Alcohol is a part of many of our lives. We use it for celebration, for comfort, to socialise, to wind down, to cope. It’s legal, socially acceptable, even encouraged. Yet every year in the UK alcohol-related harm leads to thousands of lives lost, and hundreds of thousands more damaged. The harm goes far beyond those who drink too much, affecting families, communities, and ultimately our whole society.

THE FACTS

• More than 20 people each day dies as a result of the harm caused by alcohol.
• Alcohol is a causal factor in more than 60 medical conditions including liver disease, high blood pressure, depression and seven types of cancer.
• In 2018/19 there were 1.26 million alcohol related hospital admissions in England.
• There are around 600,000 dependent drinkers in the UK, yet less than 1 in 5 receive treatment.
• Around 200,000 children in England live with an alcohol dependent parent or carer.
• Around 1 in 4 people in the UK experience a mental health problem each year and drinking too much or too often can increase our risk.
• In 2017/18, in 39% of violent incidents the victim believed the offender to be under the influence of alcohol.
• Despite drinking the least, the poorest in society suffer the greatest alcohol harm.

AM I DRINKING TOO MUCH?
Knowing how much is too much can be confusing when it comes to alcohol. Most of us feel that we know when we’ve overdone it, but sometimes drinking can creep up on us and we find that we’re drinking more than we would like. For this reason, in January 2016, the UK’s top doctors - chief Medical officers (CMOs), published new ‘low-risk’ drinking guidelines to help give us a steer about how we can minimise the risks associated with drinking and make healthier informed choices about our drinking.

WEEKLY DRINKING GUIDELINES
The guidelines for both men and women state:

• To keep health risks from alcohol to a low level it is safest not to drink more than 14 units a week on a regular basis.
• If you regularly drink as much as 14 units per week, it is best to spread your drinking evenly over 3 or more days. If you have one or two heavy drinking episodes a week, you increase your risks of death from long term illness and from accidents and injuries.
• The risk of developing a range of health problems (including cancers of the mouth, throat and breast) increases the more you drink on a regular basis.
• If you wish to cut down the amount you drink, a good way to help achieve this is to have several drink-free days each week.

ALCOHOL AND YOUR MENTAL HEALTH
Around 1 in 4 people in the UK experience a mental health problem each year and drinking too much or too often can
increase our risk. But many of us are unaware of the link between alcohol and poor mental health. Regular drinking
can mask underlying mental health problems such as anxiety and depression and prevent them from being properly
addressed, or even make them worse.

One of the main problems associated with using alcohol to deal with mental health problems is that regular consumption
of alcohol changes the chemistry of the brain. It decreases the levels of the brain chemical serotonin - a key chemical in
depression. As a result of this depletion, a cyclical process begins where one drinks to relieve depression, which causes
serotonin levels in the brain to be depleted, leading to one feeling even more depressed, and thus necessitating even
more alcohol to then medicate this depression.

LOOK AFTER YOUR MENTAL HEALTH USING MINDFULNESS
Mindfulness has been shown to help with a number of conditions, including stress, anxiety, depression, addictive behaviours such as alcohol or substance misuse and gambling, and physical problems like hypertension, heart disease and chronic pain.

While research is still growing in the area of mindfulness, evidence has suggested the benefit of mindfulness to health and wellbeing, with results showing positive effects on several aspects of whole-person health, including the mind, the brain, the body, and behaviour, as well as a person’s relationships with others.

WHAT IS MINDFULNESS?
Mindfulness is a way of paying attention to the present moment, using techniques like meditation, breathing and yoga. It helps us become more aware of our thoughts and feelings so that, instead of being overwhelmed by them, we’re better able to manage them. How can mindfulness help?

Mindfulness can be used as a tool to manage your well-being and mental health. Some people call mental health ‘emotional health’ or ‘well-being’. We all have times when we feel down, stressed or frightened; most of the time those feelings pass, but sometimes they develop into a more serious problem, and this could happen to any one of us.

