“A Few Drinks” = Energy Crash

Here’s a pictures that shows the massive toll that alcohol takes on ordinary people. The top line goes from nearly 90% recovery all the way down to the red zone after one night of drinking.

This graphic is from the Whoop community of Reddit. Whoop is a fitness tracker that tracks your sleep, exercise, strain, and recovery. By “recovery,” they mean the body’s ability to take on strain (work, exercise, have fun, etc).

If you read the Whoop subreddit a few times, you will notice that everyone on there experiences a huge decline in their recovery after drinking alcohol the night before. They will go from 80% recovery down to 10 %or 15%, always ending up in the red zone on whoop’s scale.

I guess this is something we have always known. Alcohol gives you a hangover, makes you tired the next day, and people who drink a lot tend to have low energy. I think it’s interesting to see this being measured in a more precise way, where your heart rate variability and resting heart rate are counted towards the recovery.

If you’re a person who has goals, ANY GOALS AT ALL… the amount of energy you have is going to dictate whether your reach your goals or not. Chances are, a lot of people have the same goals as you. Maybe you’re trying to make your JV soccer team or get to a certain income level, or get a promotion, or get your first job. Whatever your goal is, I’m pretty sure a lot of other people have that goal too, and that means that goals are competitions. Whether you like it or not, you’re going to be competing with someone else who has the same goal.

When all other factors are equal, the person who drinks will lose every time. They will never get to their goal. When you fail at your goals over and over, that can be depressing and that can lead to more drinking. They drinking life is a life of sadness and mediocrity. You don’t have to take my word for it, look around at people you know. Look at the people who drink a lot and the people who drink less or not at all. You will quickly start to notice that heavy drinkers have problems. You’ll see that they have broken relationships, career stagnation, and an inability to face their problems (which makes the problems worse).

Nobody likes to talk about it, and nobody will admit to it, but moderate and severe drinking stops people from reaching their goals. If you’re in a place in life where you can get to zero drinking or very low levels of drinking, you will experience a big increase in your energy. The body has to work very hard to eliminate all the toxins when you drink alcohol, that’s why people get so tired the next day.

Higher levels of energy lead to higher levels of success and higher levels of happiness. It’s really not rocket science. Think about that the next time you’re in a situation where everyone around is drinking and you’re thinking you’d like to do the same. Would you rather fit in or would you rather be happy and successful? In my experience, when you commit yourself to being happy and successful, the people around you will have lots of respect for that commitment. This is why you should never worry about being judged for refusing to drink. It just doesn’t happen that way. Once people realize you’re trying to make a better life for yourself by avoiding alcohol, they can help but be inspired and excited for you.