Let's start this post off with a couple of comics about Dry January
Every year in January many people decide to take the month off from drinking alcohol. It is called "Dry January." We will get into some of the reasons for this and we will look at some of the possible benefits.
Over the last few years many have noticed that they have been drinking more while in isolation, this could be due to boredom, stress, or a verity of other reasons. America Psychology Association did a study on this topic and it states "31% of respondence admit to drinking more due to Covid-19 Pandemic." This is an interesting survey because not everyone responded to the survey. Here is a link to the article. https://www.apa.org/monitor/2021/01/alcohol-covid
So why would some want to take a break from drinking alcohol? One important reason is to make sure that alcohol is kept in its proper place. We can think of it this way, many people make new years resolutions, to get in shape or change some sort of bad habit. Reassessing your connection to alcohol can be a good change at the start of the year. This change can have some positive health benefits also.
- Your health may improve. Binge drinking has been linked to many negative health effect, such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol, and can effect your sleeping patterns and can lead to liver problems.
Now granted taking one month off of drinking will not fix these problems in themselves, it surely could not hurt to give your body some time to heal a little bit. There have not been many study's on this topic but, in one observational study, published in the British Medical Journal in 2018, researchers tracked 94 healthy moderate-to-heavy drinkers who abstained from alcohol for one month and found improvements in various health markers like blood pressure, liver function tests, insulin resistance, and molecules that play a role in cancer growth. (The authors point out, however, that these short-term findings do not establish lasting health effects from one month of abstinence, and that one month off drinking doesn’t “refresh” your liver.)
- You will see how you do without alcohol. At this time many are dealing with negative mental health, so if you are not feeling your best hitting reset on alcohol can be helpful to see how you are feeling mentally, physically, and even socially.
So what was my experience from taking the month of January off from drinking alcohol?
First let me explain, I don't feel like I drink excessively throughout the year. I enjoy being able to have a cocktail or something neat and I would say on average its maybe once or twice a week. With this said, I noticed with not drinking for the month that I still thought about drinking throughout the month. Never did I feel like I really need a drink right now, but there were times that I thought it would be nice to have something different to drink.
Many people experience some of the aforementioned benefits from not drinking such as better sleep ect. I really did not see this improve on my end. The aspect of better blood pressure was not checked on my end so I will not make comments to that point either. I did however notice by not drinking alcohol, I did tend to crave sweets more frequently.
Early in the month I did think about when I could have my next drink, think of a countdown clock, but now I feel like I can give or take drinking regularly.
Other observations. A handful of people in my circle started to do dry January and many of them were not able to complete the month for various reason. Do I claim victory? Absolutely! This is not actually shocking though based off of this study.
This was a interesting month to just take a brake. It was nice to review my personal relationship with alcohol. From time to time everyone should reevaluate personal health and habits and it just felt like the right time to do this for me. I know I am posting a little early but I will complete the month.
Have you ever done dry January? What did you notice about the month, and what was your take away?