At least two hours before bedtime, you should stop drinking most liquids.

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Drinking enough is essential – as long as your sleep and urination aren’t negatively affected. One expert recommends specific amounts.

Are you feeling dehydrated and trying to catch up on water drinking at night? Do you sleep well afterward? Here you can find out by what time you should drink – and what – to guarantee a good night’s sleep.

Can you catch up on drinking?
With a liter of water or sleeping tea right before bedtime, you’ve made up for the hydration you neglected during the day at the office, but after two hours of sleep at the latest, you wake up and have to go to the bathroom.

Fluid intake can only be made up to a limited extent, similar to lack of sleep. Drinking a lot at once is therefore not advisable.

This is how much fluid you need.
According to the Swiss Society for Nutrition, adults without exertion need between 30 and 35 milliliters of water per kilogram of body weight. At a weight of 70 kilos, that’s between 2.1 and 2.5 liters per day. Very few people achieve this goal. But there is such a thing as too much when it comes to drinking: for example, it affects your sleep cycle and urges you to urinate.

Amy Bragagnini, the U.S. Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics spokesperson, advises her patients in an interview on Yahoo.com to stop drinking most liquids at least two hours before bedtime. But good sleep also depends on what is drunk, she said.

These drinks affect your sleep.
Research suggests not drinking caffeine at least six hours before bedtime. Sleep expert and neurologist Chris Winter also recommends this in the “HuffPost.” Alcohol in the evening also increases the urge to urinate and can tremendously disrupt the REM (rapid eye movement) sleep cycle, the deepest phase of sleep.

Sweetened drinks like soda and juice are also discouraged in the evening. They raise your blood sugar, the pancreas releases insulin and that could keep you awake. It’s also best to drink sugary drinks at least two hours before bedtime – that’s how long your metabolism needs to process them.

Water is always a good choice – even more so before bed. Not only does it hydrate, but it also helps your body regulate its temperature during the night. That, in turn, lets you sleep better. Just make sure you don’t overdo the amount.

Drinks that affect your urination
Usually, nighttime bathroom breaks shouldn’t affect your sleep too much, but it can happen. For example, if you have nocturia, this can occur when people are brought out of their sleep twice or more by the urge to urinate at night, even though they have not drunk very much in the evening.

Carbonated and highly sugary drinks have a diuretic effect. When it comes to tea, you should limit, if not altogether avoid, green tea, black tea, and herbal teas with nettle, birch, and mate in the evening – they also promote urine production. Rooibos tea, on the other hand, is not a problem.

The eating evening can also impact your sleep: Spicy dishes with chili, ginger, and pepper or acidic vegetables such as tomatoes stimulate your kidney activity.