I don't know Alex's reason, but...

1. Dark liquor has been shown to increase hangovers due to the chemicals extracted/created from the barrel aging process.

As for beer:
1. Most beer does NOT have wheat in it. Beer is made from barley except for specific styles.
2. Carbonation is of little consequence. It creates a very mild acid (carbonic acid)...most of which goes away as the CO2 effervesces out of solution.
3. Beer generally does not have a high sugar content unless it has been back-sweetened with Lactose (like a milk Stout). The sugars are consumed by the yeast and converted into alcohol. Beer does have carbohydrates, but these are 90+% complex carbs. How much...depends on the specific beer (coors light vs. Porter).
4. The glycemic index of beer is high-ish, but that's only part of the story. Its generally a low glycemic load because there aren't that many carbs in beer to absorb....again, depending upon the specific beer (light-lager vs. full-bodied ale).

On the other hand, Beer is generally lower in alcohol than most other drinks (other than the Belgian styles, and OTT American IPA variants), and consequently higher in water content...which increases the likelihood of not getting dehydrated---another cause of increased hangover severity.

A higher resting heart rate and worsening sleep quality have long been flags for overtraining for me.

As I’ve gone past 50, I’ve also discovered that I need to decrease workout intensity on my easy aerobic days and easy aerobic workouts make up a higher percentage of workouts than they used to.

Don't listen to your Garmin. It has no idea about what is going on in your mind. If you want to know how good a sleep you are getting in your head, you need to be hooked up and do an actual study for that. Those sleep tracking apps/devices are garbage.

I’ve got a Garmin also. Your sleep score can be affected by stress (there should be a graph in the Garmin app that you can see if your stress levels are high during sleep). I think this is essentially picking up your HR so if you say your RHR is high that might potentially be why your sleep score is bad.

Also if you have a lot of interrupted sleep through the night then it will not give you a good score (going to the bathroom is normal I think unfortunately). Do you know if you snore because if you do, there’s a possibility you may have sleep apnea? A sleep clinic can pick this up. You may also move around a lot at night which may be natural for you, so the Garmin might say you’ve got interrupted sleep … I don’t have this problem so I’m not sure, but the sleep clinic may be able to confirm.

I’m not a doctor so just talking about the technology and how I understand it … it’s typically spot on for me, if I’ve had bad sleep Garmin knows it and I am grumpy and groggy.

The RHR would be a concern and probably best to see a doctor. Mine will spike during illness, or when I’ve had a drink. Or when I’m very stressed. If you have a lot of stress it would be good to find ways to relax .. think a lot of ppl already have suggestions … depending on your stress factors I don’t know if seeing someone to talk with might help?

67 year old male, retired. Since getting my Garmin Vivoactive 5 I've been watching the Sleep score and Body battery when waking up in the morning. I think it's pretty spot on for me. I sleep really well after a day of SBR training. Specially master swim days where I probably due the most intensity compared to moderate days of biking and easy running.

I still love coffee in retirement and I drink about a pot a day, finishing the last cup (microwaved) at dinner. I rarely drink alcohol any longer and if I do I find that those little airplane bottles of Fireball don't keep me up peeing all night ;) I take regular hour naps during the day.

Funny, when I was working I'd tell myself I'll never get up early again but I still find myself getting up around 4am on master swim days and I can't sleep past sunrise (shines through the bedroom window). In full disclosure I go to bed really early, like 8pm on swim nights and around 9pm any other night.

And on CBD/THC, I tried the 5mg gummies at night. At first, I thought they worked really well but after a while I figured out my sleep was more restful without taking them. YMMV

I don't snore fortunately. I get the limitations of the Garmin but it sets a baseline for at least RHR. I had an Oura ring and it was equally crap

You left a lot of stuff out that would be helpful. onset and duration of sleep issues. events around the time it began ie. did your stress spike prior to your sleep issues, etc.

As a minimum consider the following. . .

1. Google "24 hr sleep log" and fill one out. It's better than recollection as a way to follow sleep patterns. make sure you put in stressors for the day.
2. Yes, a home sleep test may be warranted. You have non-restorative sleep which is a very common symptom of untreated OSA.
3. Assess your stress levels. . . seek ways to mitigate it ie meditation.
4. Practice good sleep hygiene. Many of the things have been said. . . Give yourself 30-60' to wind down. No exercise/food 4-6 hours before bed. Avoidance of electronics. Blue lens blocker.
5. It doesn't appear as though you are describing insomnia. Unless I missed it, you don't have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep. Just wake up 1-2x/night and don't feel rested.
6. Assess your meds to see if they might affect sleep
7. Alcohol consumption - cut it out for a few weeks or a month +.

Just some thoughts.

Agreed. RHR and HRV measured metrics are fine....as is sleep duration, at least for actual sleeping in bed (but, it doesn't do naps outside of the defined "sleeping" window). The issues with Garmin come up when trying to make inferences based on accelerometers, RHR, and HRV for sleep phases, and quality, and all that junk. You need real sensors, and real doctors and a sleep study for that.

Frankly, the same can be said of the other inferences that Garmin makes using HRV. Mostly junk guesses...sometimes mildly interesting for entertainment purposes only.

I'd like to say thanks to everyone for all the thoughtful responses. I'll take a lot of them onboard and report back

Hope it's been helpful for others suffering

Was in office so only got to glance through the 3 pages. Its a common problem that’s hard to solve online.

OP I’ll send you a DM and we can talk.

Garmin added nap tracking to higher end watches last year. https://www.dcrainmaker.com/...ng-nap-tracking.html
I believe that the feature has appeared on other watches since then.

I have an Fenix 6 pro. It hasn't been added to my watch (standard SW, I don't do beta), can't comment otherwise.

It's available on my lower end Vivoactive 5 and works quite well!

This doesn’t address your question, but I stopped drinking any water after dinner (around 5) and I’ve stopped waking up to pee as often … some nights I don’t even wake up at all!

After so many years of drinking water right before bed, I feel so silly ….

I was diagnosed with sleep apnea in my late 40s. I'd ask your doctor about a sleep test. Good luck!

Agree that high stress is a huge factor. I had a pretty stressful job but once retired my sleep quality really improved. Would suggest incorporating stress reduction activities like yoga and meditation prior into your daily routine.

Thanks. Maybe no drinking after 5. I'll try it

I did the same thing recently and it was a work of difference. Just make sure you drink a bit more earlier on in the day.

That and “white noise” machine (cheap) helped a lot too! Not sure how sensitive to little noises in the night you are (one drip of a faucet would wake me up).

Had a sleep study done- normal.

Good luck!