Do you head straight to a bar or a pub after work to drink the night away? Is a meal not complete without several cans of beer, glasses of wine, or shots of vodka to wash down your food? Do you heavily rely on alcohol to cope with the stress and pressure at work, in school, or in your relationships?
Getting addicted to alcohol can lead to a lot of problems. While treating yourself to a glass or two occasionally is fine, consuming it like how an athlete gulps down water or sports drinks is never a good idea. Your body can only take so much of it, and feeding yourself with way more than you can handle can be risky and dangerous.
If you want to avoid breaking your body down, you should commit to giving up alcohol. It will be difficult, for sure, but the benefits of quitting can completely turn your life around. Below are 9 reasons that should hopefully convince you to start today:
1. You will look younger.
Did you know that alcohol can dehydrate your skin? Because alcohol is a diuretic, it forces your body to get rid of more water than usual through peeing, sweating, and others. So, if you drink a lot, your skin becomes dry and less elastic. You become more prone to wrinkles and other blemishes that make you look older than you really are.
2. Your body will feel better.
Have you noticed how you feel different or not like yourself every time you drink? Alcohol contains compounds that disrupt the functions of your body. Every time you drink, your neurons and neurotransmitters go into overdrive mode, your brain is all over the place, your heart is racing, and your lungs are making you inhale and exhale at a quicker pace.
3. Your mood will improve.
Do your friends tell you to drink your sorrows away? Alcohol can indeed affect the chemicals in your brain, influencing your emotions, albeit in a negative way. In order to be in a healthy disposition, your serotonin levels should be just the right amount for your brain. Now, if you consume lots of alcohol on a regular basis, your serotonin levels will start to shrink, and you get anxiety, depression, and other mental and emotional issues. You will have a hard time doing a wide range of activities, including getting out of bed, getting yourself ready for work or school, doing tasks and responsibilities assigned to you, and many others.
4. You will save money.
Have you tried keeping track of what percentage of your salary goes to alcohol? Even if it only costs you a few dollars to buy a six-pack of beer, that will add up to a substantial amount that you should be allotting for something more important and valuable. If you drop by the grocery store quite often to stock up on liquor for your daily, morning-to-night consumption, and then spend your weekends partying and enjoying cocktails, you can easily spend hundreds of dollars a month on alcohol alone.
5. You will lose weight.
Does your beer belly bother you so much? Alcohol is quite heavy in calories. A regular can of beer is approximately 356 grams, which gives you 154 calories. If you finish a six-pack while enjoying a football game, that takes your caloric intake to about a thousand calories in just a couple of hours. This is why you easily gain weight if you consume alcohol so much, and then quickly shed off extra pounds if you drop alcohol completely from your diet.
6. You will sleep better.
How many hours of sleep do you get at night after drinking alcohol? You have probably been advised by some people to drink to get a good night’s sleep. While it is correct that alcohol can make you feel sleepy, it does not give you that kind of slumber that energizes and rejuvenates you for the challenges of the day. According to studies, alcohol does not help you enjoy good quality sleep. In fact, it puts you at risk of severe insomnia and other health problems that can negatively affect your sleeping patterns. It makes entering a deep sleep cycle difficult, resulting to you feeling groggy and exhausted the next day. The quality of sleep that intoxicated person gets is far inferior than that of a sober one.
7. Your heart will be healthier.
Do you want to avoid heart attack, stroke, and other heart problems? Overconsumption of alcohol can be very dangerous to your cardiovascular health. It can increase the unhealthy fat levels in your blood, resulting to high blood pressure. It can also cause heart failure, stroke, cardiomyopathy, and cardiac arrhythmia. If completely quitting alcohol is so hard for you, you can do your best to drink in moderation, to start with. A glass a day or every couple of days is a reasonable amount that should not significantly derail your health.
8. You will have better memory and concentration.
Do you find it difficult to remember things and focus on tasks at hand? Many studies have found that excessive alcohol consumption can cause damage to the brain. If you often get blackout drunk, your brain cells are exposed to harmful compounds that prevent them from doing their jobs properly. You will not be as productive as before, and you will take a long time to process information that you encounter. Eventually, due to the frequent hangovers, exhaustion, and migraines, you will reach your breaking point and not be able to perform even the simplest tasks. Therefore, the sooner you quit alcohol, the better.
9. You will less likely suffer from liver problems.
Are you aware that there are large numbers of people that die of alcohol-related liver diseases every year? In the United States alone, there were almost 20,000 deaths in 2014 due to liver problems brought about by overdrinking. If you consume alcohol so much and so often, your bodily organs will have a hard time processing it. Your liver, most especially, has to work a lot harder than usual. Over time, the extra effort results to damages that can be too severe for your body to overcome.
