Five Ways Quitting Alcohol Will Improve Your Life
We all know that self-care is a great way to improve your life. But when we think of self-care, we often think about bath bombs and chocolate. In reality, some of the most important self-care comes from making tricky decisions about your lifestyle. One thing you can do to improve your life and care for yourself is to quit drinking alcohol. Here are five ways that embracing sober curiosity and trying the alcohol-free lifestyle will improve your life.
1. You Will Get Sick Less Often
Alcohol consumption strongly affects your immune system. So if you hate getting the sniffles, and want to protect yourself from Covid-19 and other short and long-term sicknesses, then quitting alcohol is a great idea.
Simply put, when you drink alcohol, your body processes it as a toxin, so immediately start trying to flush out and deal with the alcohol in your body. Your body does not have a place to store alcohol as it does with fats and other nutrients, so it prioritises breaking down the alcohol to send to your liver. Whilst your body is busy doing this, it cannot protect you from infection and illness because your other bodily processes take a backseat.
Alcohol affects every area of your body and disrupts the functioning of your immune system in several different ways. For example, when it enters the gastrointestinal system, it causes inflammation. This throws your gut biome out of balance and kills important microorganisms that help with immunity.
Throughout the body, you can see numerous ways that alcohol affects your immunity. By quitting alcohol and embracing an alcohol-free lifestyle, you put much less stress on your body and allow your natural immunity to do its job. This means you are less likely to catch whichever nasty illness is being spread, and you will recover much more quickly. You are also less likely to develop long-term sicknesses.
2. You Will Have More Mental Energy
Direct side effects of drinking alcohol include depression, anxiety and brain fog. These all lower your mental energy and ability to cope with mental stress.
By following an alcohol-free lifestyle, you lower the stress and pressure on your brain and allow yourself more room to think and feel. You will, therefore, have much more mental energy. This can help improve your life in numerous ways; it makes you more productive. It also allows you to focus on important relationships, take care of yourself better and make sensible life choices.
Additionally, when you have more mental energy and space, you are more equipped to deal with stress. Realistically, life is filled with stressful and difficult life events, from breakups to losing jobs, that we all have to deal with sometimes. Leading an alcohol-free lifestyle helps you have the mental capacity to deal with these events, process them and move on with your life without it completely overwhelming you.
3. You Will Have More Energy
Following an alcohol-free lifestyle will help you have more energy. When you quit alcohol, you will sleep better and, your body will be much healthier.
Drinking alcohol is bad for your sleep health. While alcohol might help you drift off more easily initially, alcohol causes you to wake up more often at night, stops you from getting restorative REM sleep, and gives you a shorter night's rest. Bad sleep health affects both the health and immunity of your body. The healthier and longer your sleep is, the more energy you will have!
4. You Will Be More Efficient and Productive With Your Time
When you drink alcohol regularly, you lower your brain's capacity to function. In the short term, you might notice this in hangovers. When you are hungover, it is difficult to focus on work, relationships or really anything! Regularly experiencing hangovers can kill your productivity.
In the longer term, because alcohol throws out the chemical balance in your brain, you might find yourself more stressed and anxious. When you are stressed, it is hard to organise your time effectively. This makes it hard to be productive and efficient in everything you do. It can feel like you are living a scatterbrained existence and trying to cram things in a bit of a fog.
When you quit alcohol, you will immediately notice the lack of hangovers, and will get productive morning hours you've not seen for a while! In the longer term, you will also notice that you are more productive and efficient in everything you do because you have more mental focus and clarity.
5. Your Self Image Will Improve
There are numerous ways in which following an alcohol-free lifestyle can really improve your self-esteem including the above-mentioned factors.
Alcohol is a mind-altering substance and, over time, can change the chemical balance in your brain. Whilst you might initially feel more confident when drinking due to the release of GABA, drinking depletes your dopamine. In the long run, this causes an increase in depression and anxiety. Having a chemical imbalance in the brain causes people to lose confidence in themselves and have lower self-esteem. By quitting alcohol, you can re-balance the chemicals in your brain and feel more confident again.
On top of this, people often hide their low self-esteem with alcohol. A surprising number of people feel like they can only socialise when drinking. By forcing yourself to be in social situations without using alcohol, you learn to rely on yourself and see that people appreciate you for yourself, and not only when you are drunk. This can provide a huge boost to your self-image.
When you quit alcohol, other changes occur, for instance, your skin improves, people often lose weight, and overall look healthier and happier. When you look good, it often helps you to feel good.
Sign Up for JOMO to Dive Into the World of Alcohol-Free Drinks
So if you are looking to improve your life and start caring for yourself, sign up for a JOMO Club subscription. With a JOMO alcohol-free subscription box, you will receive a regular box filled to the brim with alcohol-free goodies. It is the self-care gift that keeps on giving.
Every single JOMO hamper is filled with the best and most ethical alcohol-free drinks on the market to help make quitting alcohol easy. Your hamper will contain all the ingredients to create a range of alcohol-free cocktails with the included full-sized alcohol-free spirit. You will even get garnishes and snacks too! Alongside this, each box contains a range of ready-to-drink alcohol-free beverages and a magazine with everything you need to know about the world of alcohol-free.