Have you thought about taking a pause from drinking? Here’s what I experienced when I stopped drinking alcohol for a month!
I don’t know about you but living in the NYC area makes for a life centered around drinking alcohol to be social and maintain friendships. I’ve been living here for the past 7 years and I am always shocked to see how much alcohol I actually consume when I hang out with friends. Maybe you are also a social drinker or enjoy a glass or two of wine with dinner from time to time. Whatever the case, if you’ve been drinking for years, it might be nice to give your body a little break! Back in 2020, my boyfriend and I actually stopped drinking for 8 months! And I will tell you, my body felt the absolute best it ever has! So I decided to take a month off from drinking to see if I could experience that same feeling in a short amount of time. The results were shocking!
This post is all about what it’s like to stop drinking for a month and how it can benefit you to take a break from alcohol as well!
Disclaimer: The contents of this post should not be construed as medical advice – This was my personal experience! It’s always a great idea to speak with your doctor before making any changes.
What I found when I Stopped Drinking Alcohol For a Month
1. Slept Better
As you could have guessed, drinking alcohol really disrupts our sleep. I end up tossing and turning in the early hours of the morning as the alcohol is wearing off whenever I drink. It’s honestly an awful feeling to know that you can’t fall into a deep sleep but you’re also too exhausted to get up and start your day. Drinking more than two glasses of alcohol can start to have a negative effect on your sleep. When I stopped drinking alcohol for a month, I found that I slept throughout the night with very limited tossing and turning!
2. Woke up feeling refreshed and energized
By avoiding alcohol for 30 days, I was able to get to bed at a similar time each night. I even had 7-9 hours of sleep depending on the day! That’s right, I wasn’t out drinking with my friends really late, and if I did go out with them, I knew when it was time to head home so I could sleep. By keeping a consistent bedtime, your body can operate with ease, allowing your energy levels to rise as it goes through numerous REM cycles.
I wear a Garmin smartwatch which measures something called my body battery. Think phone battery but for your body! From my own personal experience with drinking, I have found that consuming even just one glass of alcohol disrupts my body’s ability to recharge overnight. Add more than two and forget about it, I wake up with my body battery at a 15 (instead of 100) and it lingers all day until about 9 pm without being able to recharge naturally. Talk about an eye-opening visual!
3. Had more energy for workouts
As you probably could have guessed from my last two discoveries, I actually had way more energy to work out. Not only was my exercise routine on a more structured schedule, but I also had the energy to get through an hour workout without feeling completely exhausted! We expend SO MUCH ENERGY throughout the day as it is that powering through an exercise class at the end of the day can feel really hard. Add in some alcohol and a rough night of sleep, and your body definitely won’t be able to perform at its best!
4. Lost a few pounds
People tend to say that cutting out alcohol helps them to lose a few pounds, but is it really true? In my experience, it was the truth! Did you know that alcohol stays in your system for up for 80 hours? That’s over 3 days! Your body is working so hard to burn off the alcohol that it can’t really work on burning anything else off or give you the proper rest you need, relating back to points 1 and 2. By eliminating alcohol for 30 days, you also are knocking that toxic habit of binge eating all the yummy (and very heavy) food before bed. Let’s face it, we could all do without that late-night slice of pizza or fast-food burger on your way home from the bars. Cutting out the alcohol also allowed me to stick to more consistent eating timeframes and I consumed better foods for my body.
5. Lost the bloat in my face
Along with losing a few pounds, I noticed that the bloating in my face had also magically disappeared. When I do nutritionally supported fasting, I always say that my skin feels so much closer to my face! HAHA what I am trying to say is that I don’t feel a thick layer of anything under my cheeks!
Drinking alcohol means that your body is retaining water which does cause bloating. You might be thinking, wait, doesn’t alcohol dehydrate my body? You are indeed correct! Alcohol does dehydrate your body, but in doing so, it holds onto any fluid that it can get because it’s trying to rehydrate. These excess fluids cause bloating. Be sure to get some electrolytes in your body when consuming alcohol. The salt in the electrolytes helps to re-balance out your body and let go of that excess water.
This post was all about what I experienced when I stopped drinking alcohol for a month and to be honest, the benefits were all worth the 30 days of sobriety!
That’s right, I said it, the benefits of not drinking alcohol for a month have me thinking that I will stop drinking alcohol for 30 days more often! Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to drink at your friend’s birthday or the 4th of July, but sometimes the negative impact on our bodies is really taxing. Is anyone even surprised that drinking alcohol inhibits our ability to truly live a healthy lifestyle? The benefits of not drinking tend to outweigh the few hours of fun here and there that come with drinking alcohol. If you decide to stop drinking alcohol for a month, let me know what effects you find it has on your body as well!
