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Episode 2 - Our relationship with alcohol
20 Plays2 months ago
Many of us like a drink, everyone is aware that alcohol can have negative outcomes, so why do we do it? Should we be doing drinking? Are there sensible ways of reconciling drinking alcohol when we have wellbeing, health and fitness goals? Is no alcohol the answer?
Listen as personal trainer and founder of LCW Russ Harris discusses this topic with nutritionist Dan Price and psychologist Dr Garret O'Moore.
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Transcript
Introduction & Overview
00:00:01
Russ Harris
Hello and welcome to episode two of the LCW podcast. In this episode, we're talking about something that many of us probably indulge in without fully considering its impact, which is alcohol.
The Big Question: Alcohol's Effects
00:00:14
Russ Harris
What does drinking really do to your mental health and your body and your overall wellbeing?
Expert Insights on Alcohol
00:00:19
Russ Harris
Is it possible to enjoy alcohol without compromising your health? ah To explore these questions, I'm joined by LCW consultants, psychologist Dr. Garrett O'Maugh
00:00:30
Garret
Hello.
00:00:32
Russ Harris
and nutritionist Dan Price.
00:00:33
Dan
Hello.
Debating Dry January
00:00:35
Russ Harris
Are they gonna help me navigate some of the science behind alcohol's effects and share some tips on how to be more mindful when making choices around drinking?
Nutrition and Alcohol
00:00:43
Russ Harris
Obviously, it's a good time of year for a lot of people to be on dry January currently and giving it up completely.
00:00:51
Russ Harris
um is is that Is that the right approach, Dan, in terms of going going and excluding alcohol from your diet? Totally, is there more nuance to it than that?
Food Safety and Alcohol Risks
00:01:01
Dan
So I think firstly, if I kind of just set the stage a little bit on on where alcohol fits into the picture of nutrition, which is that, you know, the most common thing that I'm asked by people is, you know, is this food bad for me? You know, is is it what's this food? I've heard this food is really bad for X, Y and Z. um And when we compare the negative health outcomes of alcohol,
00:01:21
Dan
to really any food, any food that is approved by the FDA that we consume. Alcohol is far and away more damaging to health than any of these things. I mean, which people often flip out about things getting on that list of carcinogens and kind of tier three different different foods and that have surprising going on there. But then it's like alcohol has always been a top tier.
Reducing Alcohol Intake
00:01:44
Dan
in that in terms of carcinogenic as well as other factors of the health as well. So to kind of start with on that, I think for any client I work with, if they're coming to me with questions about is this processed food or is sugar or is artificial sweetener, or are these things really toxic and bad for me? If there is a large amount of alcohol in that person's diet, always the biggest window of opportunity for health for that person is going to be reducing alcohol. So that would be just to set the scene on it. That said,
00:02:11
Dan
For me, alcohol is kind of similar in a sense to when people ask this question about processed food and should we be eating less of this. is The answer is what probably yes, and it would be beneficial to reduce it. In alcohol's sense, I think, underscore that even more so. As I say, the more we can reduce, the better. But for any client I work with, I'm never really trying to completely remove anything.
00:02:33
Dan
I'm more trying to find a happy level where that person can still enjoy some of it but reduce as much as
Alcohol & Physical Performance
00:02:40
Dan
possible the risks associated with that.
00:02:40
Garret
Okay,
00:02:44
Russ Harris
Yeah, I'd probably land somewhere for exercise in a similar sort of answer to you as well, I think from a physical health point of view.
00:02:48
Garret
thank you.
00:02:51
Russ Harris
um when you compare it to other other things you can you can eat and you can drink it it doesn't do much for performance it doesn't do much for your physical prowess it doesn't do much for your recovery so from that side of it it's very similar for the body and same same effects is it and doesn't do much much for your decision making as well although there is a dose response where you think your decision making is getting a lot better um for a little while and then if you keep drinking it's very clear that after a while it's not, this is
NHS Guidelines on Alcohol
00:03:20
Russ Harris
an illusion.
00:03:20
Dan
Yeah, I think that's a good point.
00:03:21
Russ Harris
um
00:03:23
Dan
And I think it almost subdivides our consideration of alcohol into two camps, you've kind of got the immediate health issues with alcohol, and then you've got the knock on effects.
