A new Northwestern Medicine? study finds that on days when individuals do more exercise typically Thursdays to Sundays they drink more alcohol, too.
This may be the only study to use smartphone technology along with a daily diary approach for self-reporting physical activity and alcohol use.
“Monday through Wednesday people batten down the hatches and they cut back on alcohol consumption,” said David E. Conroy, lead author of the study. “But once that ‘social weekend’ begins on Thursdays, exercise increases and thus does drinking.”
Conroy is really a professor of preventive medicine and deputy director from the Center for Behavior and Health at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. He also is really a faculty affiliate from the Methodology Center in the Pennsylvania State University, in which the research was conducted.
The study was published online in Health Psychology, an American Psychological Association journal.
“Insufficient physical activity and alcohol consumption are generally linked to many health issues, and excessive alcohol use has many indirect costs as well,” Conroy said. “We need to figure out how to use physical activity effectively and safely without having the negative effects of drinking more alcohol.”
One hundred and fifty study participants, ages 18 to 89, recorded their exercise and alcohol use in smartphones after your day. They accomplished it for 21 days at a time, at three different times throughout twelve months.
Other studies on physical activity and alcohol relied on people self-reporting their behavior in the last Thirty days.
“In this study, people just remember eventually of activity or consumption at time, so they are less vulnerable to memory problems or any other biases that come in to play when inspired to report the past Thirty days of behavior,” Conroy said. “We think this is a great method for making your way around some of those self-report measurement problems.”
The previous studies, which trusted 30-day self-reporting, figured physically active people have a tendency to drink more alcohol something this study did not find.
“We zoomed within the microscope and also got a very up-close and personal take a look at these behaviors on a day-to-day basis and find out it isn’t individuals who do more exercise drink more it’s that on days when individuals are more active they have a tendency to drink a lot more than on days they’re less active,” Conroy said. “This finding was uniform across study participants of all levels of physical activity and ages.”
Through future studies at the Center for Behavior and Health at Feinberg, Conroy wishes to discover what drives people to drink more on days they do more exercise.
“Perhaps people reward themselves for working out by having more to drink or maybe being physically active leads them to encountering more social situations where alcohol is consumed we don’t know,” Conroy said. “Once problems in later life the bond between the two variables we can design novel interventions that promote exercise while curbing alcohol consumption.”
The National Institute on Aging grant AG035645 and also the National Institute on Substance abuse grant P50 DA010075 funded this study. Other study authors include Nilam Ram, Aaron L. Pincus, Donna L. Coffman, Amy E. Lorek, Amanda L. Rebar and Michael J. Roche of The Pennsylvania State University.
