The Benefits of Sober October – one month alcohol-free
With ‘Sober October’ round the corner I thought it would be a good time to talk about some of the benefits of going alcohol-free for 31 days. Sober October is the perfect opportunity to test your relationship with alcohol.
If the idea of going alcohol-free for a month sounds scary or even hard, maybe you need this more than you think!
The benefits of going Sober for October:
Better sleep
When the quality of our sleep is affected, so is the quality of our lives. A ‘nightcap’ is a common term because most people believe alcohol helps them to sleep. Although it may help you fall asleep because it’s a depressant, it prevents you from getting that deep restorative sleep that we need on a daily basis. When you drink alcohol, it affects your ability to reach REM sleep. REM stands for ‘Rapid Eye Movement’ and is the lightest stage of sleep. Studies suggest that REM sleep enhances memory, mood, and cognitive development. A disruption of REM sleep is costly to our health and is associated with migraines, obesity, and mood disorders. [Aaptive]
When alcohol finally leaves your system, you can finally get better sleep. It may take a week of adjustment and dreams may be more vivid than usual but you will start to feel like a totally renewed person with the energy you felt when you were younger.
Improved mental health and mood
“Alcohol is sometimes used by people to try and help manage symptoms of anxiety and depression, but excessive drinking is likely to make those symptoms worse.” [Alcohol Change Uk]
Drinking alcohol can make underlying mental health problems worse and it can also create ones which weren’t there, to begin with. There is a term called ‘self-medicating’ associated with drinking it’s very common to want to open a bottle at the end of a long day because you believe it will relieve you of stress.
The reality is that because alcohol initially has a relaxing effect, the body has to fight to maintain homeostasis. This means that the body will produce cortisol (the stress hormone) and adrenaline to get the body back to baseline. That is why the next day after drinking you may feel on edge or more stressed than before. It can be a vicious cycle that leads you back to drinking because you need relief from the stress.
This is one of the long-term benefits you will feel towards the end of the 31 days of being alcohol-free. It is the most rewarding, yet most challenging aspect of Sober October. We often mistake our moods and feelings as ‘us’ but they are not, they come and go. If you really want to accelerate the improvement of your mental well-being, I would recommend implementing mindfulness and meditation to become more aware of your emotions related to alcohol during the 31 days.
Improved physical health
You may have only started to question your relationship with alcohol once it started taking a toll on your health. The many years of alcohol abuse start to catch up. You can’t handle the hangovers like you used to, in fact, they seem to be getting worse.
An entire blog post could be dedicated to ‘the damaging effect alcohol has on your health.’ Alcohol affects your brain, heart, liver, libido, it makes you gain weight and research shows us that it increases your chance of getting cancer by five times. People know that alcohol is bad for them but they do it anyway, so reading this extensive list may not convince you to stop but if you are looking to stop or have a break, it can be a deal-breaker.
Your body has to work extremely hard to rid yourself of what it sees as a highly potent toxin. Alcohol is poison to our bodies. Bear in mind, the body can only metabolize one unit of alcohol an hour.
It makes sense that once your body can finally stop working on removing a toxin, it can start to heal itself. You will start thinking clearer, your heart will beat normally, you may lose weight, your energy improves, your libido comes back and your risk of cancer diminishes.
Better productivity
After a few nights of proper sleep, surprisingly, you will have more energy. When you have more energy, your motivation improves and you actually feel like doing things.
Don’t be surprised if you suddenly feel like doing those little things on your to-do list that you’ve been putting off.
According to [Verywellmind]
“Hormones act as chemical messengers to control and coordinate the functions of the body’s tissues and organs. When the hormone system is working properly, the exact amount of hormone is released at exactly the right time and the tissues of the body accurately respond to those messages.”
These are the bodily functions that alcohol majorly impairs:
-
- Growth and development
- Maintenance of blood pressure and bone mass
- Production, utilization, and storage of energy
- Reproduction
More time
Drinking takes up a lot of time. If you are a weekend drinker and tend to go all out on one night, or are a ‘few drinks a night every night’ drinker, drinking takes up a lot of time. If you go all out one night of the week, drinking usually starts at a reasonable time and goes on till late, maybe later than you would have liked, so you wake up late the next day, with a hangover. Half the day is gone and you’re too tired to do anything worthwhile, so the day is usually wasted. That’s your weekend gone and the week starts all over again.
If you are more of an everyday drinker, then your evenings are pretty much written off. That is so much time taken up from drinking.
Enjoy the benefits of getting your life back during your 31 days sober. It may feel a little boring at first because you don’t know what to do with yourself but guess what?
“Out of boredom comes creativity.” – Philippa Perry
Improved self-esteem
Some of us introverts may have found that drinking takes away our social anxiety and gives us more confidence. Quite the opposite happens when you drink. Drinking actually takes away your confidence. That sense of ‘confidence’ alcohol gives you, is your inhibitions melting away. Alcohol can make you say or do things that you would never have done sober. Have you thought that maybe inhibitions aren’t such a bad thing? They make you who you are.
When you go to social events sober, it may be a little hard at first, you feel vulnerable and your liquid courage isn’t there to numb the feelings of anxiety. However, you will find that even after your first social event social, your confidence will improve. You turned up as yourself and you left as yourself.
You’ve just done something hard, which increases self-esteem and you aren’t going to wake up tomorrow with the crippling anxiety that alcohol gives you because you’re not worried if you may have said or done something out of order.
Check out my previous blog post on 9 Must-read Tips to Boost your Confidence.
Increased confidence will be a long-term reward that may only come into effect during the second half of your 31-days. It is totally dependent on which milestones you choose to celebrate.
However, it is important to have self-compassion if you do not make it through the whole month. Alcohol is an incredibly addictive substance and even though you may not be an everyday drinker, you may experience withdrawal and emotional cravings.
If you resonated with any of these points, maybe Sober October is a good excuse to test your relationship with alcohol. Doing it alongside many others worldwide can be very encouraging. If you are anxious about whether people will question you on it, when there is a name to a challenge people are usually less judgmental, however, I can’t speak for all. In a world that finds it strange not to drink, It takes a lot of courage to do this challenge and I salute you, you’ve got this!
If you’d like to follow along for any other tips on Sober October, follow my TikTok account @miavickeryblog
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