00:03:34
Dan
So for me, in terms of health, I kind of default somewhat to the NHS guidelines, I think we're about 14 units a week now, which is a little less than it used to be for men, certainly, as being an advisable amount ah to not exceed.
00:03:47
Dan
So I'm kind of happy working with that as a guideline.
Alcohol's Mental Health Effects
00:03:50
Dan
where if someone's intake is lower than that, then I'm talking more about just managing that, right? And it's like, yes, sure, it would still be beneficial to decrease it even further. But actually, that's an amount that I think most clients that I work with are probably sitting between zero and that and that number. And therefore, I'm kind of happy working with that and getting around it. If someone's beyond that, then my advice would be to reduce just simply referring back to that as a kind of kind of health metric to lean upon.
00:04:18
Russ Harris
What about about mental health? What about sort of cognitive capabilities, emotional regulation? Garrett, what's your sort of take on the effects of alcohol? alcohol
00:04:27
Garret
Yeah, I mean, generally speaking, you know, if I was, you know, when I'm working with people, that's something I'd want to be very curious about. And it's something that you've been asking people straight out in terms of getting a sense of alcohol consumption, especially if the person is looking for help with sort of mood, anxiety, your motivation, you know, things like that, because, you know, unfortunately, alcohol negatively impacts all of those can do. But again, it's it is it's quite individual. And, you know, you'll find that some people they just they just have more of a tolerance, um you know, to alcohol. ah But for some people, yeah, can it can really exacerbate those things, you know, it can worsen mood, it can increase anxiety, it can impact motivation, just kind of perception of well-being, things like that. um And for me, I guess, you know, if if you're happy for me to go into a little bit, what can get a bit tricky is that often when people have alcoholic an issue, like that kind of short term thing, is often you experience you experience the opposite effect.
00:05:24
Garret
that because it has a sort of ah a dampening effect on on the nervous system, you often experience anxiety is actually lowering. So alcohol is lowering like your anxiety, you feel like your moods kind of increased a little bit. ah you You tend to get kind of chatty, you tend to get more sociable, you know, things like that. um the The problem is, is that, you know, in the in the short term, it sort of it boosts some of the um ah you know, those kind of ah neurotransmitters in the brain that have to do with kind of elevated mood. The problem is that as the alcohol kind of processes through the system after the fact, it actually reduces them. So that's where you get this experience that people talk about feeling like, you know, anxiety, as they call it now, to kind of hang over induced anxiety.
Societal Norms & Binge Drinking
00:06:06
Garret
It can also sort of negatively impact the mood as well. um So I think for me, where I'd really caution is if if someone has a sort of a tendency to feeling kind of anxious, or a tendency to kind of low mood,
00:06:18
Garret
Um, you probably want to be especially kind of wary about drinking too much alcohol because it's likely worse and worse than that. If it's, if it's not something that you typically struggle with, like whether it's anxiety or mood, you're, you're probably find that, you know, you can probably drink as so long as you stay within kind of safe limits and you'll be okay. But what I would say is just keep an eye out for it. Like you're, you know, everybody's individual. So it's really kind of noticing in yourself. Do I tend to feel if I had a couple of drinks the next day that I'm a, I'm feeling a bit more anxious. I'm feeling more irritable. Maybe my mood is not so great.
00:06:47
Garret
If you start to notice that pattern, then you might want to sort of think about actually moderating you know both the frequency in which you drink and also the the amount that you're drinking.
00:06:57
Russ Harris
Yeah, because there's a kind of dual standard with alcohol, really, isn't it? I mean, we know it's not good for us. um Generally speaking, that information is fairly widespread. And yet there is a normalization of drinking, ah particularly in office environment, office parties, Christmas parties, ah going out to bars. this is This is all just seen as a normal part of adult life.
00:07:19
Russ Harris
And yet, if you were to, I mean, I'm talking maybe a bit more towards the kind of binge drinking angle now, if you were to randomly, without any alcohol involved, lose a chunk of a night where you can't remember anything about it, you'd be terrified about what was wrong with you. But when it seems to be self-induced through alcohol, there's a sort of acceptance of that. that's like and And certainly, maybe not so much in my 30s, but more in my 20s or my teens, certainly. It was almost like a badge of honor to be like, oh, you went out and you drank you drank. You had enough to drink. You couldn't remember anything. And there was a sort of cavalier attitude towards that. But if you remove the alcohol from that and it happens to your brain, everyone would be terrified.
