Berzin believes that alcohol can be part of a balanced lifestyle (we agree), but in terms of mental well-being, it is important to ask yourself: are you drinking alcohol to feel better or are you drinking alcohol to feel better? even better? “If alcohol is your method of dealing with life, that could indicate to you that you are using it in a problematic way,” says Berzin. “So that’s always an instinctive control that I invite people to have.”
From there, he also recommends reflecting on how alcohol affects sleep quality. Sleeping poorly, as we know, can affect your mental well-being in a major way. And it is common for drink a glass of wine to relax at the end of the day, but according to Berzin, this notion is quite contradictory. “That alcohol makes it impossible for your body to reach the lowest resting heart rate and lowest body temperature that it needs to achieve deep sleep at night,” he explains. “As a result, the quality of your sleep is much lower.”
That said, he recommends drinking no more than three nights a week; and on days when a glass is served, try to drink earlier in the evening if you can. “Ten at night is not the time to have that glass of wine. It’s 6 in the afternoon, so you have time to metabolize it, ”he says.
“There is a lack of understanding of how [mental well-being] it can really be made worse by simply drinking low-grade alcohol, ”he adds. If you’re not sure whether your alcoholic habits are affecting your emotional state, Berzin also suggests taking two weeks off to do a personal experiment. For 14 days, without alcohol and see how you feel, “he says. “It gives you this objective way of looking at the impact of that change.”
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