Between the spiked eggnog, New Year鈥檚 Eve champagne, and the whiskey you self-medicated with during family gatherings, these last few months have likely been an assault on your liver.听Which is why, on many聽New Year鈥檚 resolution lists,聽there's a聽鈥淪tay sober in January” entry.听
Dry January, as it鈥檚 called, is a phenomenon that popped up in the UK in the 1990s. 鈥淚t was started by a student, of all people,鈥 says Herald Jonas, an addiction specialist and founder of . Over the years, the movement has gained steam across the pond, with Brits giving up alcohol for the month聽in 2014.听
Recently, Americans appear to聽have become by the trend, with over the last few years. There鈥檚 evidence that a sober month is generally good for you: a聽 found that it can contribute to聽less binge drinking during the rest of the year, and from the University College London Medical School found that it聽reduces liver fat and possibly even cholesterol. We wondered if it could help you gain a competitive edge, too.
The answer, according to Matthew Barnes, a senior lecturer at Massey University in New Zealand: it鈥檚 complicated. In 2014, Barnes published聽聽of existing studies that looked at the impact of alcohol聽on sports performance, and generally found the聽results to be inconclusive. He's conducted his own studies on the matter, too, and reached similarly confounding results. For example, 聽he published in October 2016 found that heavy drinking affected maximum power output the next day, but not aerobic capacity. , which he published in 2014 in the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport,聽found that moderate drinking post-workout didn鈥檛 impact recovery.
鈥淭he impact alcohol has on recovery and sports performance is complicated and depends on many factors, including the timing of alcohol consumption post-exercise, recovery time required before recommencing training/competition, injury status and dose of alcohol being consumed,鈥 Barnes wrote in his aforementioned聽review.听Furthermore, little research has been done on abstaining from alcohol while training over an extended period of time.
Eliminating alcohol could have quite a large benefit on health, both physical and psychological.
That said, alcohol is poison.听So, as an ergogenic aid,聽it鈥檚 probably not doing you too many favors. 鈥淓liminating alcohol could have quite a large benefit on health, both physical and psychological,鈥 Barnes says. 鈥淵our immune and endocrine systems would certainly benefit from reducing or eliminating large amounts of alcohol.鈥澛
Breaking down alcohol results in toxins being released into the bloodstream. One of those toxins is acetaldehyde, which can . It鈥檚 thought that these genetic changes weaken cells鈥 ability to repair themselves. 鈥淎lso, large amounts of alcohol consumed after resistance exercise can alter protein synthesis and endocrine function, which in turn may limit not only recovery but also our ability to gain lean muscle mass,鈥 says Barnes. It can also disrupt normal hormonal responses to exercise, which in turn messes with muscle adaptation and recovery. It also tinkers with your metabolic processes, 鈥渨hich may lead to accumulation of fat mass,鈥 says Barnes.
Right about now, you鈥檙e probably thinking: But what about all those studies that show that beer is a good recovery food? We hear you. Barnes鈥攚ho was a university rugby player and knows a thing or two about the joys of drinking鈥攕ays that while beer may work as a post-exercise hydration beverage due to its carb content, electrolytes, and inflammation-fighting polyphenols, 鈥渢here are other options that provide a better electrolyte profile,鈥 and you can easily get polyphenols and carbs elsewhere. Also, the study many cite as showing that beer helped marathoners recover? . 聽聽
Even if we don鈥檛 have clear research showing聽causation between teetotaling and setting that new PR, it鈥檚 not hard to extrapolate a few other benefits that might come from the month-long experiment. 鈥淵ou鈥檒l probably lose weight,鈥 says Indra Cidambi, the founder and medical director of the New Jeresey-based聽. You鈥檒l also save money, and, as researchers from Brown University found in 2013,聽; while alcohol is a sedative, and could help you fall asleep faster, people tend to聽wake up with much greater frequency during the second half of the night after an evening of cocktails, resulting in lower quality rest.听
So, where does this leave us? It's safe to say that giving up booze for a month is not going to make聽you a superathlete. But if you're already thinking about it (and if you're reading this article, you probably are), there are plenty of reasons to just go ahead and cork it聽for a month. If nothing else, it's going make that first beer on February 1 all that much better.