Not everyone drinks, but for those of us who do it can be a pretty regular occurrence. A little here, a little there, sometimes a little more than a little, you know how it goes. But what happens when you go from being an occasional or social drinker to not drinking alcohol at all for five weeks? Well, a lot as it turns out.
Perhaps most notably, (and not all that surprisingly) your liver actually really appreciates it. One study found that skipping alcohol for as little as five weeks can cut down on the amount of liver fat you have by 15 percent at least. (The fat on your liver is what contributes to liver disease, so you definitely don’t want too much of that around.)
In addition to that, participants in the study saw their blood sugar levels drop by 16 percent. To clear things up, you may have heard that drinking alcohol can make your blood sugar drop, not raise it, but both would be correct. As soon as you start drinking your body is basically doing what it can do get rid of it, and this immediately interferes with your glucose levels and the hormones involved in stabilizing them. In the short term your blood sugar drops when you drink, but regular drinking over the long term it can cause blood sugar levels to rise.
A lot of people think that having a nightcap helps them get to sleep faster, but drinking alcohol before bed actually disrupts your sleep, your nixing it for a while can restore some some of those z’s you’ve been missing out on. It can help you fall asleep, but the problem is that it disrupts the REM cycle that begins about 90 minutes after you fall asleep. Without going through the proper sleep cycles you just simply don’t get the restorative sleep that you need to feel alert the next day. Enter drowsiness and the endless cycle of not having enough time to ever catch up on sleep. If you can find a different way to help yourself fall asleep minus the booze, your body will thank you.
Easing up on alcohol can also help reduce your stress levels, which seems counteractive since a lot of us turn to a drink to relax. Even though alcohol has that relaxing effect on the body, it actually causes the body to release stress hormones. That means when you wind down with some drinks, you might be setting yourself up for a more stressful day no matter what happens, which in turn will lead you to want more drinks to chill out again. Vicious cycle. You might notice pretty quickly how drinking can affect your mood if you start to track the days that you’re agitated for no reason.
Not everyone is going to think skipping drinks for over a month sounds like the most fun idea, but it’s a good reminder to keep everything in moderation. Even just going dry throughout the work week and saving your drinks for the weekend can help improve your sleep, energy levels, and not to mention help you lose weight.