WASHINGTON – It’s the end of a long day, so you pour yourself a glass of wine and have a drink before bed. You’ll surely sleep well tonight.

But it turns out that red wine might actually be sabotaging your sweet dreams.

Alcohol increases the likelihood you’ll wake up in the middle of the night, Prevention reports. This is because it relaxes your respiratory muscles to the point of suppressing your breathing.

When this happens, you wake up.

The study by The London Sleep Centre published in the journal “Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research” also found that alcohol makes it difficult to reach REM, the deepest stage of sleep.

But, if you’d still like to be lulled to sleep by a glass of wine, stop drinking at least an hour before bedtime. With lower levels of alcohol in your system, the impact won’t be as great.

WTOP’s Veronica Robinson contributed to this report. Follow @VRobWTOP and @WTOP on Twitter.