00:08:03
Dan
um i'm saying I think you could extend that perhaps to the symptoms of being really hungover as well. I mean, again, certainly as you as you get older, they sort of experience some of those those hangovers. um Again, yeah, if you didn't have any idea what was bringing those feelings on, you'd be like, what on earth is wrong with my body? So yeah, you're right. there's The dual standard is what is clear and plain in terms of the the effects of it is sort of masked by society's
Identity and Alcohol Consumption
00:08:33
Dan
normalization of it. and you know I don't think we're necessarily here to try and change the whole fundamental work of society and and people being able to have a drink as maybe maybe a conversation for another time. But I think certainly on an individual level, as Garrett was was saying there, it's almost recognising that
00:08:48
Dan
the dangers of alcohol, the spectrum of it is so wide from people that develop alcohol dependency and life ruining right down to people who seem to be able to manage drinking pretty pretty well socially and never really encounter any and the effects of it. And so what we know from that is it's more important where you sit on that spectrum and how it impacts your own life than it is what the general kind of health ramifications are of alcohol.
00:09:14
Russ Harris
Yeah, I agree with that. I think there's potentially a risk of just not knowing if if you normally drink alcohol alcohol and you always have and you've never had a really extended period of time where you haven't had anything to drink, even if it's just like, you know, even if it's just a few glasses of wine a week, it's just, you know, what again, what's completely normalized. um You potentially just don't know how well you'd operate without it.
00:09:42
Russ Harris
um and And even to the extent I would say, I've i've definitely come across people who who think they sort of, they've almost got this narrative of I need, I actually, I actually operate better on a glass of wine. I actually operate better, you know, there's a sort of, there's almost a ah ah the opposite narrative of I actually, yeah, I actually think this is part of my job and and it's part of what makes me me, and it's part of what makes me tick, and it's part of my identity. um whereas some And that's fine. And like you said, Dan, when I'm not here to sort of necessarily change that. But for people looking to try and get rid of alcohol, I think that can be a real challenge to actually recognize that it actually might be trickier to come off what was previously considered to be a totally normal amount of alcohol. And even, in fact, just the ability to look at somebody else who drinks more and say, oh, well, they drink loads more than me.
00:10:32
Russ Harris
And they're not an alcoholic, therefore i I don't drink very much at all. um And then when you try and avoid alcohol, it's like, oh, it's actually really hard. I actually have to use willpower to avoid it. And that, I find, is is an interesting place to find yourself in when you don't think you know don't think of yourself. There is a difference between that and being an alcoholic, but it's like but you don't think of yourself as needing a drink until you maybe try to stop that. And you think of yourself as, ah op I suppose, sort of functioning optimally.
00:11:03
Russ Harris
until you try to stop drinking. And and then maybe you say, oh, actually, I've been going to my exercise class or my gym or, you know, I've been doing all of these things and giving 100%, but I've only got 80% to give in the first place because I'm always slightly hungover.
Calories and Social Roles of Alcohol
00:11:21
Dan
I agree with that. I think, again, that that spectrum of what is alcohol dependence is probably quite a bit broader than we might imagine. And I think if you're right, if the prospect of not drinking again...
00:11:33
Dan
fills you with a sort of claustrophobia of like, what are they waiting on going to? Or hang on, when I go on holiday, there's just that angle of this means more than just the idea of not being able to eat sugar again, or something like that. It's something which is almost like again, back into that kind of values thing, it's part of who you are, the the capacity to do that. I think sometimes this this becomes quite clear With nutritional intervention, with with reducing weight loss, there's kind of there's two angles on it. One is from the again immediate health side of things if someone's having an excessive amount, but often it gets brought into the picture with weight loss goals or kind of just general health goals. Again, two two reasons for this. One is just simply the the calorie load.