It’s important to maintain your mental health, but being mentally healthy doesn’t just mean that you don’t have a mental health problem. With good mental health, you can:

• Make the most of your potential
• Cope with life
• Play a full part in your family, workplace, community and among friends

If you’re worried that you’re drinking too much, there’s support available from the following organisations:

• Alcohol concern
• Al-Anon Family Groups
• Alcoholics Anonymous Great Britain
• Turning Point
• We Are With You
• Action on Addiction

Apart from the challenges Covid-19 will be throwing our way, we must stay wary of the usual winter ailments ready to strike. Here's some good advice to getting through to next spring :0)

Leading a healthy lifestyle is important all year round, but the colder months can often make it more difficult to keep well. Making simple adjustments to your daily routine however can make it easier to stay healthy, helping to protect your body from winter ailments such as the common cold or the flu. This winter we will also need to live with coronavirus, which we know can have more of an impact the older we are.

​The good news is there are lots of things we can do to help keep well in winter.

1. Get a good nights sleep
As many people succumb to coughs and colds during winter, it’s important to help your body fight infection. Sleep helps your body to repair itself so aim for around 6-9 hours sleep, as too little sleep can lower the amount of immune cells we have available to fight off infection.

If you have trouble sleeping at night, avoid heavy meals and too many fluids late at night and try switching to caffeine free drinks, for a few hours before bed. Make sure your bedroom is quiet, dark, and cool, take a warm bath, read, or listen to soothing music to unwind, and turn off screens at least one hour before bedtime.

2. Remember your greens
Green leafy vegetables are packed with vitamins A, C, E and iron all of which support the immune system. Having a diet which is rich in the nutrients that support immune cells to function efficiently enables our bodies to initiate an effective response against infections. Other nutrients which can help support immunity include zinc and selenium.

3. Vitamin D
Vitamin D is important to maintain a healthy body as well as boosting your mood. However in winter your body does not synthesize Vitamin D from the sun due to the Zenith factor. Try including Vitamin D supplements and eating oily fish such as salmon, herring and sardines which are all naturally high in vitamin D.

4. Exercise Regularly
Being physically active not only benefits our physical health, but also our mental health. This help us to manage stress, which otherwise can result in the release of a hormone that suppresses our immune response. Many people are having to spend more time at home than they normally would due to coronavirus restrictions. This can make it harder to stay active and have an effect on our motivation. Public Health England have put together a guide to being active at home with some very simple strength and aerobic exercises with instructions on how to do them including:

5. Make sure to stay warm
By keeping warm, you can help yourself stay well this winter. It’s important to stay protected against a drop in
temperature as cold weather can affect your body’s ability to fight off viruses and infections.

• Up your intake of hot drinks, such as tea and coffee, but to avoid consuming to much caffeine try replacing one or
• two of these a day with caffeine free drinks
• Wear plenty of thin layers rather than one thick one
• Put on a coat, hat, scarf, gloves and warm shoes or boots when you go outside
• Wear clothes made of wool or fleecy synthetic fibres (cotton is only effective if the garment stays dry)
• Wearing bed socks and thermal underwear at night
• Heat your main living room to around 18-21ºC and the rest of the house to at least 16ºC. If you can’t heat all your
• rooms, make sure you keep your living room warm throughout the day and heat your bedroom before going to bed
• A balanced diet will help keep you warm and healthy in the winter. Make sure you and your family eat at least one
• hot meal a day like soup which is nutritious, keeps you warm and is inexpensive to make or buy.

6. Don’t forget to wash your hands!
Germs are often spread through physical contact, keep a bottle of hand sanitizer in your bag or at your desk and use it
regularly.

7. Get the Flu jab
The flu vaccine is a safe and effective vaccine. It’s offered every year on the NHS to help protect people at risk of flu and its complications.

Flu vaccination is important because:

• if you’re at higher risk from coronavirus, you’re also more at risk of problems from flu
• if you get flu and coronavirus at the same time, research shows you’re more likely to be seriously ill
• it will help to reduce pressure on the NHS and social care staff who may be dealing with coronavirus

If you’ve had COVID-19, it’s safe to have the flu vaccine. It’ll be effective at helping to prevent flu.

Visit the NHS.UK for more information on keeping well this winter.