3 Tips to Help Cut Down Drinking

One in five of us are moderating or cutting out our alcohol intake these days. Here are some of the reasons why together with three top tips if you want to cut down yourself.

Living More Mindfully

Mindfulness is the process of bringing your attention to what you’re experiencing internally, in the present moment. If you practice yoga these days at any level, then you’re probably seeking more focus, discipline and calm – as well as wanting to be fit, strong, flexible and healthy.

Whether you choose to give up alcohol completely because your ‘off’ switch no longer works, or whether you choose to moderate your intake because you want to be healthier – folks out there are making these decisions because they want mind and body to work at a better capacity.

From the moment you make that decision, you’re living a more mindful way of life and focusing on the present moment.

Benefits to Our Overall Wellbeing and Health.

One in five of us have decided that not drinking alcohol, or at least moderating our intake, has significant benefits to our overall wellbeing and health. Check out this article by our friends at Club Soda for more on the benefits of staying off booze – even if you just start with one month.

>>Alcohol: Risks and Effects>>

Stopping isn’t easy

Here are three ways to help you make some changes, and don’t forget to explore Club Soda for a fabulous range of resources. Whether you are looking to cut down, trying to help an alcoholic or anything in-between, Club Soda can support you.

>>Club Soda>>

(1) Habit Awareness

Our bodies will often slip into a pattern or habit, such as holding your breath in a stressful situation, or your shoulders creeping up toward your ears when you sit at your desk.

If you’re meditating or practising yoga, you’ll learn to do a quick mental check of these things all the time until it becomes natural.

We learn to follow our breathing to relax and to help bring us back to the present moment. We learn to think about pressing into all four corners of our feet at the same time as keeping our head over heart, heart over hips and hips over pelvis.

Our minds will do the equivalent – we’ll revert back to knee jerk reactions and old habits to help process certain situations or feelings. Like getting tipsy before having sex with someone for the first time, or getting smashed after a terrible day, or panic ordering at a bar and resorting to our usual beer choice because we don’t know what other options we have.

(2) Choose An Alternative

There are now no shortage of alternatives that fit into a healthy lifestyle – next to water, an alcohol-free beer is the healthiest thing you can drink in the pub!

Sometimes it will be enough to have a delicious drink in your hand, such as an elderflower cordial or slimline tonic. And there are many great low and no-sugar drinks available such as Botonique, Prir and Real Kombucha.

For your online shopping, try The Wise Bartender for a huge range of low and no alcohol beverages.

(3) Get Into Yoga

It’s also important to be prepared for how to deal with what life throws at us – without the booze.

Yoga is great for people changing their drinking, but equally cutting down on alcohol is a great way to get more out of your sessions, and you are more likely to maintain regular practice if you’re not battling with a hangover or the dehydrating and unbalancing effects of booze.

It’s easy to see the parallels between Yoga and Mindful Drinking – they take self-restraint, discipline, create a deeper connection and awareness to what we feel physically, and both are very much an inward journey which take mental focus and contemplation, to achieve the best possible outcome.

For yogis and mindful drinkers alike, we are all striving for some form of inner peace.

Good Luck xxx

>>These words were adapted from an earlier blog post written for MFML by Club Soda>>