00:12:15
Dan
uh of drinking an alcohol layer on top of your normal diet which is not being consumed due to hunger which is always a bit of a red flag when you're looking at reasons people gain weight if you're consuming calories for a mechanism that isn't hunger that's going to be a problem um but then on top of that the knock-on effect of if you're hungover do your behaviors change to crave certain foods or to consume more um so there's two reasons that we're often looking to reduce it but something I quite often
00:12:17
Garret
i't income
00:12:42
Dan
encounter is, I might express to someone that, you know, a pint of beer is 200 calories, which is about the same as a Krispy Kreme donut. And if someone was having five Krispy Kreme donuts, sort of twice a week, well, you might go, well, we don't need to scratch our heads too much to figure out where the where the weight loss and intervention might be. It would be on reducing the donuts, or in this case, reducing the pints. But if I've said to someone, you know, you you can have 200 calories a day to spend on, maybe some crisps or chocolate or something you really enjoy or that could be a couple of gin and tonics. Quite often it ends up being the couple of gin and tonics instead and that's taking precedent for that person rather than some of those other snacks. I think it's quite interesting to see kind of how hard we might fight to keep those things ah because they're playing a role that is more than just food and calories.
00:13:33
Garret
You know, I mean, that's, that's the tricky thing.
00:13:34
Dan
yeah
00:13:35
Garret
You know, it's, it's that are we able to sort of recognize that it's it's sort of functioning potentially she as a bit of a coping mechanism, you know, kind of, and again, I think that's one of the reasons it is so popular. It's that kind of social lubricant, right?
00:13:45
Garret
Like it it kind of in the short term helps a lot of people to relax. It kind of makes people kind of chat here. Um, I think that's why you might get the thing where people say, Oh, they almost feel like they perform better when they've had a drink. But it's typically that thing.
00:13:57
Garret
It's like it's a drink as in one, you know,
00:14:00
Dan
yeah
00:14:00
Garret
that's often not where it stops. you know And and and yeah often is that as that wears off, then the motivation is to have like a second one and a third and a fourth and things like
Physiological Effects of Alcohol
00:14:08
Garret
that. And that but that is, I think, the slippery slope.
00:14:11
Garret
And again, you know it's it's a tricky one, this idea of is there a continuum, you might say, between where where it is kind of having a social drink here and there become more like ritualistic drinking and more like dependence and then right on into you know into addiction.
00:14:25
Dan
it Thank
00:14:26
Garret
um but But I think for me, I guess what my thing to just kind of recognize or just to kind of, I suppose, communicate to people is that one of the tricky things as well that probably hasn't been as well understood until more recently is that actually regular alcohol consumption starts to actually cause physiological changes to the body, to the brain. And that's, again, what the research is kind of showing now. And it's, it's, you know, in 40, it's a little bit kind of, I think, a bit more of a cause for concern, unfortunately. And one of the things that kind of comes through is that, you know, obviously, one thing is that alcohol is like a neurotoxin, which a lot of people don't really
00:15:01
Garret
think about. It's also, you know, it's water and fat soluble, which means it can go anywhere in the brain. So which to me, like when I think about garlic, if I drink alcohol, it can go anywhere in my brain. What does it what does it do if I'm taking this neurotoxin in? But one of the things they found is that apparently what's happening over time is that the alcohol is actually having an effect on some of the kind of neuroendocrine systems in the body. So for example, there's a a system called the HPA axis, which helps to kind of regulate um it's kind of it's It's a kind of brain in the endocrine system, how the regular kind of hormone production in the body. On the HPA axis, one of the things it helps us to do is manage our stress response. One of the things that find that seems to be happening is that alcohol seems to actually impact the HPA axis and is actually increasing your baseline level of like cortisol release, which is the stress hormone in your body. So they're finding that actually people who are drinking kind of consistently, ah their baseline level of the stress hormone cortisol actually increases.
00:15:59
Garret
which is to kind of almost say like the more I drink, the more my default level of stress is, is like a really simple way to think about that. Like I've got this higher baseline stress level because I drink regularly.
00:16:10
Dan
yeah hundred And of course, there's not an effect with that as well, Garrett, more into our world of strength and these kinds of things where those conditions of elevated cortisol is is not a particularly anabolic environment, it's the body for things like muscle mass, maintaining muscle mass, building muscle mass. ah So yeah, it really sets up a negative picture.
