Why does paracetemol improve my sleep?

[radiatorcat]

I checked through my Fitbit sleep data, and compared it to evenings I had wine, days I exercised etc, to see if there was anything that correlated with a good nights sleep.

I've noticed that on the evenings I take paracetemol before I go to bed, I'll get around an hour of deep sleep. On the days I don't, I might get 10-15 mins deep sleep.

I know it's not a sleeping tablet so what could explain this?

It has antihistamine in it.

No it doesn't, one side effect of paracetamol is drowsiness, but that is not due to the presence of antihistamine. (No I don't know why, I just looked up 'Paracetamol'.)

Are you taking paracetamol on nights when you've been drinking?

I've no answer for you but I have noticed on the rare occasions I have insomnia, a paracetamol can help me to get off to sleep. I don't know if that is just a placebo effect though.

Ibuprofen does the same for me. If I'm lying awake a cup of tea and 2 nurofen always does the trick. I assumed it was a placebo effect but maybe not

It lowers your temperature which can help with sleeping.

And, IMO a placebo affect too once you make a connection between the 2 things.

I do not have the brain power to read it properly but there's been a study on it https://academic.oup.com/ijpp/article/29/6/527/6359254?login=false

Could you have some pain or discomfort that you don’t recognise but is disturbing your sleep? e.g. tension in your back. Something that is just enough to make you move about more in bed to try to get comfortable, but resolved with a mild painkiller.

i would expect the drowsiness side effect.
personally i often find my mind is noisy and tylenol will stop that background chatter and let me fall into a deeper sleep.

Co-codamol has the same effect on me.

paracetamol is well known as a drug that can help with sleep. It's pharmacology still isn't 100% clear, but the sleep related 'side effects' are probably to do with serotonergic pathways/cannabinoid activity/temperature regulation. Straight paracetamol doesn't have an antihistamine in it (IIRC there's some in vitro mast cell actions but that doesn't equate to an in vivo effect, perhaps that's what PP was referring to). It can be bought as a co-drug with antihistamines though. Co-codamol will have a sedative effect because of the codeine more than the paracetamol.

Sometimes, but not always. I've cut right back on drinking to try improve my sleep.

I've only just made the connection. And I'm only looking at the 'deep sleep' data. I can get 8hrs sleep, even without paracetamol, but hardly any deep sleep. I still feel shattered and full of brain fog.

The correlation I've spotted is between paracetamol and much improved deep sleep.

That’s fascinating.

I am now laughing at myself for (silently) judging parents of young children who routinely give them Calpol to get them to sleep.

In my case it's because pain keeps me awake so if paracetamol reduces the pain I can get some sleep.

Thanks for asking the question OP, I've always thought I slept better when taking a couple of paracetamol before bed and it's good to know there is evidence by Fitbit rather than just a placebo effect as some of the aforementioned study seems to measure sleep by duration rather than measuring deep sleep. My mother used to swear it helped her get a good night's sleep!

For a while last year I suddenly had trouble sleeping (age lol). On nights when I took paracetemol I slept really well. I found that just one 500mg fizzy paracetemol in a small glass of water knocked me out. I couldn't believe it. I know that paracetemol is not addictive but I didn't want to go down the road of a tablet every night, so I tried magnesium glycinate capsules instead. OMG they work great for me.

So I mostly take the glycinate, but occasionally I take a paracetemol either instead of or with the paracetemol.

I do get headaches and mostly before bed, so I'm not taking them to put me to sleep. Well that's my story anyway!

I’ve noticed this and will take paracetamol if I wake up in the middle of the night and struggle to get back to sleep. I assumed it was a placebo thing.

It works as it lowers your temperature. A hot shower before bed has the same effect as you cool down and begin to feel tired.

I've tried the hot shower thing in my pursuit of improved sleep and it hasn't been as effective.

I've now been taking two paracetamol before bed, every night for the past week, and getting over an hour of deep sleep every night. That's about 50 mins more than typical for me.

Maybe it's the placebo effect now...?

Interesting! I thought Ibruprofen could help as it’s anti-inflammatory. And antihistamines can be good too. Never thought about Paracetamol - the lowering of temperature is not something I’d thought about.

Might give it a go. Probably not something to do every night due to its impact on the liver?

That was my next question: is there any harm in taking two paracetemol every day?

IIRC paracetamol is safer to take daily than ibuprofen. But I'm not a pharmacist/doctor.

I suppose you could try weaning down? Try one and see if it has the same effect.

BTW for the poster who said about the fitbit showing the difference meaning it's not placebo - that's not necessarily the case. The placebo effect can be physiologically measurable because if it's caused you to release certain neurotransmitters, there will be a physiological effect.

You also might want to ask your GP about having a sleep study done? I have a fitness watch thing, not a fitbit, and it reports me as having about 15 mins of deep sleep most nights. Sometimes I'll get up to about an hour but I can't work out what it correlates with. Seems totally random. It doesn't even correlate with how well-rested I feel. The app shouts at me when I get an hour anyway saying it's too short. I have been thinking about trying to get a sleep study to find out what's going on because I feel like the sleep tracking on a fitness watch can't be that accurate, anyway.

Doesn't it make perfect sense that an analgesic, a drug intended to interfere with how your brain registers signals from other parts of your body, might result in a more settled resting state?

I mean, if you took an "upper", you'd expect the opposite, right?