What Are the Benefits of Dry January?
The start of the year brings about feelings of new possibilities: the refreshing chill in the air as you take up running in the early hours of the morning, the steam rising off the stove as you adopt your new heart-healthy diet plan, the ping of your phone as you get a reminder about the new book club you joined. There’s newness all around you and a feeling of potential everywhere you go.
Joining in Dry January is another chance to embrace that potential. Dry January is filled with benefits to your mind, body, and community. Is Dry January good for you? We’d argue it’s actually good for you and all those you love.
6 Benefits of Dry January
You get a mindfulness boost.
Alcohol takes away happy memories and replaces them with hazy holes in our evenings. Drinking too much leads to brownouts, or gaps in our memories, and blackouts, or forgetting entire periods of time.
Alcohol disconnects us from the world around us. It gives us a certain floaty feeling that can feel good at first, but makes our minds feel somewhere else. When your mind is seemingly gone for the evening, you can’t ground yourself in the here and now. You’re not really present for the ones you love.
When you take a break from alcohol, it gives you a chance to reset. Instead of letting alcohol lead you away from your loved ones, you get a month of opportunities to reconnect and find pieces of yourself and the world that you may have forgotten.
You cut your cancer risk.
Alcohol is a carcinogen, and a dangerous one at that. It’s a Type I carcinogen, alongside asbestos and tobacco. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), it’s not about how much alcohol you drink when it comes to cancer risks. The risks exist in the alcohol itself, which is why there is no recommended safe level of alcohol consumption.
Keeping this in mind, it’s perhaps no surprise that studies have found that abstaining from alcohol dramatically decreases your risk for developing several types of cancer, including colorectal, stomach, and liver cancers.
You sleep better.
People who drink alcohol typically consume it in the evenings. Some people even make a “nightcap” a nightly ritual. For many of these people, drinking supposedly helps them fall asleep. But is alcohol really good for quality sleep?
The answer, unfortunately, is a resounding no. One study of over 150,000 participants found that nearly 90% of respondents who regularly drink alcohol in the evening also report having at least one sleep-related problem.
Even low amounts of alcohol, measured here by less than two drinks for men and less than one drink for women, were found to decrease sleep quality by more than 9%.
Most Americans already aren’t getting enough sleep. By doing Dry January, you’re giving your body a chance to get not only more sleep but better sleep.
You help your heart.
High blood pressure causes significant damage to your body, particularly your heart. Having high blood pressure increases your risk for aneurysm, coronary artery disease, heart attack, and heart failure, among many other dangerous and potentially deadly illnesses.
Studies have found that abstaining from alcohol can help lower blood pressure. Taking a month off from drinking alcohol can be a great way to start the year by helping your heart.
You might lose weight.
Many people who start abstaining from alcohol when they were previously moderate to heavy consumers say that they see a reduction in their weight, which makes a lot of sense.
Consider the effect of drinking two glasses of red wine with dinner every night. The average glass of red wine contains about 114 calories. That’s an extra 228 calories every day or 1,596 calories per week.
On the other hand, non-alcoholic wines, like BEAU VIVA, often have much lower calorie counts. If you were to switch from two glasses of fully alcoholized red wine to BEAU VIVA, you’d save more than 1,000 calories per week.
You reconnect.
Alcohol use takes its toll not only physically but also emotionally and psychologically. While we’ve all heard, “In vino veritas,” most of us have experienced the opposite. Alcohol can bring out parts of ourselves that just aren’t us. While the real us takes a back seat, this false us does damage to our relationships and our mental health.
When we take a month off from drinking, we’re giving ourselves the opportunity to reconnect with the people we love and take stock of what our relationship is like with them. You may see a really dramatic improvement in your relationships when you stop drinking for a month, which may be a clue to you that alcohol has more of a hold on your life than you thought.
Is There Anytime Dry January Isn’t Beneficial?
There really isn’t any reason not to do Dry January, whether you’re a light or more moderate drinker of alcohol currently. However, we do want to advise that anyone who is a heavier drinker or who has been diagnosed with or suspects they may have alcohol use disorder, it’s important to be careful when quitting alcohol altogether, even if it’s only for a month.
Alcohol withdrawal can be life-threatening, and just as you shouldn’t make any dramatic life change without the help of a healthcare professional, you need one to help you make a change from a lot of alcohol to no alcohol. If you’re in the U.S., you can call 988 for support.
Try Dry January With BEAU VIVA
Dry January can be a transitional period for some, in which they take stock of their alcohol use and consider making some long-term changes. But even if you abstain from alcohol for a short period of time, like a month, you can make some positive changes to your mind, body, and relationships.
With BEAU VIVA, you don’t have to skip out of your favorite traditions, like brunch with your best friends or raising a glass of Champagne to your sister on the happiest day of her life. BEAU VIVA is 100% wine—just with a 0% ABV. With juicy notes of red fruits and sharp, satisfying bites of citrus, BEAU VIVA’s rosé-style sparkling wine is a perfect accompaniment to your Dry January, a zero-alcohol wine that everyone can enjoy together.
Celebrate every moment mindfully with BEAU VIVA.