00:16:30
Russ Harris
Yeah, same effect on the cardiovascular system as well. Garrett obviously interlinks massively with the HPA axis, but looking at higher resting heart rate as a result of some of that cortisol and adrenaline that gets released into the system, which is not linked to any physical exertion. It's just, it often happens overnight as well. So it affects sleep. So, because ah usually the time of day most people are drinking alcohol is going to be in the evening. And so then you get a poorer night's sleep because your body is actually in that partial partial sort of fight or flight response.
00:16:59
Russ Harris
um and and you see decrease in and ah heart rate variability as well, which is obviously a biomarker of our ability to be able to respond to incoming stimuli and stress. So when you think about office jobs particularly, you know you you look at things like decision-making, you then look at things like emotional regulation, the ability to be able to stay calm ah in situations where you might end up in a confrontation with someone, there might be a disagreement, you know you might have to make decisions that have ramifications financially for a business yourself career-wise and it all sounds a bit I think it's a risk sounding a bit sort of doom and gloom about it but I think that's possibly part of the issue is that actually this thing this these risks are all real and measurable um and well researched and well studied but often brushed underneath the carpet on under the guise of like oh
00:17:49
Russ Harris
It's only insert a amount of alcohol here. you know It's only a pint. It's only this. It's only that. um i use Personally, I use Garmin to to track my activity. And and it's quite telling that a small amount of alcohol, what I would consider to be a small amount of alcohol for myself, you know like a single pint of lager with a meal even, which also mitigates ah the speed at which some of those effects and the magnitude of some of those effects the impact is visible on all of the data that that garment will track overnight to the point where you can actually zoom out and look at the entire year and spot times when I have been out for several drinks of an evening and they are indistinguishable from periods of ill health like having a cold, having a virus and having to take time off work. that they that From those data sets they look
Strategies for Cutting Back
00:18:43
Russ Harris
identical.
00:18:43
Garret
Wow.
00:18:44
Dan
Yeah.
00:18:44
Garret
do you Would you say, can I just check? yeah Obviously, you did a great job with tracking. do you Do you feel that physically? like do you feel Do you feel as bad as the data suggests? Or is it slightly masked?
00:18:55
Garret
Do you sort of feel okay and then the data suggests otherwise? Or does it so did i kind of tally quite well for you?
00:19:02
Russ Harris
You're right. I mean, i I don't feel as bad as the data would necessarily suggest because i I would like to think, you know, I just get up in the morning and get on with it. um I'm not particularly one to stay in bed or or really winch. So I think this part of that attitude means that I don't really register that I'm feeling that depleted. and But what does happen is I probably won't then go to the gym and train If I do, it won't be with the same intensity. you know I probably would still try and do a day at work, but it probably wouldn't be that energetic. you know you know it's all that It's all the kind of slightly things that you mask and hide maybe.
00:19:43
Dan
I agree with you, and in a way it's probably worse, isn't it? Because if you if you really felt it, it but it might be easy to make a change. And I think that's why this this notion of people that tolerate alcohol very well, potentially it is very good at kind ignoring ah those those symptoms and therefore probably living in a fairly depleted place at the time. I take a point that we're kind of just leaning in quite hard maybe on on some of the the health negatives, which is is probably right to do to an extent. I mean, in equally in terms of nutrition, things like fatty liver disease, these these are things that alcohol more acutely has an impact on than any other kind of excess consumption of food, ah visceral fat as well. So I think what we're
00:20:20
Dan
Maybe the point is it's fairly obvious that there's a myriad of health issues associated with alcohol consumption, ah particularly in excess. But I think also what we're conscious of is in absence of someone wanting to completely remove alcohol from their diet.
00:20:37
Dan
it becomes about what are practical sensible strategies to try and reduce to a level that is far better than the level they've been at. And that's certainly where I'm at with with clients more often. you know if someone wanted If someone's solution was to completely solve stop drinking alcohol, they actually don't need a coach to tell them how to do that. It's pretty black and white answer, isn't it? No. Whereas when I'm working with clients, it's like, how do we go about sensibly reducing this?
Social Drinking Frequency
00:21:01
Dan
And I'll just give you kind of the top line on that.
