What happens when…
Sober-tober, Oct-sober – call it what you will. But for the sober-curious, it’s another opportunity to renounce rioja and the like. This is what happens when you go a month without drinking
01 Beer fear
That alcohol is as anxietyinducing as an email from your boss on a Sunday will be news to no one. But hangxiety is the least of it, says David Nutt, professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London and author of Drink: The New Science Of Alcohol And Your Health. ‘Alcohol increases the stress hormones that make depression worse,’ he tells WH. It does so by wreaking havoc with the hypothalamus, the brain region that regulates hormones. He notes that while withdrawal can temporarily lower your mood further, you should start to experience better mental health around the two-week mark. We’ll drink to that.
02 Dream on
Sleeping it off: sorry, not a thing. While alcohol increases slow-wave sleep (aka the deep kind) for the first few hours, thanks to its ability to increase production of the sleepinducing chemical adenosine, when that subsides, you’re more likely to wake up ahead of schedule. Swap your Friday night tipple for a G&free, though, and your sleep pattern will begin to stabilise. Meaning not only will you notch up more hours of slumber – the health benefits of which range from a clearer complexion to a stronger heart – it will be better quality sleep, too.
03 Seeing red
Not quite the healthy glow coveted by skinfluencers, the rosy flush that rosé delivers is the result of vasodilation. Eh? ‘This refers to the widening and bursting of blood vessels under the skin,’ explains Professor Nutt. What’s more, alcohol’s dehydrating (it’s a diuretic) and inflaming properties also damage the skin’s elasticity – arecipe for fine lines. After four weeks of no-gron
