Pop quiz, what makes you feel incredibly healthy,saves you lots of money, gives you the best sleep you’ve ever had in your life, and can help your body run smoother than ever? If you answered quitting drinking, you’re exactly right!
Coming up in today’s article a time line on what happens to your body as soon as you put down the bottle. One minute later you should feel proud you’ve decided to make a commitment to your health! You should also start to feel bubbles of excitement about how good you’re going to feel in the next few days and weeks!
The First 12 Hours Ok, truth be told, the first day of not drinking will probably be the hardest. You’ll have to start breaking your normal routine of drinking at some point, and this will also be the day of identifying the triggers that make you want to drink. To help you out during this trying time it’s recommended that you try sticking to healthy foods even though you may crave sugar. This’ll help boost your mood while your body adjusts to this new normal.
While your body is busy flushing the booze from your system you could start to feel a few effects of withdrawal coming on (depending on how heavy of a drinker you were). This part doesn’t feel great, but trust us, it’s worth it, keep going!
Two Days later ok, now you’re starting to get the hang of it. The hardest part is pretty much done, so give yourself a pat on the back! By now you should start to notice your energy levels are way better because regular drinking can affect your sleeping in a really bad way. Sure it makes you drowsy in the beginning but once you’re asleep booze can actually prevent you from getting that restorative deep sleep we all need to feel good the next day.
After a night of drinking, even if you’ve managed to sleep a full 7 hours, you’re still gonna wind up feeling tired. Now that you’re 48 hours into sobriety,when you go to sleep you should start to notice you’re feeling really rested and ready to take on whatever the day can throw at you!
Three to four days later have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately because you are looking fabulous! Not drinking can really have a great impacton your skin, stomach and how you smell. Oh yeah, did we forget to mention that drinking too much means that alcohol will leave your body by way of your sweat, breath and pee? There’s a reason your bedroom might smell like a bar after a night of heavy drinking. Not to mention when you drink you’re dehydrating your body, and your skin.
Once you cut back on the alcohol your eyes and skin will start to look way better, and brighter. Alcohol can also make you all puffy and bloated which doesn’t feel or look good, so it makes sense that the more you cut back, the better you’ll look! Not to mention cutting those empty calories means you might start to notice that beer belly shrinking.
One Week Sober Woohoo! You made it to the one week mark! The difficulty of getting to this point, isn’t so much the craving or with drawal of booze, it’s breaking the habit of drinking, especially in social settings. By now you’ll have made it through a weekend when most people like to cut loose and will usually involve some type of booze being present. One great way to deal with the social pressures of always having a drink in your hand at parties is the wonderful creation known as the mocktail.
Shirley temple, soda water with lime, virginpina colada, basically any cocktail sans booze. Keep in mind these mocktails are usually fullof sugar, so you’ll still be adding more calories to your diet, but the idea here is to block out the booze, so good job! By now your sleeping patterns should be much better, and your energy levels have probably improved as well. You’re also balancing out your hydration levels, so start to say hello to your new and improved glowing skin. We don’t mean actually glowing, although that would be pretty cool.
Two Weeks In It can take at least this long for the body to fully detox from drinking. This is the part when you’ll start to get to know what you’re like without drinking. You’ll start to reshape relationships with others and yourself. By now you’ve probably implemented some healthier habits into your routine as well, where the drinking would have normally been.
The best part about this point, is that your mental clarity will really start to shine. If you’ve been drinking for many years frontallobe damage can occur in your brain. That’s where your emotions are regulated,short term memories are made and that’s where you make judgement calls on your actions. It’s a pretty important place, so when it’s swimming in alcohol all the time, no wonder it gets damaged. Once your brain has had a chance to sober up, you’ll start thinking more clearly and you’ll find that you’re better equipped to handle your emotions.
Your mood should really start to improve by this point. Looking better and feeling better? Not a bad combo if you ask us. 30 Days Later by now, this should be feeling like the new normal and your starting to really see how abstaining from alcohol can benefit your health. Especially when it comes to your liver, aschronic drinking can lead to something called fatty liver and this prevents the liver from doing its job of filtering toxins in your body. But the best part of being sober for at leasta month means your liver got a break, and is probably performing at a much healthier level now, if it wasn’t too damaged in the first place.
Your energy levels will continue to get better as well, and you blood glucose levels or the amount of sugar in your blood will have decreased by up to 16%! Too much sugar in the blood can lead to insulin resistance or eventually diabetes. With these levels of sugar dropping, so does the risk of developing diabetes. We often hear of folks taking a break from alcohol and according to the research out there, taking a month long break from boozeis one of the best things you can do for your body. Regular drinking increases your risk of cancer, liver disease, and many other complications, but abstaining from booze, or cutting down can really have life long benefits, not to mention the amount of money you’ll save.
Research also shows us that once you makea habit of cutting down on your drinking, you’re more likely to cut back in general throughout your entire life. Have you recently cut back on drinking? What benefits have you noticed since you quit the habit? Why not offer any words of encouragement,or suggestions you may have on ways to cut down on drinking in the comments section below.
No comments:
Post a Comment
wgdyrj@gmail.com