These 5 Things Happen To Your Brain When You Quit Drinking

Giving up drinking can be tough. Truth be told, you have to really want to make a positive change in your life to even consider doing so. This has probably got to do with the social aspect of drinking rather than anything else, but who can say for sure! Regardless, if you do manage to stop drinking, you will do a lot of favors for your health, especially your brain!

You see, alcohol is regarded as a neurotoxin, and it is known to be quite harmful to your brain. Especially when you go overboard. Therefore, when you quit drinking, your brain starts healing from past damage. This becomes clear from the plethora of changes that start taking place in it when you stop drinking. Let's take a look at 5 such changes.

1) It Becomes Easier To Shut Off

If you didn't already know, your brain activity varies depending on the time of the day and the activity you are doing. These activities happen in rhythmic patterns that are called brain waves. There are five types of brain waves in total - Gamma, Beta, Alpha, Theta, and Delta. Gamma waves are associated with concentration, beta waves with an active mind, alpha with a reflective state, theta with drowsiness, and delta with sleep.

So, why are we learning about brain waves? Well, that's because the consumption of alcohol alters our brain activity. In an interesting study, it was found that drinking before bed (something that a lot of people do), increases alpha wave activity. This greatly affects the quality of your sleep. After a drink, you might be able to fall asleep more quickly, but your restfulness will be adversely affected. In fact, most people have this misconception that alcohol helps them sleep better, but that is simply not the case.

When you stop drinking, your brain starts behaving the way it is designed to. It might not feel like it, but it automatically adjusts the neural activity according to your routine. So, when night comes, it will gradually transition to theta and delta brain waves. Initially, you might find it a little difficult to fall asleep, but you will eventually realize that giving up alcohol leads to much better sleep.

If sleep is something you struggle with, check out my popular article 10 Ways to Get Better Sleep, or my book notes on Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker, PhD. so you are getting the most out of every snore!

2) Your Brain Power Will Be Boosted

As I mentioned above, alcohol is a neurotoxin. Naturally, it causes a lot of damage to your brain cells. One particular area that is adversely impacted by overconsumption of alcohol is the prefrontal cortex. A 2017 study showed that the very structure and functioning of the prefrontal cortex is changed due to chronic exposure to alcohol. This, in turn, impairs all the core functions that are associated with this particular area of the brain.

Some of the most important functions that make us human, like memory, reasoning, behavior control, and motor function, are affected when the prefrontal cortex sustains damage. This is why you see chronic drinkers behave erratically, unable to remember things, unable to reason or make sense of things, and so on. This is perhaps the reason why the legal drinking age in many countries of the world is 21. In the teenage years, the brain of a person is still developing, and so, if they are allowed to consume alcohol, it can have grave consequences.

When you stop drinking alcohol, you can reverse a lot of the damage to your brain. If you have been through years of abuse, it will obviously take more time. But if you have been a moderate drinker, the process can happen much faster. All the functions that had earlier been impacted will gradually start to become sharper. Also, when rational thinking returns, you will be able to make more conscious decisions about alcohol and other bad habits.

3) The Volume of Your Brain Goes Back To Normal

I don’t think most people know this, but overconsumption of alcohol leads to the shrinking of your brain in terms of volume. This was confirmed by a 2017 study, which showed that teenagers who had an alcohol use disorder, sustained a significant decline in their grey matter volume. This decline was even more pronounced and widespread in the brains of heavy drinkers. This is a major cause for concern because of the role that grey matter (and white matter) play in our life.

If you didn’t already know, grey matter is responsible for muscle control, as well as seeing, hearing, memory, emotions, speech, decision making, and self-control. These are all functions without which a person cannot function properly. Well, whether you have a history of alcohol use disorder or are more of a social drinker, stopping alcohol consumption can potentially reverse the damage to your grey matter.

In a 2019 study, it was found that stopping the consumption of alcohol can actually lead to the recovery of the volume of your brain. In this case, the researchers measured the volume of white matter in the brain after six weeks of sobriety. And the volumes clearly showed an increase. This, in turn, improves all the functions mentioned above, leading to a much better mental state.

Discover The 5 Hacks I Used To Quit Alcohol

4) Your Neurotransmitter System Gets Reset

This is quite an important point because it touches upon a critical system of your brain. It is known as the neurotransmitter system and is the reason your brain cells can talk to each other. The neurotransmitters (called chemical messengers) enable you to feel many of your emotions. Pleasure, happiness, sadness, stress, are all functions of neurotransmitters in the brain.

When you consume alcohol, this critical system goes haywire. For instance, alcohol increases the effects of an inhibitory neurotransmitter called GABA (Gamma-aminobutyric acid). This chemical reduces energy levels in your body and helps you calm down. But alcohol takes it to extreme levels. Similarly, it increases the production of dopamine (the pleasure hormone). The more you drink, the more dopamine your brain produces. The more the dopamine, the more cravings you will have for alcohol, thus leading to addiction.

Alcohol affects many other neurotransmitters and can cause total disruption of the system. This is not good at all, because you won’t have much control over your emotions. Thankfully, when you quit drinking, the system resets itself. It might take a while to do so, but eventually, it prevails (given that you don’t start drinking again).

5) Your Brain Becomes Better At Handling Challenges

Now let’s talk about a psychological aspect that we don’t need science to confirm. We have all observed (or experienced) it enough to know this happens. Many people drink because they want to dull down their brains on purpose. They use it to manage stress or deal with depression. Since alcohol makes you feel better in the short term, you might be prone to reaching for a bottle as a solution to your mental issues.

This, however, doesn’t last long. As time passes by, you develop tolerance and thus, require more and more alcohol to have the same effect. This causes a great deal of damage to your body and mind. The end result is that you become worse off than you were without the bottle.

When you give up drinking though, you might suffer initially, but you will come out of it stronger. This is because you will no longer have an option to escape your problems. You will have to face them head-on. This will inevitably help your brain grow and evolve and develop new coping mechanisms. You will become better at dealing with challenges without relying on an external substance. This is how it should be.

Final Thoughts

Most people are aware that alcohol consumption is not good for them. However, since it is a part of our culture and history, they still indulge in it. While an occasional drink may not do you harm, regular drinking can certainly be bad for you. One organ that gets hit the most is your brain. This is pretty much obvious since alcohol has been known as a neurotoxin for a really long time. It messes up many of the brain’s critical functions and leaves you in disarray.

Thankfully, if you give up drinking, you can reverse a lot of that damage. Your critical functions will be restored sooner or later and you will be able to live a much better and healthier life.

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