How alcohol affects your energy and mood

I understand that after a long and busy day, it can feel like there is nothing better than a glass of wine, or a nice cold G&T to help you unwind. It can feel like the ‘reward’ you need, especially after the last few months and as we come into summer here in New Zealand and are blessed with long, sunny evenings.

Socially, drinking is one of the main ways we enjoy being with friends, and trying to cut back can be difficult and is often met with interrogation and disapproval from others. The trouble is it’s easy for those units to mount up, and over time this can have a really detrimental effect on your overall health. It lessens our immunity, taxes our liver, makes our skin dull and dry, wreaks havoc with our hormones and it contributes to weight gain. It also puts us at higher risk of more serious illnesses such as breast cancer.

But it also has a massive impact on two of the most common complaints I hear from my clients…energy levels and mood.

Alcohol and the brain

Alcohol literally changes your brain chemistry. Initially, it can act as a stimulant and have a positive effect on your mood. It triggers the release of the feel-good chemicals dopamine and serotonin, giving you that burst of energy and confidence that makes you feel happy and giggly.

Alcohol can also help you to relax which is why it’s such a go-to at the end of a stressful day or in social situations where you may be feeling anxious. It does this by acting on your GABA receptors in the brain. GABA is your main calming neurotransmitter and it’s this that gives you that relaxed feeling that comes from having a few vinos.

Sounds great right?! Well yes, at the time it might feel great but who hasn’t experienced a massive bout of the alcohol blues the morning after a big session? That’s because alcohol is actually a depressant which, despite the initial stimulating effects, can lower your natural levels of dopamine and serotonin leaving you feeling down, depressed and anxious the next day.

Excessive or regular alcohol intake can also make your GABA receptors less sensitive to the effects of alcohol which means that, over time you need to drink more to get the same feeling. And, in the medium to longer term, this pattern can lead to alcohol dependence.

Alcohol also depletes key nutrients that are needed for your body to make all the neurotransmitters involved in mood regulation as well as for energy production. These depleted nutrients include B vitamins, zinc and magnesium, deficiency of which has been linked to fatigue, low energy and mood issues.

The bigger picture

And what about the broader impact? Most people would say that alcohol helps them sleep. It’s another common reason you may reach for a nightcap and yes, it can help you to fall asleep but you’re not necessarily getting the quality deep sleep your body needs to function well. Rather than performing its usual job of restoring all your organs and cells during sleep, the focus shifts to ridding your body of all the toxins instead. How many of you can honestly say you wake up feeling completely refreshed after drinking, sometimes even if it’s just one or two?

Without a good night’s sleep you can easily find yourself on a downward spiral of feeling too tired (or hungover!) to exercise, and craving foods that are not the most nutritious as your hunger hormones and blood sugar levels are all out of whack. This only serves to exacerbate tiredness and low mood as the guilt kicks in and you beat yourself up.

So, in the long term, regular or heavy drinking and the continued influence this can have on your brain chemicals, nutrient levels and other lifestyle choices, can have a negative impact on your energy levels, mood and overall mental health and wellbeing. It can contribute to feelings of depression and anxiety and it can also pushes up your cortisol levels, reducing your resilience and making it harder to cope with stress…the very thing we often turn to alcohol to help us with.

The good news is there is no need to give it up completely. Enjoying the odd drink here is absolutely fine. Everything in moderation! But, being more aware of how much you’re drinking, noticing how it makes you feel and taking a moment to think about why you’re drinking and whether there’s an alternative activity that could achieve the same result (like getting out for a walk instead of reaching for the wine to help you destress), can be a useful way to stop alcohol becoming the default go-to.

If you are wanting to reduce your alcohol intake, firstly you need to change your mindset about alcohol and move away from focusing on its ‘benefits’ and consider its disadvantages – and all the advantages you could gain from cutting back.

Drinking regularly is usually a habit that we can get stuck in. Ask yourself if it really does provide all the benefits you think it does? There are very few people who genuinely feel they want to go back to how they felt once they experience all the benefits of drinking less.

Top Tips for cutting back

1. Make a plan – know how much you want to drink at a specific occasion or during the week. Having a goal and writing it down can act as a good reminder of what you’re trying to achieve.

2. Share this goal with someone else – this can help raise commitment to following your plan.

3. Get comfortable saying no – there’s no doubt you will find yourself in situations in which someone is going to offer you a drink and potentially question you when you say no. Don’t feel pressured by others. Stand your ground. You don’t have to explain or justify yourself.

4. Pace yourself – you don’t have to neck every drink you have. Slowing down the pace you drink at will inevitably lead to you drinking less, so take your time, sip it and actually enjoy the taste

5. Use drink spacers – have water or another non-alcoholic drink in between each alcoholic drink. This will help reduce your alcohol intake and also help keep you hydrated.

6. Consider what else you could do – are there other activities that you enjoy doing that you don’t find time for? Is there a new hobby you want to try or an exercise programme you’ve been meaning to start? Instead of meeting a friend for a drink, could you go for a walk instead? Just think about all the other things you could do during the time you’d usually be drinking.

7. Find other drinks you like – drinking alcohol doesn’t mean you have to drink water or sugary soft drinks. There are some great non-alcoholic versions of our favourite tipples now that have the benefit of the taste without the nasty hangover!

By cutting out alcohol for a period or cutting right back, you will feel the benefits pretty much immediately. You will sleep better, wake feeling refreshed, you will have much more energy, you will feel less tired during the day, your mood will improve, you will look much better and start to reduce that hard to shift weight around the middle. You can often experience a ‘natural high’ as your sense of wellbeing begins to improve. Who wouldn’t want all those benefits??