Washington: In a new research that studies how alcohol affects sleeps in women, scientists have found that a moderate dose of liquor leads to a deep slumber, especially in the first couple of hours.
As a part of the study, a group of women, aged between 22 to 25, were given an alcohol dose of two to three standard drinks (in the form of vodka tonics), in the hour before bedtime, over the course of three nights.
Researchers monitored the women's sleep and sleep electroencephalograms (EEGs), a graphic record of the electrical activity of the brain – a technique that can analyze the "microarchitecture" of sleep.
The researchers found that alcohol increased the intensity of sleep in the first few hours of the sleep episode.
However, a psychology graduate student at Brown University, Eliza Van Reen, said that what was not known as yet is whether a nightcap is beneficial for a woman or harmful.
"Although it may signal an initial consolidation of sleep, it might also be associated with difficulty waking in the event of an emergent problem, such as a fire or medical emergency," she said.
The study appeared in the June 2006 issue of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.
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