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5 good reasons to drink less alcohol, but also why you shouldn't give it up.
Who does not know it!
Alcohol is something that is deeply integrated into our everyday lives. Have a nice time with friends, the glass of wine in the evening, toast to some occasion, simply treat yourself to something.
We like to find a way to have a drink.
And, that’s absolutely OK, too. Alcohol need not and should not be demonized, as long as consumption remains within certain limits. The nice thing is that the trend is also moving more towards conscious alcohol consumption.
Find out what trends there will be in the field of longevity in 2023 HERE!
A small amount of alcohol is even healthy for us
However, we sometimes notice that we are pushing this envelope quite a bit. By this I mean the one or other all-night party, which brings our body pretty much to its tolerance and lets it go to its reserves, but also, the regularity.
Even if it’s not much, many drink at least one glass of alcohol regularly and almost every day.
And at some point the thought comes to mind that it might be better to drink a little less alcohol.
Whether it’s not wanting to feel like you “need” alcohol, but also giving your body a break.
Interestingly, there is a direction developing right now that shows that drinking too much alcohol is even something that is no longer quite trendy. And if, then please only high-quality liquids should be in the glass.
Drinking less alcohol is becoming IN, so to speak.
Even if the benefits of red wine are described in thousands of articles, it does not mean that more alcohol is also healthy, but much more substances such as resveratrol and OPC, which are contained there. In order to consume these in a health-promoting measure, one would have to drink a lot of glasses of red wine.
As I said, alcohol is not fundamentally a bad thing, on the contrary. Studies have shown that a small amount of alcohol now and then is even more beneficial than being completely abstinent. I don’t want to gloss over alcohol here, but I don’t want to pillory it either.
As with all things - The dose makes the poison!
It is in the nature of things, it with poisons also like to overdo it sometimes, then, the positive effect quickly tips into a negative and that, we want to avoid. This is also the case with alcohol. Because too much of it simply makes us age faster on multiple levels.
Too much alcohol...
- Promotes inflammatory processes.
- Complicates detoxification.
- Makes our skin look sallow.
- Slows down our metabolism.
- Brings our intestinal flora out of balance.
- Makes us sleep worse.
And some more
You see, too much alcohol doesn’t have a very good effect on your body and if
we talk about longevity, too much alcohol also makes us age faster.
Drinking less alcohol and abstaining from it from time to time, on the other hand, has many positive effects on your body.
This
5 good reasons
are sure to make things easier for you,
to drink less alcohol.
1. better sleep
One of the most important hormones when we talk about longevity is melatonin.
Melatonin is a hormone that is produced during sleep and has the wonderful property of turning zombie cells back into healthy cells. That is why, besides the regenerating effect, healthy and balanced sleep is so important. Everyone knows the condition when they have slept badly for a few days.
But what role does alcohol play in this?
Alcohol in itself is a depressant, even though we tend to associate it with socializing. Not that it makes us fall asleep immediately, but it soothes our nerves, classically speaking. This is also the reason why we like to drink a glass, or even two, especially during stressful periods or after work. Because it makes us calm down and fall asleep better, at least as long as we don’t get totally drunk.
And this is exactly where the problem lies. Alcohol sometimes even makes us fall asleep too quickly.
We have sleep phases that always repeat during the night.
- Non-REM Sleep
- Stage N1 (fall asleep phase)
- Stage N2 (light sleep)
- Stage N3 (deep sleep)
- REM sleep (dream sleep)
Drinking alcohol before bedtime may contribute to suppression of REM sleep during the first two cycles. Since alcohol calms us down and we fall asleep faster than normal, we skip the first two stages and end up in deep sleep and REM sleep too quickly. Since each cycle has its own timing, there is an imbalance between the deep sleep phase and the REM phase.
This leads to the fact that we sleep worse and shorter. Thus, less melatonin is produced, our body can regenerate worse and is less efficient. This is another reason why we don’t feel well-rested after a night of partying,
2. radiant and younger skin
Alcohol is as said it poison, which is why it even has a positive effect through the effect of homeostasis in small quantities. However, this is not applicable if we drink too much.
Alcohol must be broken down in our bodies, which is quite an effort. As a rule, it tries to flush out the toxins, for which it needs increased fluid. Fluid, which he often lacks. Therefore, the body also goes to its reserves here and withdraws the liquid from the skin, among other things. That’s why after days of drinking too deeply, we feel so dehydrated and want to drink lots of water.
But the skin is not so forgiving and certainly not when we get older. Too much alcohol means gray and sallow skin, faster wrinkling, loss of elasticity and, in the worst case, bloating.
As you can see, drinking less alcohol has its benefits and is good for your skin, and if you do have a night out that’s a little more debauched, remember to drink at least one glass of water with every glass of alcohol.
3. stronger immune system
Our immune system is the basis for a healthy and strong body.
When weaknesses occur here, they also make themselves felt. We get sick more often, are more sensitive to environmental influences, feel listless and much more.
Too much alcohol weakens our immune system, attacks our DNA and has a negative impact on our telomeres. It requires reserves for degradation. Not only in fluids, but also in nutrients. Our immune system tries to protect our body from the influence of alcohol, as it does from many others, and is then often not able to take care of the “daily business”, like repairing our DNA which is damaged even more by too much alcohol.
It comes to the fact that necessary repair processes can no longer take place, because our immune system is overstrained at some point. This also affects DNA and telomeres. When these can no longer be repaired or are increasingly damaged, this causes us to age more quickly.
4. faster muscle building
As you can imagine, alcohol is not a good training partner. When we have drunk too much alcohol, the motivation to exercise is several levels lower and not only that, too much alcohol consumption inhibits muscle building. Means, even if you motivate yourself to exercise, the effect is less than if you drink little / rarely alcohol.
There are 3 reasons for this
- When your liver is busy breaking down alcohol, it needs nutrients that are also important for building muscle, but the liver takes priority in that case.
- Has a negative effect on regeneration and thus muscle growth. Alcohol after sports is therefore not recommended.
- It inhibits protein synthesis, which is necessary for building muscles.
So avoid alcohol on days when you’re exercising or take a day off if things do get a little wild.
5. better metabolism
Who does not know it, alcohol also always tempts us to eat. Especially when we’ve had too much to drink, we don’t exactly reach for the healthy foods. We need quick sugar, fat and salty.
Why we feel this craving has spawned many theories.
It has now been discovered that ethanol (alcohol) stimulates certain nerve cells in the brain, which simulate strong hunger in the body and thus encourage us to eat. This is a similar effect to when we really haven’t eaten for a while. Then we are also rarely drawn to fruits and vegetables, but rather to pizza, chips, pasta or other temptations.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t exactly boost our metabolism and tends to make us gain pounds.
FAcit
Alcohol can have a positive effect in small quantities. But never forget that it is also a neurotoxin and larger quantities are harmful not only to our body but also to our psyche.
There are many good reasons to drink less alcohol and enjoy it consciously.
There are great non-alcoholic drinks like our Cucumber Spritz that make it easy for you to drink less alcohol.