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Is it Okay to Drink Alcohol to Release Stress?

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Is it Okay to Drink Alcohol to Release Stress?

2014年10月16日

对一些人来说, 一个好的, stiff drink can have a calming effect during stressful times, but dealing with stress also requires clear-headed, 理性解决问题. Dr. Kirtly Jones aspires to healthier options to handle pressure. She discusses habitual drinking, alcohol as a social lubricant and dealing with life’s burdens in a positive way.

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播音员: Medical news and research from University Utah physicians and specialists you can use for a happier and healthier life. You're listening to 范围.

Dr. 琼斯: It is okay to drink to relieve stress? I would say, probably not on a regular basis. 现在, 我经常有几天, 就我个人而言, when my day was just awful, 这很有压力, and I am thinking in the clinic, "Oh I just want to go home and have a drink." In fact, those are specifically the days I don't drink. Those are the days when I need to be on top of my game to handle what's going on at home. So, 如果我已经有压力了, and I'm going home to a social situation, I want to be on the top of my game. I don't want to be affected by alcohol in my relationships with my husband, 或者我的孩子们, 或者我的朋友, so I specifically would say learn other techniques to help deal with your stress.

When you get home, instead of opening that bottle, do you have time to go for a little walk? Exercise is a great stress reliever, and you don't have to run and get sweaty. 到外面去, look at your neighbor's garden, just walk up and down your neighborhood for half an hour if you've got the time. 也许只有20分钟. 深呼吸. When you get home, sit down, and if you've got lots of kids, go in the bathroom and 把门关上. Sit in the bathtub for a little bit. Sit on the potty if you don't have time for a bath, or you don't have a bathtub. 但是你知道, it turns out for most families the bathroom is private time, 进去吧, 把门关上, 然后深呼吸.

珍惜你的幸福. 你现在回家了. And take a deep breath because you do want to be at the top of your game when you get home after a busy day. If home is the source of your stress, 因此, and you can't get away because you're at home full time, that's where you need your girlfriends, 你需要散步, 你需要浴缸, or you need your clinician to help you deal with the stress at home. So, I would say the people who probably shouldn't drink are the people who are stressed.

说了这么多, this is probably more than you wanted to hear, if the stress reliever is a social situation; so, you had a stressful day and you and your buddies go out for a drink and it's really the social situation which is decreasing the stress. You're with someone who you can gripe with and you can laugh with. Having a drink in that social situation, as long as you're not driving home, is probably a fine thing because the stress reliever is the social situation. But if you're going home alone, 回家找孩子, or you're at home alone or with family, and you're drinking to relieve stress, not in a social situation, 我会说这是个坏主意.

It is definitely a habit that women have to use alcohol to relieve stress. It's pretty effective actually. Alcohol is a downer, so alcohol is a sedative. So if you're all wound up, 你的心跳, 你压力很大, alcohol can definitely make those symptoms of stress go down. The problem is alcohol interferes with your ability to make good decisions, 这是一个问题, particularly if you're stressed. Number two, alcohol interferes with your sleep. It may make you sleepy originally, but it inhibits REM sleep, so often people wake up at 3:00 or 2:00 at night, and they can't get back to sleep, or often they wake up with their heart pounding.

So, it's a little counter intuitive to say, 是的, temporarily it relieves stress, but you don't always think as clearly after you've been drinking, and you don't sleep as well. And both of those are going to impact how well you deal with stress tomorrow. 所以,它可以成为一种习惯. It's a habit worth breaking. And it's habit worth substituting with more both social acceptable and 就我个人而言 healthy ways of dealing with stress.

播音员: We're your daily dose of science, conversation, medicine. This is 范围, University of Utah Health Sciences Radio.