An anti-alcohol advocacy event in the U.K. called Dry January has its participants swearing off booze for the year's first month. The aim is to curb drinking habits, but the idea could very well serve other people in the rest of the world. It might even motivate ditching alcohol for good, when the choice can bring many benefits. Below are just some of the things that can happen when a person decides to stop drinking alcohol:
1) You're going to lose weight.
Alcohol contains lots of calories and cutting down or completely avoiding it could aid in weight loss. A regular can of beer has 154 calories, while a glass of a cocktail drink like vodka has 127 to 240 calories, depending on the type, according to Live Strong. When you're enjoying happy hour, you're bound to have more than one serving and the calories can add up quickly.
2) Your immune system and body functions grows stronger.
The body absorbs and digests alcohol before other nutrients and contains mostly toxins that weaken the immune system and hamper body function. "If you consume more than this, your system becomes saturated, and the additional alcohol will accumulate in the blood and body tissues until it can be metabolized. This is why having a lot of shots or playing drinking games can result in high blood alcohol concentrations that last for several hours," according to Brown University.
3) Your cholesterol level drops.
Although there is no cholesterol content in alcohol, it does have high amounts of carbs and sugar that could drive up triglyceride levels that lead to heart diseases. A 2011 study conducted by University of Rochester Medical Center on mice showed that both moderate drinking and alcohol binging affected the arteries. "Levels of LDL or 'bad' cholesterol plummeted 40 percent in the daily-moderate drinking mice, but rose 20 percent in the weekend-binge drinking mice," the research stated.
4) Your blood sugar levels are controlled.
Alcohol disrupts sugar sources in the body, thus blood sugar levels tend to go haywire. Those who drink booze on the regular become insulin resistant and they tend to have high blood sugar levels, according to San Francisco Gate. But alcohol might also cause hypoglycemia or low blood sugar levels within 24 hours of drinking, per the American Diabetes Association. Hypoglycemia symptoms are a lot similar to being drunk - dizziness, sleepiness and disorientation - which might sometimes cause confusion and won't be properly addressed.
5) You get better, restful sleep.
Some people believe that alcohol helps them sleep better, but research has proven that it's not the case. Sleep wave patterns for those who have imbibed alcohol before sleeping are slower, thus, even if they have slept for hours, they still wake up feeling heavy and tired. "When you actually go and look at what is happening while they sleep, the quality of that sleep isn't good," said researcher Christian Nicholas via Time.
6) You reduce your risk of developing cancer.
Many extensive studies have shown the links of alcohol to different types of cancer, according to the National Cancer Institute. Apart from containing carcinogenic contaminants, all the previous effects mentioned above are some of the ways in which alcohol can aggravate cancer development.
