Say Cheers to Sober January! 4 Benefits of Sticking with it!

Sober January — also known as Dry January — is the perfect opportunity to detox, reset, and find balance after the holidays. Whether you overindulged or are just hoping to start the year off on the right foot, Sober January is an excellent opportunity to focus on your mental health, as well as your physical fitness.

While it can be intimidating to think about giving up alcohol and living the booze-free lifestyle for an extended period of time, the benefits seriously outweigh the drawbacks. Here are 4 of the most important benefits of sticking with your Sober January goals:

1. You will sleep better.

After finishing our last Sober January challenge, we reached out to our community and asked the benefits they experienced most powerfully when completing their 30-day detox from booze and sleep was at the top of their list. 

Nearly 70% of respondents reported getting better quality sleep (and more of it!) when they decided to go sober for January. This is because alcohol affects your natural sleep cycle and makes it nearly impossible to get a solid night of rest. The reasons are numerous but we broke down the effects of alcohol on sleep in this blog post.

2. Your skin will clear up and glow.

Because it is a diuretic, alcohol is extremely dehydrating and likely to wreak havoc on your skin if you are not careful. Dryness can cause wrinkles, acne, and other skin issues you'd likely rather avoid.

When you cut out booze and go zero proof for an entire month, your body has time to refresh your skin cells and rehydrate you from the inside out. That's why clear, glowing skin is one of our favorite benefits of sticking with Sober January.

3. Stubborn fat will start to fall off.

That classic American Lager in a red label you know and love? It contains almost 150 calories per 12 ounce serving. And a typical IPA adds at least 200 cals per serving to your daily intake.

The thing about liquid calories is that they’re easy to overlook because they don’t satisfy our cravings—or need—for the energy we normally get from food. So as we sip our way through beer after beer, we can easily add 1,000 extra calories to our day without even realizing it.

And if you think the waist-expanding train ends there, think again. As we consume more alcoholic beverages, we start to lose our sense of control and lower our inhibitions. You probably know how this story ends… by downing an entire pizza as soon as you get home from the bar, of course.

Even if you’re only consuming one glass of wine or a single beer per night, you can cut out 29,000 (yes that is 29 thousand) calories per year by switching to a non-alcoholic version. That adds up to nearly 15 pounds of fat loss, without doing a single thing.

4. Your mental health will improve.

We had more than 200 people fill out our last post-Sober January survey and when asked about the benefits of going booze-free for 30 days straight, nearly all of them mentioned their mental health.

"Feeling happier" and "less stressed" were among the most frequently mentioned benefits, particularly when asked which benefits had the greatest impact on their everyday lives.  This is because alcohol is a depressant, meaning it dampens our production of dopamine and leaves us feeling either totally blah or seriously stressed out (hello, hangxiety.)

By sticking with Sober January, you are going to experience a lift in your moods and a major improvement in your overall well-being. Mental health matters, people!

Stick to Sober January and start feeling and looking better in just 30 days! Make it easy by stocking up on alc-free bevs that make the challenge a breeze.