No doubt your Facebook feed is currently filled with statuses of people vowing they’ll be swearing off alcohol for the next month as part of ‘Dry January’.
While most of those teetotallers are likely only giving up the booze for the next few weeks because they’ve gone at it a bit too hard over the Christmas holidays, a new scientific study has confirmed that not drinking for the month is actually a good thing.
The study, published in the journal Health Psychology, asked 857 British men and women to stay sober for an entire 31 days, as the researchers tested out the benefits of going cold turkey ahead of Dry January.
In the end, it won’t shock you to find out that there proved to be quite a few positive effects and health benefits from not getting completely rat-arsed for a month.
While a good 36 per cent of the participants gave in and had a tipple before the month was out, those who managed to abstain from drinking for the period actually tended to drink less often after the completion of the study.
So, basically, if you adhere to a strict no drinking policy for a month, it’s more likely you’ll abstain from alcohol in the future, like some kind of straight edge superstar.
Plus, there’s the added health benefits of better liver function, lower blood pressure and a reduced risk of liver disease and diabetes, but will life be as much fun?
Still, this is definitely something to bear in mind the next time you get wound up at the tenth person of the day telling you about how well their Dry January efforts are going, before inevitably declaring “New year, new me”.
