Lifestyle
Small changes to make if you’re ready to cut back on drinking alcohol
Younger people are drinking less than previous generations, and more people are expressing interest in at least cutting back on how much alcohol they have on a regular basis.
Couple that with research that increasingly finds that alcohol isn’t the best for your health, and it seems like more people than ever are interested in drinking less alcohol.
“Alcohol use is associated with accidents, injuries and risk of sexual assault,” Jessica Salvatore, associate professor in the department of psychiatry and director of the Genes, Environments, and Neurodevelopment in Addictions program at Rutgers University’s Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, tells Yahoo Life. “Alcohol use can also interact with medications or other drugs, resulting in adverse consequences. There are also more subtle effects, such as disrupted sleep.”
Alcohol is also linked with an increased risk of developing certain types of cancer, as well as worse symptoms of depression, registered dietitian Vanessa Rissetto, CEO and co-founder of Culina Health, tells Yahoo Life.
“We want to make sure that we at least stay within the guidelines so the negative effects don’t impact us too much,” she says. (The federal Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend that women have no more than one drink a day, and that men limit themselves to two or fewer daily drinks.
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Interested in scaling back on how much alcohol you drink? Experts recommend trying these tricks.
But that doesn’t mean you need to have that much every time you have a drink. If you like the taste of your favorite alcohol but want to have less, Cording suggests having a smaller serving and changing up the glassware you use to make it look bigger. One example: drinking half the amount of a serving of wine from a petite sherry glass.
Find new rituals to unwind
Cording often hears people say that they use alcohol as a tool to help them unwind “but, from a biochemical standpoint, alcohol doesn’t improve your anxiety and tends to make it worse due to brain chemistry changes that happen,” she says.
Savor your favorites
If you have a favorite alcoholic drink, Cording says you’re OK to keep on enjoying it in moderation — you can just cut back how much and how often you have it. “Figure out what types of alcohol are the most satisfying to you and have that,” she says.
If you love kicking back with a glass of whiskey at the end of a long day, you can try doing it at the end of the day on Friday to mark the start of the weekend, Cording suggests. You might also decide to save your favorite beer for a time when you know you can sit and savor it, she says.
Dive into nonalcoholic options
Cording recommends looking into nonalcoholic spirits, beers and wines. “There has been so much growth and innovation in that category,” she says. “There are so many great nonalcoholic spirits where you can create really beautiful cocktails with them, or just keep it simple with a spirit and soda water.”
Rotate alcohol with nonalcoholic drinks
If you’re planning to have more than one alcoholic drink at a gathering, Rissetto suggests adding nonalcoholic beverages to the mix. So, you could sip a glass of wine, followed by a seltzer water with a slice of lime or something similar. Nonalcoholic beers and hop waters have come a long way, even in the past few years, with many having a similar taste as their alcoholic counterparts. Having a regular beer, followed by a nonalcoholic beer, can be an easy rotation to make.
Set goals and keep track
If you want to be diligent about cutting back, Salvatore recommends checking out the NIAAA’s evidence-based tools for help. “They have worksheets that can help people with setting goals and keeping track, and exercises to help identify and avoid triggers,” she says.