Wednesday Facts: you didn't know this yet

After today you will know more about alcohol and studying, whether taking a nightcap is a good idea or not, how long alcohol stays in your urine and why you have such a bad taste in your mouth the next day after a drinking night.

Alcohol affects your memory and your critical thinking skills.

Suppose you have to obtain a certificate for your work or follow an important module, then it should not be called news if we tell you that it is better not to look too deeply into the glass the night before. The day after an evening of heavy drinking, the memory functions worse than normal. In particular, the long-term memory functions worse with a hangover.

Well, luckily you'll get over that one night of sagging. The effects are worse when you drink too much every day. Drinking an average of three glasses of drink per day (or 25 glasses or more per week) can eventually damage the brain. Functions such as critical and analytical thinking and flexibility decrease. Drinking too much for years can cause a gradual shrinkage of the brain (in alcoholics there is a shrinkage of 10 – 15%).

Drinking alcohol will not help you sleep better.

The well-known nightcap has taken on a life of its own. Many people think that having a drink just before going to bed helps them get a better night's sleep. That is not true. Drinking alcohol can make you fall asleep more easily, but the quality of sleep is actually less. Alcohol affects REM sleep. As a result, dreams are disturbed and you wake up less rested. Do you want to read more about the myth surrounding the nightcap? Then read this article.

Alcohol remains in the urine for about 12 hours.

In a series or movie, people are sometimes asked to do a urine test. To see if it contains traces of banned substances. Traces of alcohol can still be found in the urine up to 12 hours after drinking alcohol. But in a lab urinalysis, researchers can still find traces of alcohol up to three days after the last drink. In a laboratory they are looking at another substance: ethyl glucuronide (EtG). The liver makes this substance from alcohol. And this substance can be found longer in urine. Source: alcoholinfo.nl.

Alcohol is a diuretic and it will make your mouth stink.

Drinking alcohol makes your mouth dry. That's because alcohol is diuretic. In other words, you become dehydrated when you drink alcohol. When your mouth does not produce saliva, because you have less fluid in your body, this affects the bacterial balance in the mouth. Saliva keeps the mouth clean. With less saliva, there are more bacteria in the mouth, and that starts to smell. Source: jellinek.nl.