00:21:04
Dan
to your point, Garrett, about maybe values with this and about that thing of maybe feeling like, well, you were saying what's about performing your best and maybe the social setting thing like you drink. It's like, well, firstly, if someone's drinking,
00:21:15
Dan
every other day or daily, it's like, can we address frequency first and go, let's start by not drinking ah alone at the end of the day at home. You know, how does that make you feel versus actually being able to have a few drinks with your friends at the weekend? So could we first start by moving that frequency to things that are at least going to hit some other values, like social time, connection with other human beings, those kind of, can we at least align it with things that are beneficial to you holistically.
00:21:41
Dan
So then we might move from drinking maybe five days a week where three of those days were kind of just, I just had a drink at the end of the day because I'd had a hard day versus two times where actually I'm seeing friends on a date night with my partner or whatever. That's the first port of call I'd go to and then I'd look at the quantity as well. If there's kind of no need for that third glass of wine to come, actually, can we make that one or two? That's another good place to go to. So I think it's starting with that.
00:22:08
Dan
looking at frequency first trying to get it to once or twice a week and then looking at bringing those drinks more in line with two.
00:22:15
Russ Harris
yeah so i think i mean you've We've talked about this before, Dan, and you' you've you've mentioned something which is has resonated with me, which is when you go out on an isolated night out, if you kind of match the drinking of other people, but you happen to be a very sociable person who's out more frequently, or you're also doing it for work and with your friends,
00:22:35
Russ Harris
they You may drink the same as them on and on one isolated evening, but if you're doing that four times a week and that's their only night out in two weeks, that's that's where the disparity sometimes unfairly reflects in sometimes with body composition, weight gain, sometimes just overall health, all the stuff we've been talking about so so far.
00:22:52
Dan
Yeah.
00:22:52
Russ Harris
You've got to look at that bigger picture of how often do you individually want to be drinking need to be drinking and where are you happy to find that balance? And I think it's a difficult a question of control, isn't it? If you feel like you've got complete control to just say, no, I've actually had my gin and tonics and that's it. I'm done. I don't i don't need any more social lubricant. I don't need any more alcohol. And I feel like I've had the level I'm comfortable with. That's a great space to get into because then you can go out on any night out with anyone and just say yes to a few and no to a few more.
00:23:26
Russ Harris
I feel like if the peer pressure really gets to you, that's when it's more difficult.
00:23:26
Dan
Yeah.
00:23:30
Dan
Definitely, yeah, it's the kind of a social butterfly complex situation where, slash perhaps people pleasing, where it's, I've said yes to every engagement this week, three of them I didn't even want to go to, but I didn't want to let someone down, but I couldn't say no to the drink, because you're right, all of those five meetings, that might have been each one of those groups of friends, only time out of the week, and you've ended up out five times, put yourself last on the priority list, had some drinks you didn't want to have.
00:23:54
Dan
Sometimes that comes right back to thinking about yourself and your goal, perhaps being a priority rather than keeping people happy, um which is a slightly different point, but it's a shame, particularly when something has potential such damaging health outcomes, not just on weight gain or anything else like that, that you may be putting yourself in the firing line of that just for the sake of people pleasing or not being able to say no.
00:24:20
Russ Harris
Garrett, if if people are looking to try and reduce alcohol or eliminate it from their diet completely, and it is a coping mechanism for something like stress or anxiety, what what you know that that could be quite a short-term plan if the stress and anxiety don't also reduce as well. So if stress is coming in from work, colleagues, deadlines, pressures, wherever,
00:24:44
Russ Harris
um If that isn't likely to change and you you drop the one thing that makes you feel a bit, you know, makes all that lot feel a bit easier. How do you how do you manage that?
00:24:53
Garret
sure I mean, typically, if it's a short term thing, you've you've got to replace it with something else. you've You've got to find something else that does the same job, but has but has less side effects, essentially.
