| especially later in the day? I used to think caffeine
| didn't have much affect on my sleep, until I cut it out.
| Old habits die hard, but I just drink decaf coffee now
| and am getting better sleep then I can remember.
| intergalplan wrote:
| ~2 cups of coffee probably 5-6 days a week, sometimes tea
| instead, rarely past noon and never past ~2:00PM (I only
| drink it as late as, say, 1:00PM if I happen not to
| realize how late it is). Maybe one soda per month, tops,
| don't really pay attention to when I have those, though.
| I'd guess afternoon/evening mostly, but it's rare enough
| that I doubt it's doing anything meaningful to my overall
| sleep-trends.
|
| I could try cutting it out, but I've had trouble falling
| asleep my entire life, and my average annual caffeine
| intake was _very_ low until my mid-teens. I 'm actually
| _much better_ about sleep now than I used to be, even
| without meds. Worth a shot, though, I guess. I 'd been
| thinking about dropping my intake to one cup per day,
| alternating coffee and green tea (which would represent a
| large increase in my consumption of green tea) anyway.
| Hell, at lower volume I could justify buying the
| expensive, low-package-weight, _really, really good_
| beans, so the flavor of the coffee I 'm drinking would
| improve, though I might have to group coffee-days rather
| than alternate them, to avoid issues with beans going
| stale. Seems like ~halving my caffeine would be an OK
| start.
|
| Sigh. Guess I'm going to be spending a lot of money on
| sparkling water, just like when I kicked my soda habit
| :-)
| criddell wrote:
| It might be worth going to a specialist for help.
| mr-wendel wrote:
| You're also inhibiting your ability to dream (and your
| ability to remember them). That is a lot of critical
| emotional processing not happening. Dreams matter, even
| if they don't make rational sense.
| txsoftwaredev wrote:
| I've had a similar experience. I've been using delta-8 at
| night for sleep and I've added 1-2 hrs a night according to
| my fitbit. I don't feel "hungover" or similar like I would
| from alcohol or OTC sleeping meds.
| gregwebs wrote:
| Chris Masterjohn theorizes that alcohol can have a beneficial
| hormetic (a stressor that you can have positive adaptations to)
| effect by antagonizing vitamin A and the body adapting to supply
| more vitamin A.
|
| However, he theorizes the maximum beneficial dosage is about 2/3
| of a single drink.
|
| https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/lite-videos/2018/12/13/is-alc...
| arethuza wrote:
| That reminds me in the Inebriati:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIv96reVlAE
|
| _" We were in the background, gently swaying from side to
| side"_
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| Booze is not good for you. If you think you are dependent on it
| or are concerned with the impact it has on your life try
| stopping. Stopping changed my life greatly.
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