I love new year’s resolutions. Inspired by Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project, I decided to do monthly resolutions for 2020 instead of one big year long resolution, with the intended goal of trying out new healthier habits, that I usually don’t have the willpower to do. I figure I can do anything for one month, even no sugar, no alcohol, or no dairy. To start out my year, I jumped on the dry January bandwagon. I wanted to see if not drinking for a month would increase my energy, health, happiness, or anything else. I have more than a few friends who have talked about how much better they feel by not drinking, so thought it would be worth trying.
So how did it go, you may ask? The month itself was fine. Not drinking for a month is not particularly difficult, compared to say eating vegan, which I am doing next month, but it was totally boring!! As someone who primarily only drinks water, coffee, or tea during the day, I realized that a glass of wine at night is simply a nice change of beverage. Only drinking water/coffee/tea for 31 days gets totally BORING!
In terms of the health benefits of not drinking alcohol, I can’t say that I actually noticed a huge difference. I didn’t lose a ton of weight, have any more energy, or any of the other advertised benefits. According to Shape Magazine there are a number of benefits of not drinking including better sleep, more energy, more even mood, and younger looking skin, to name few. As a person who, doesn’t regularly consume a lot of alcohol, giving it up didn’t yield a huge lifestyle difference. If you regularly have poor sleep due to alcohol consumption (or other negative side effects from alcohol), I can imagine you might see a bigger difference by giving it up for a month.
Overall, I am glad I gave dry January a spin to see what it was like, but not sure I would do it again. On to the next month. Have you tried a “dry January” type test? Did you see more of a difference than I did? What other healthy habit should I try for a month?