Alternative Relaxation Methods
00:25:06
Garret
I mean, ideally, you'd want to get at what's actually causing the stress, you know, it's a degree to which, ah you know, if it's environmental, is there something I can do if it's if it's a combination of that with internal stuff, whether it's, you know, ah you know, some of my stress is to do it like pressure put on myself, my own expectations, whatever it might be, that could potentially be a psychological piece of work with someone to to get to that to really understand what function does alcohol play like, you know, as Dan was saying, is it more that I get caught up with it because It's in my environment, my industry, and I have a tendency to people please. Or you know is it something that I use to kind of, ah because I think it kind of relaxes me or whatever it might be. So I think understanding that the sort of function that it plays is a big part. But I would say, yeah, shorter term, what I would look to do is swap it out with something else. um And I think the bit to kind of understand is that you know sometimes alcohol actually works at cross purposes with a lot of other things that people want to achieve. So people are looking to be more relaxed. If they're looking to feel more calm,
00:26:03
Garret
if they're looking to have a better mood to be more motivated. Alcohol actually causes the opposite to happen. And so you know if you actually swap it out with something else, so you know exercise, massive. Things like, I can name loads of them, but you know yoga, for example, breathing practices, these are all kind of things that you know someone could use to substitute what they're getting from alcohol in those kind of moments.
00:26:28
Garret
um You know, if you want to get into kind of a little bit of the science with it, one one of the things that alcohol seems to do and in the short term is that actually it um it increases the the activity of a neurotransmitter called GABA, which is a neurotransmitter that essentially calms the brain. So it just kind of settles everything down. So typically what we find is that when your GABA levels are high, people tend to feel more relaxed and tend to feel calmer. Okay.
00:26:53
Garret
um The funny thing with alcohol is that's what it actually does in the short term and actually it seems to sort of allow that level of neurotransmitter to increase. So we have that sense of ah calm relaxation. The problem is you get this rebound effect where actually what it does, it then actually dramatically reduces your levels of that neurotransmitter. And that's typically why people then feel they get that kind of anxiety effect, they get the low mood. My levels of GABA have actually, they've just dropped massively.
00:27:20
Garret
What's interesting, if you think about medications that people might get for when they're feeling really anxious or panicky, something like diazepam, one of the things that it does is it rapidly increases GABA. So that's why it gives that kind of calming effect. So essentially what you're doing is if I drink alcohol, I'm reducing my levels of GABA. So i'm I'm reducing the neurotransmitter that actually provides calmness and relaxation. The things that increase it, you know, obviously Dan might know about some of this in terms of some some of this dietary, in terms of you can eat foods that kind of help to provide it.
00:27:50
Garret
But things like you know exercise, you know things like yoga, breathing practices, meditation, they're all things that will naturally increase levels of of that ah that neurotransmitter, which seems to then have a knock-on effect in terms of how we're feeling. it's It's possible that what it's doing is it it impacts with that HPA axis. I don't want to get into kind of all the the science of it too much.
00:28:10
Garret
but But essentially, the way you want to think about it is that actually, alcohol not only physiologically is a stressor on the body, it's essentially a stressor on my my brain, my nervous system. And so if I have goals around relaxation and feeling calm, drinking alcohol does the opposite. a and So swapping it out with something that actually achieves those things directly is is kind of a win-win in that sense.
Long-term vs. Short-term Effects
00:28:33
Dan
That's pretty powerful, Gary. Obviously we hear this, alcohol is a depressant as as ah as a classification, but when you think about it in those terms, what you're saying is it's literally like taking a drug that has the opposite effect of an antidepressant.
00:28:46
Garret
Yeah.
00:28:46
Dan
So you're putting yourself in the state of someone who would require antidepressant medication to bring themselves back to balance.
00:28:54
Garret
Yeah.
00:28:54
Dan
And then when you have people who do suffer with anxiety, after I'm concerned, saying, i I suffer with it, i do if I do drink, um you can relate to that feeling of like, I don't feel myself, might last for a couple of days. um And it's like, you you can have that sensation of being like, I know I'm going to return to normal recently, but I don't feel I have the capacity to take on what I would normally take on, whether it's work, whether it's meeting people, engaging with people that I would normally, you can recognize as something fundamentally wrong.
00:29:23
Dan
um And it kind of makes perfect sense in that in terms of the chemistry of it there.
00:29:28
Garret
And I guess the bit that's insidious though is that the the immediate effect is that it actually boosts it.
00:29:33
Dan
Yes. Yes.
00:29:33
Garret
And that's why it's so sneaky. you know so And that's why a lot of us, we have that experience, like well we have a few drinks and we're like, well, this is great.
00:29:35
Dan
Yeah.
00:29:40
Garret
I feel great. You know, things like that. But what happens after the fact?
