Vaping Before Bed: Does Nicotine Affect Your Sleep?

How and Why Nicotine Can Affect Sleep

While many smokers and vapers associate their habit with relaxing, nicotine actually has the opposite effect inside your body. Nicotine is a stimulant that can affect heart rate and blood pressure, which in turn leads to increased circulation and a rise in body temperature. These are fairly common stimulant effects, but they matter to sleep because your body naturally needs to slow down at night. Heart rate and body temperature are supposed to gradually drop as you start to feel tired and prepare for bed, not increase. 

Nicotine also nudges your brain and nervous system into a more alert state by triggering the release of dopamine, norepinephrine, and acetylcholine. These brain chemicals increase alertness, sharpen attention, and increase arousal levels. All of these combined effects can make falling and staying asleep harder, and change how restful the sleep that you do get feels. 

There is also some evidence that nicotine delays the release of melatonin, the hormone most associated with sleep. Melatonin is not a sedative; it’s a chemical signal that tells your brain that it is time to sleep (it is sometimes referred to as the ‘hormone of darkness’ ). If the release of melatonin is delayed, even slightly, it could lead to the feeling of being “tired but wired”, when we want to sleep but can’t properly settle down. 

Does Nicotine Withdrawal Affect Sleep?

The somewhat ironic answer to that is, yes, one of the common symptoms of nicotine withdrawal is restless sleep. While this can be a problem for anyone attempting to give up smoking or vaping cold turkey, it can also be a problem when you temporarily stop smoking or vaping before bed. 

Nicotine leaves the body fairly quickly, likely within 3-5 hours for regular users, with levels continuously dropping throughout the night. As it drops, mild withdrawal symptoms are triggered in your brain, even while you sleep. This is why some vapers or smokers report waking in the middle of the night with strong nicotine cravings, or waking up unexpectedly early and not being able to fall back to sleep. 

The effect of mild withdrawal symptoms on sleep is probably less than the effect on sleep from nicotine (although this may vary from person to person), so it is not a good idea to give in to those middle-of-the-night cravings by having a few puffs on your vape. The stimulating effect of the nicotine will very probably keep you awake for longer than would the withdrawal symptoms you are trying to suppress. 

Does Vaping Make You Snore?

Both vaping and smoking are known to cause snoring (possibly the worst sound known to mankind when trying to sleep) or increase the volume and intensity of snoring in those who already do. However, the reason is not the nicotine content, but rather how they affect the lining of your mouth and throat. 

Vaping is undoubtedly easier on your mouth and throat than smoking, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t cause irritation and swelling of the tissue. The Propylene Glycol used in e-liquids has been shown to have a dehydrating effect, and dehydration can lead to inflammation and irritation. Snoring is caused by areas of tissue in the mouth and throat vibrating against one another when air is inhaled or exhaled. If those areas of tissue are inflamed by vaping or smoking, they are likely to be more affected by the air passing over them and either start to vibrate or vibrate harder than normal. 

Aside from being a nightmare for whoever you are sleeping next to, heavy snoring is also likely to interrupt your own normal sleep patterns and may even cause you to have “micro-awakenings” throughout the night. Even after 8 hours of sleep, heavy snorers often complain of not feeling properly rested. The problem is not lack of sleep, but a lack of quality sleep. 

Does Vaping Cause Vivid Dreams?

The idea that nicotine causes strange dreams is likely familiar to anyone who has tried quitting smoking through the use of nicotine patches. This form of nicotine replacement therapy is well-known to provoke vivid and sometimes nightmarish dreams, particularly in the first few weeks of use. It is also possible for nicotine derived through other methods, including vaping, to result in more vivid dreams, but it is very unlikely unless you smoke or vape very heavily directly before you fall asleep. 

Because patches deliver a constant stream of nicotine throughout the night, they also deliver a constant stream of stimulation, even when you are asleep. This stimulation interrupts REM sleep cycles, causes more micro-awakenings, and increases awareness during the dream state. This is what leads to your dreams feeling more intense and vivid. 

However, when you take your last puff on a vape before going to bed, nicotine immediately starts to be cleared from your system. This process isn’t instant, but by the time your brain slips into the REM cycle and the dream state, the stimulating effect of that last puff will be considerably dulled, or even gone altogether. This is the reason why vaping, smoking, nicotine gum, and almost all other types of non-constant nicotine delivery aren’t associated with vivid dreaming. 

How to Improve Your Sleep Quality as a Vaper

So, we have established that nicotine can and does affect the amount and the quality of sleep, no matter if you get it from vaping, smoking, or NRTs like gum or oral spray. But while the information above might make it seem like vapers just have to put up with poor sleep if they want to keep vaping, there are things you can do to get more Zzzzz’s every night. 

• Have a Nicotine Cut-off Point Before Bedtime: Nicotine begins to be cleared from the body almost as soon as you take a last puff. The clearing process takes around four hours, after which the stimulating effect of nicotine will be negligible. Not taking a puff within four hours (or at least two hours) of the time when you plan to go to bed should help to improve your sleep. 
• Reduce the Nicotine Strength: Vaping a lower-strength e-liquid means taking in less nicotine, thereby lessening the stimulating effects. Reducing overall strength is likely to yield the best results, but even switching to a low-strength liquid just for the evenings could help you achieve a more restful sleep. Doing this could also make withdrawal symptoms milder when they do hit you. 
• Stay Hydrated, Especially Before Bed: As we covered above, the dehydrating effects of PG in vape liquids can lead to or exacerbate snoring, and snoring can be an added hindrance to restful sleep. Staying hydrated throughout the day and right before bedtime might help reduce snoring and lead to better sleep for everyone in the bed. 
• Avoid Vaping After Caffeine or Alcohol: Both caffeine and alcohol are widely known to make sleep more difficult, so adding a stimulant on top is just asking for sleep problems. If you have drunk either beverage in the evening, try particularly hard not to vape afterwards. Easier said than done when it comes to alcohol, we know, but your sleep pattern will thank you. 
• Develop a Good Bedtime Routine: This obviously doesn’t just apply to vapers, but if you don’t already have a good pre-bed routine (no screens, consistent bedtime, adjusting room temperature, etc.), even cutting out the vape or reducing nicotine strength is unlikely to provide you with the restful night of sleep you need. 

The Bottom Line

Nicotine is a stimulant and, no matter how relaxing or stress-relieving vaping might feel, the effects it has on brain chemistry are quite likely to prevent users from falling asleep as quickly as they might like. The stimulating effect of nicotine will vary between users, but if you find yourself lying awake more often than not, there are several fairly simple steps you can take to reduce it. The most likely to provide results is simply to stop hitting your vape a few hours before you plan to hit the hay.