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Counting calories could help you drink less on your next outing, study says
The World Health Organization has established that no level of alcohol is safe, yet people find it hard to stop drinking it.
If nothing else can influence your drinking habits, try a simple mental training found by researchers as a part of a recent study to reduce people’s dependency on alcohol.
Recollection of certain memory reduces the urge to drink
Going cold turkey is the hardest experience for active drinkers. No wonder people are more interested in alcoholic beverages that are “safer” to drink and hacks to avoid bad hangovers.
The happier memories of alcohol are one of the main reasons people find it hard to give up. However, thinking of your last drinking episode is shown to reduce your motivation to drink more.
The influence of alcohol on memory and decision-making – the reason why monks don’t drink – is well-known. The new study establishes the opposite effect.
Two groups of women took the Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test. One group was asked to recall their memory of the last drinking episode with an estimate of the calories consumed, while the Neutral Cue or NC group was given no instructions.
The participants from both groups consumed an alcoholic beverage in their own time while keeping in mind the estimate of subsequent alcohol intake.
The researchers noticed that women who recollected their last drinking episode took longer to finish the drink, compared to the other group.
“This finding extends our preliminary work by demonstrating that being reminded about a previous alcohol episode reduces the motivation to consume alcohol,” the study published in Science Direct states.
There’s no ‘safe level of alcohol
WHO says there isn’t enough scientific evidence to show the health benefits of drinking alcohol as opposed to a widespread belief that consuming it in moderation doesn’t hurt.
Dr. Carina Ferreira-Borges, who works with the WHO Regional Office for Europe says: “We cannot talk about a so-called safe level of alcohol use. It doesnt matter how much you drink the risk to the drinkers health starts from the first drop of any alcoholic beverage.”
“The only thing that we can say for sure is that the more you drink, the more harmful it is or, in other words, the less you drink, the safer it is,” he warns.
If you’ve been affected by this story you can contact American Addiction Centers on (877) 686-7688 or Talk To Frank on 0300 123 6600 in the UK.