00:29:42
Dan
Sorry. and so
00:29:44
Garret
Yeah. So it's like short term, it actually, you know, simplistically in short term, it actually increases it. But as it works its way through the system and and how you feel the next day, it's actually dramatically reduced it.
00:29:55
Dan
And so you can see why there'd be that attraction for someone to, the the solution would be to drink again.
00:29:59
Garret
Exactly.
00:30:00
Dan
yeah
00:30:01
Russ Harris
yeah And of course, those those replacement activities you described, well, they have the beneficial effect.
00:30:01
Garret
Yeah.
00:30:01
Dan
yeah
00:30:06
Russ Harris
They don't have the the same drawbacks afterwards, right?
00:30:08
Garret
No, no.
00:30:10
Russ Harris
There's thiss more of a win-win with those activities, whereas alcohols are kind of win initially and then a loss afterwards.
Social Fulfillment Without Alcohol
00:30:17
Garret
Absolutely. and Yeah. But I mean, I think you it's it's being realistic and understanding that some of those those practices, you know, of course, they they take they take effort, they take they take a bit of discipline, you know, it's pretty easy to just get a drink, you know,
00:30:29
Garret
Whereas actually to say to somebody, you know rather than you know having a few drinks because you're feeling anxious going into a social situation, to say to somebody, well, if you've gone into a regular yoga practice or you're doing some kind of breathing exercise, things like that, if you if you learn to kind of do more kind of positive self-talk, stuff like that, there's a whole process of things you can do to allow you to navigate that situation. But you can see how like the real shortcut would just be, well, I'll just have a few drinks.
00:30:58
Dan
well, Gary, even preemptively there's kind of this idea that why are you going out drinking in the first place if part of it is to loosen up enough to feel like you get a bit more connection with people socially, maybe meet new people or maybe talk to friends in a bit more of a ah ah sort of uninhibited, you know, in the environment like that.
00:31:17
Dan
Is there preemptive the activities you could do like going to classes? Whether, you know, in the fitness space that might be going to some kind of fitness group class like that, or less in the fitness space, any any kind of activity where there's there's a group of people doing something together, you might find that in the absence of the alcohol, you're still able to get what you're actually looking for, which is that kind of dopamine release, I guess, from that interaction with other human beings and the connections there.
00:31:36
Garret
Hmm. Yeah.
00:31:41
Garret
Yeah, it's almost like chris you could say in any way, society's kind of got the alcohol is kind of so infused, the sort of adult society, that actually, we don't realize we can do that alcohol. But hopefully, if we've all had like, reasonably okay, childhoods, we seem to manage to go to school, okay, I meet lots of people without drinking.
00:31:58
Dan
Yeah.
00:31:59
Garret
Your kids can do it, you know, so if you look at that, like, you mean perfectly socially, you mean lots and lots of people, and law works absolutely fine. um it's It's just, ah I think, I think it's because we got so used to it.
00:32:09
Dan
Yeah, and you know, as it is completely fine as an adult, you just got to do it, you know, anyone will know from going and you go play five side with, with, you know, a group of guys that you've never met before, by the end of the game, you're going to be in pretty good rapport with everyone. And you have taken down all the barriers that there might have been if you met outside of the setting of that kind of
00:32:27
Russ Harris
Yeah.
Conclusion: Healthier Lifestyle with Less Alcohol
00:32:28
Dan
competitive direction.
00:32:30
Russ Harris
all that All that avoiding drinking at nightclubs has ever done for me has sent me home an at an appropriate time and missed out on all the worst bits.
00:32:38
Dan
yeah
00:32:39
Russ Harris
So, I mean, you know, for me, i'm and I'm an advocate for not not overcooking it. But um I mean, it's a massive topic, I think, because it because simply because it's so pervasive in life and and so many people ah have this kind of on off relationship with it, which we've we've hopefully done some justice to there.
00:32:58
Russ Harris
And if you are doing dry genuine at the moment or trying to reduce your alcohol, um yeah, good good luck. and And you have our full support. But thank you for taking us through that, guys. I think it's been another good one.
00:33:07
Garret
Yeah.
00:33:09
Dan
Great stuff.
00:33:10
Garret
Thanks.
00:33:11
Russ Harris
Cheers, until next time.