Today’s article comes to us from Annie Grace, author of This Naked Mind: Control Alcohol, Find Freedom, Discover Happiness & Change Your Life and The Alcohol Experiment: A 30-day, Alcohol-Free Challenge to Interrupt Your Habits and Help You Take Control.
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Research conducted by Veylinx in October 2022 reveals that nearly half of Americans are actively trying to reduce their alcohol consumption. And the benefits of not drinking — or even reducing how much you drink — are many. And taking a break from the bottle doesn’t have to mean that you have a problem with it. Very few people (only 10% of drinkers) would fall under the category of physically dependent. So changing why you drink, when you drink, or how much you drink is really a wellness conversation. Not an addiction one.
Cutting out alcohol for a while can be about satisfying your curiosity. Will it make you happier and healthier? Will life change in any way? Exploring that curiosity and learning from the experience means you’ll be able to create a relationship with alcohol that works well for you.
So, what does it mean for your body when you stop drinking or cut back on how much you drink? From better sleep and a more robust immune system to clearer skin and healthier lungs, you’ll be amazed to learn just how much healing takes place when you say goodbye to the spirits.
Brain Benefits
Taking a break from alcohol for 30 days, or even longer should you choose to, does magical things for both your body and your brain. The brain can physically change during this time by making new neural connections. That means you’ll be able to build amazing new habits and coping mechanisms or eliminate the ones holding you back.
Diabetes Prevention
More than 37 million Americans have diabetes (about one in 10), and approximately 90 to 95% have type II diabetes — drinking alcohol increases your risk of developing it. The empty calories and sugars in alcohol turn into glucose very quickly. In response, your body releases insulin to take care of it.
Releasing more and more insulin raises your risk of developing Type II diabetes, but that process and risk can be quickly reversed! Glucose levels can drop by up to 16% in the first month of not drinking. In fact, blood sugars stabilize within 24 hours of not drinking, so you’ll feel better almost instantly. By continuing to not drink, you also won’t be experiencing the adverse effects of rising and falling blood sugars.
Alcohol consumption can negatively impact your blood sugar levels. Regulating your blood sugar means steadier energy levels, so you can do more of what you love!
Liver Health
A common fear we have when it comes to our drinking is liver damage. Many people experience liver pain while drinking. Fatty liver disease used to be considered a middle age disease, but with a sharp rise in drinking during the pandemic, an alarming number of young and relatively healthy women are being diagnosed with it.
A liver that isn’t functioning properly fails to release enzymes that allow you to burn fats. In many cases, the damage drinking causes to the liver can be reversed. Thirty days free from alcohol gives your liver a chance to repair itself. In fact, you could see a drop in liver fats of 15% during January alone.
Immune Function
Another thing most of us have realized the importance of over the past few years is our immune system, and alcohol does a number on it. A single drinking occasion can suppress the immune system for up to 24 hours, making you more susceptible to illnesses. Habitual drinking increases your risk of infections and can create inflammation in the body.
Alcohol has even been shown to impair the lung’s inner lining, making it harder for the lungs to get rid of bacteria or viruses. The great news is that, for most people, the immune system repairs itself within just one week of stopping drinking!
Rescue Your REM Cycle
Most of our body’s healing occurs while we sleep — specifically during REM sleep. As you might have guessed by now, drinking really messes up sleep cycles. Alcohol might help you fall asleep quickly, but it also prevents you from getting deep, restful sleep.
Drinking alcohol causes shallow sleep patterns, meaning your body fails to reach or maintain deep REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep. REM sleep is when your body rests, recharges, and regenerates. Alcohol creates shallow sleep patterns with frequent wakening and restlessness, reducing overall sleep time.
REM is vitally important to your overall well-being. A typical night of good sleep includes seven to eight cycles of REM sleep per night — but drinking alcohol can lead to a night of sleep with only one or two REM cycles. Taking a break from booze means that, by day seven, you are already up to five or six REM cycles per night! That means you have five to six healing cycles for your body per night!
Most of the healing in our bodies occurs during REM sleep. Alcohol has been proven to significantly reduce your ability to achieve REM sleep — so cutting out the booze naturally leads to better, more restorative sleep!
Heart Health Misconceptions
People often cite heart health as a justification for drinking. There are even medical professionals that encourage it! So often, we hear about the health benefits of drinking red wine because it is so rich in resveratrol. To test this theory, scientists at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine analyzed information from approximately 800 men and women aged 65 and older.
The diets of the participants were naturally rich in resveratrol from food. To gather results, they measured the amounts of metabolized resveratrol in the participants’ urine, expecting to see high levels of resveratrol among the healthiest people. But that didn’t happen. Shockingly, there was no link between resveratrol levels and the rates of heart disease, cancer, and death.
What does alcohol actually do to the heart? It increases bad cholesterol (LDL) levels. This cholesterol builds up in your blood vessels leading to blockages, clots, and other related medical issues. High blood pressure, heart attacks, and even strokes are all possible due to higher cholesterol levels. Stopping drinking can drop your cholesterol levels by around 5% initially. Eliminate alcohol longer, and your levels will drop even further. Many former drinkers see a massive drop in triglyceride and LDL levels after just 30 days of being alcohol-free.
Other visible physical changes include weight loss and clearer, brighter skin and eyes!
Beyond the Physical
Taking 30 days off from drinking will lead to other benefits beyond improvements to your physical health.
It also trickles into other areas of your life. Taking a break from booze translates to less stress, less anxiety, and increased happiness levels. We often drink to de-stress, but alcohol actually chemically increases our stress!
Drinking disrupts endorphins, serotonin, and other chemicals in your brain that naturally help you deal with stress. It also increases cortisol and other negative hormones your brain produces. If you’ve ever felt anxious the day after drinking, you’re not imagining it. Your body is reacting to the chemicals alcohol created! So can not drinking actually make you feel better? A survey from One Year, No Beer revealed that those taking a four-week break from alcohol reported feeling 92% happier.
Plus, you’ll no doubt save the money you would have spent on booze itself, and you’re looking at less cash spent on dining, transportation, and other costs that accompany going out (not to mention hangover recovery, if you’re prone).
Taking a break from alcohol doesn’t just benefit you during your break. Researchers found giving up alcohol for a month helped participants reduce drinking days later in the year as well. Most went from an average of drinking 4.3 days per week before their break to a weekly average of 3.3 days after it. It also reduced how much they drank. Excessive drinking fell from 3.4 to 2.1 times a month, on average.
The easiest way to succeed at taking a break from booze and changing your relationship with it is to ensure you’re supported during it.
For another way to help you find success, consider joining The Alcohol Experiment to connect with others who are curious about a life with less alcohol in it. Avoid decision-making fatigue by making a firm commitment to this experiment! This one firm decision takes all the stress out of the thousands of more minor choices you must make daily. It’s only 30 days. And at the end of the experiment, you can move forward based on what you learned from the experience.
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