Drinking alcohol is a socially acceptable practice, it can even make you feel included or ‘cool’ in some environments. It has become so common that it’s hard to believe that a party without alcohol can still be a party, or that you can enjoy yourself without a drink in your hand.
Alcohol makes it easier for inhibited people to open up, it also increases our self-confidence to some extent. However, in the long run, it can also have serious consequences to our health and life.
Here are 6 amazing things that our bodies can experience when we take the challenge to be alcohol-free for 30 days:
1. You lose weight.
Usually, alcoholic drinks contain an unnecessary amount of calories and sugar that make our bodies gain weight rather easily over time.
When cutting out alcohol, we should also, of course, abstain from replacing those drinks with other high-sugar beverages like energy drinks or sodas, since they also contain great amounts of calories and sugar that won’t help us to see changes within our body. When we reduce our alcohol intake, we help our body balance the calories intake, and with the right companions, we can set a good rhythm to lose weight.
Alcohol-free drinks don’t need to be boring. Here are six healthy recipes you can try:
2. Brings your alcohol tolerance back down.
One of the risks of drinking alcohol regularly is that we begin to build up a tolerance to it. This means that over time, drinking won’t have the same effect, and we will need drink more to keep getting that buzz.
This is dangerous as it could open the gate towards alcohol abuse. By going alcohol-free for a 30 day period will bring your tolerance levels back to normal.
It is always worth doing a reset when you can as it helps you eliminate toxins and rebalance your body.
3. Your sleeping pattern improves.
We all know just how easy it is to fall asleep after a long party, but maybe you are confusing sleep with just passing out after a night of heavy drinking. Alcohol makes our brain produce alpha waves¹, which help you rest, but this is not the same as restorative sleep. Alpha waves disrupt the sleeping state and prevent our bodies and brains from recovering fully. This is also one of the reasons why you can experience very vivid nightmares after drinking too much.
Going alcohol-free can help you to resume a normal sleeping pattern. When we can naturally progress through the sleep cycles we feel much better in the morning. If you still have trouble sleeping there are other natural solutions you can try:
4. You may reduce the chance of getting a serious disease.
Many people believe that alcohol-related diseases only happen to heavy drinkers, and while that might be the tendency, we can’t assume that we’re exempt of such danger. Lowering our drinking will allow our organs to have some respite and restore themselves. The liver, in particular, has over 500 functions!² So give it a helping hand by nourishing it:
5. You will experience more energy.
If the term hangover sounds familiar, we already know what happens the day after a heavy drinking session. Our bodies dehydrate and consume far more energy when we’re under the influence of alcohol. Therefore, it is no surprise that we will feel exhausted the next day.
Alcohol is also a depressant, which means it can also leave us feeling grumpy or simply in a bad mood after its effects are long gone.
By simply cutting back, if not eliminating alcohol from our lives, we can experience the natural buzz of true energy.
6. It encourages you to make other healthy choices.
Once we take on the challenge and start feeling better in ourselves and see the positive changes in our mind and body, this will make it easier for us to start thinking in a more positive and healthy-oriented way.
Seeing immediate changes can be great motivation to make other adjustments in life, like starting to work-out or improve our eating habits. All of this will start reflecting in our life and can become a cycle of self-improvement that we’ll be grateful for in the future.
Taking on the 30-day challenge won’t turn our life around overnight, but it will definitely plant the seed for us to start considering making other healthy choices.
If you don’t want to go alcohol-free completely, you can definitely still see changes by reducing your intake. Moderation and responsibility are key to enjoying an occasional drink or a night out with friends while still being able to have a good time.
If you’d like to ask a question or suggest other benefits of cutting down on alcohol brings, feel free to leave a comment below.
- 6 Benefits of Giving up Alcohol for 30 Days - Mar 1, 2017
