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45 Dry Days
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Last week I wrote about my recent decision to abstain from alcohol entirely.
This week, I want to highlight the physical changes that have occurred over the last 45 days.
The changes in my energy level on a day-to-day basis were observable almost immediately. Mentally I have felt sharp and clear, with a noticeable uptick in creativity and focus.
With that said, I am interested in the changes beyond the anecdotal. What are the measurable, observable differences in my health?
Resting Heart Rate (RHR)
Why should we care about our resting heart rate?
The short answer is that there is a ton of data to suggest it is a leading marker in life expectancy:
Since 1992, 38 studies have examined the connection between heart rate and all-cause mortality. After adjusting for risk factors and lifestyle, 32 studies show that an elevated heart rate is an independent risk factor for mortality in healthy people with or WITHOUT hypertension.
Across studies of mammals, slower heart rates correlate with greater longevity. For human beings, the prevailing spectrum for an average heart rate is 50-90bpm.Â
The interpretation provided in the meta-analysis linked above summarizes it succinctly: Higher resting heart rate was independently associated with increased risks of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality. This indicates that resting heart rate is a predictor of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality in the general population.
All-Cause Mortality.
A high resting heart rate elevates your risk of a heart-related cause of death and increases your risk of falling into a volcano or getting eaten by piranhas. All outcomes worth taking steps to avoid.
This is a one-year snapshot of my resting heart rate, taken from the data provided by my Oura 3 ring. It is pricier than other wearable fitness trackers, but I have never worn a watch or any jewelry outside of my wedding band. Thankfully, my wife is agreeable with me substituting the Oura for my ring, so it has been a good fit for me.
Since June 20, my RHR has fallen precipitously and has averaged 52bpm, a 15% decrease from the average over the prior year.
My RHR wasnât unhealthy during the period I was consuming alcohol. Though, my heart wasnât functioning at its natural rhythm.
I donât look at any of these changes as optimizations; instead, they are evidence of how my body should work. These results surprised me as I didnât make any material changes to my diet and exercise routine outside of abstaining.
Heart Rate Variability (HRV)
Why should we care about HRV? Also, what is HRV?
Here is a detailed explanation by the Cleveland Clinic.
The most straightforward analogy for me in terms of appreciating HRV is flexibility. As a man who recently turned 40, I am convinced that my body is officially on a cascading trajectory of failure. That paranoia is a driving factor behind my desire to either reverse that trajectory or convince myself that I am reversing it.
As we age, our body gets stiffer. Joints tighten up, and ligaments donât have the tensile strength they once did, our ability to synthesize protein for growth diminishes, etc. Therefore, maintaining flexibility and strength is a core need for sustaining an ideal quality of life.
The same is true for our hearts. HRV is a measure of how our heart adapts and responds to stressors. The higher degree of variability, the less âstiffâ our heart is. Everyone has a different HRV baseline, so we should worry less about the end number and focus more on lifestyle changes that increase our variability.
Similar to the first image, this is a yearâs worth of my HRV. As you can see, since eliminating alcohol, things have improved substantially.
But letâs go a little deeper on this one. First, letâs look at my actual HRV after drinking:
Now, letâs look at my HRV from last night:
You donât have to be a huge statistics person to deduce that a 200% difference in outcomes is worth acknowledging.
Deep Sleep
Dr. Matthew Walker, the author of Why We Sleep and the director of the Center for Human Sleep Science at UC Berkeley, provides four reasons we should maximize our time spent in deep sleep:
Boosts memory consolidation and learning. By lowering our body temperature, blood pressure, and heart rate, deep sleep allows us to slow metabolism and conserve energy for the next day. This energy conservation promotes increased glucose metabolism, which helps with short- and long-term memory consolidation and learning.
Increased growth and cell regeneration. When the pituitary gland releases human growth hormones, our bodies begin repairing muscle and tissue and regenerating cells. Deep sleep also allows for more cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) to flow into our bodies, which clears out cell waste. CSF also washes away beta-amyloid, a toxic protein linked to Alzheimerâs disease, from neurons in our brains.
Immune system support. Studies show that deep sleep can strengthen our immune system, allow us to fight infection and illness, reduce inflammation, and boost the efficacy of vaccines.
More energy. By conserving energy during deep sleep, youâll have more energy upon waking the next day. Research has suggested that this may be due to increased adenosine triphosphate, which provides more energy to cells during deep sleep.
Our ability to enter deep sleep declines as we age, making getting the most of it while we can imperative. Walker surmises, âBy the time you're in your 50s, you've lost almost 40 to 50 percent of that deep sleep you were having, for example, when you were a teenager. By age 70, you may have lost almost 90 percent of that deep sleepâ.
Furthermore, he states, âOnce you drop below seven hours, we can start to measure objective impairments in your brain and your body. The shorter your sleep, the shorter your life. Short sleep predicts all-cause mortality.â
Assuming we are averaging the recommended minimum of seven hours of sleep, we should aim for between 55 and 97 minutes of deep sleep, according to the Sleep Foundation.
While drinking, I failed to exceed 70 minutes of deep sleep over the last year.
Since abstaining, I have exceeded 80 minutes routinely and average 94 minutes over the last month.
Conclusion
Youâll never believe this, but apparently, alcohol is bad for you. These changes only bolstered my interest in extending sobriety-as-an-experiment to sobriety as a permanent state.
I briefly touched on it last week, but Annie Graceâs This Naked Mind will probably become one of my most recommended books. I think it will be incredibly valuable if you are considering cutting back or abstaining from alcohol.
Thank you for reading, have a joyful week, and I will see you next Sunday! If anything here resonated with you, please share it with someone else!
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