What wellness culture gets wrong about partying

“I can’t come out, I’ve got gym in the morning.” It’s a phrase I’ve found myself saying more and more recently, pressured by gymfluencers telling me that ‘drinking ruins gains’ and wellness videos urging me to swap the gin for ginger shots. Exercise in the morning, meal prep at night – I feel like I’ve optimised myself into obscurity. Is this healthy?

It’s a balance an increasing number of young people have been attempting to strike. One in four Gen Z Brits are teetotal (twice the rate of their parent’s generation) and, as UK nightclubs enter their fourth year of post-pandemic downturn, an increasing number of young people are choosing to attend the gym instead, with an estimated 87 per cent of young people exercising at least three times a week. While understanding the risks of excessive partying is by no means a bad thing, it can also have the opposite outcome when health-seekers end up isolating themselves from social situations altogether.

This is supported by research from Robin Dunbar, professor of evolutionary psychology at the University of Oxford, who focuses on humans’ fundamental social nature. “The single best predictor of your psychological and physical health and wellbeing is the number and quality of close friendships,” he tells Dazed. “When you are lonely and depressed, your immune system goes down; when you are happy and do stuff with friends, the immune system goes up.” This is due to the body’s endorphin system, which is engaged by acts like laughing, singing and dancing. As it turns out, Professor Dunbar’s research has also found that alcohol is a “very good” trigger of this system.

In practice, this means that moderate social drinking can actually have a net positive effect on our overall health. What’s more, Professor Dunbar suggests that these benefits have likely been recognised by our biology for millions of years. “It requires two enzymes acting in tandem to convert alcohol back into sugars that the body can use for energy, but these have to be in perfect balance because the intermediate step is highly poisonous,” he explains. “We share these enzymes only with the African great apes, so the ability to detoxify alcohols (in rotting fruits) is very ancient in our lineage, probably dating back around eight to ten million years.”

“There has been a very long tradition in the Germanic tribes of northern Europe to get incapably drunk as fast as possible” – Professor Robin Dunbar

Still, he is careful to emphasise that it’s the laughter that actually produces the beneficial effects – and alcohol only helps us get there. “The important difference is between alcohol as a social lubricant and getting incapably drunk as fast as possible. The idea is to sit and talk to people and laugh with them,” he explains – not spend the night blackout drunk before falling asleep fully clothed next to a kebab.

“There has been a very long tradition in the Germanic tribes of northern Europe to get incapably drunk as fast as possible,” continues Professor Dunbar, emphasising that the UK has long held unhealthily excessive drinking habits. “The Romans commented on it when they conquered Britain and the Germanic territories across the Rhine 2000 years ago, the Normans were appalled by it when they conquered Anglo-Saxon England in 1066. Mediterranean folk are still appalled by our drunken behaviour.”

With such a strong history of binge drinking, it’s not surprising that so many young Brits are swinging so violently in the opposite direction. “I definitely feel like I need to go out more, but finding the right environment is hard,” says 25-year-old Millie, who tries to abstain from drink and drugs as much as possible. “It seems pretty impossible to go out in the UK without drugs being part of it.”

Still, it also follows from Professor Dunbar’s research that if your steadfast sobriety is preventing you from getting out and enjoying these social benefits, then you might actually be doing yourself a disservice, too. “I definitely feel a lot of pressure from wellness content to live a pure and clean lifestyle which leads me to give myself a hard time for being imperfect,” continues Millie. “Right now, I’ve gone too far in the direction of health, which ironically starts to become unhealthy.”

26-year-old Tia echoes these feelings of guilt from consuming online wellness content, and finds that listening to internal signals is the best judge of her wellbeing. “I think wellness content online can be super motivating at times but, more often than not, it actually becomes the source of my anxiety surrounding drinking – not always the alcohol itself,” she explains, pinpointing videos that berate viewers for indulging now and again. “For me, I’ve found that drinking intuitively and listening to my body is the only way to find balance. I try to be mindful about when and how I choose to drink and also try not to beat myself up when it doesn’t go to plan.”

Another sober-curious individual, 28-year-old Henry, has found similar solace in balance. “Because it’s becoming rarer that I do go out and have a drink, the times I do decide to let loose a bit it feels more like I’ve earned it,” he tells Dazed. “I think having more of a balance has improved my mental and physical health exponentially and I can absolutely feel the difference on the whole.”

“The most important thing is to enjoy yourself and spend your time doing the things you wanna do with the people you want to be around.” – Lucas*, 18

Of course, on the other hand, the benefits that Professor Dunbar describes can also be achieved without the use of alcohol altogether. This is the perspective of 18-year-old Lucas*, who has never drunk because of how he saw it affecting the people around him growing up. “I’m still able to have a great time with people and even clubbing is still really enjoyable, especially since it usually means every night out is incredibly cheap,” he tells Dazed. “The most important thing is to enjoy yourself and spend your time doing the things you wanna do with the people you want to be around.”

Elsewhere, Lucas’ resolution is helped by the fact that the night-time industry appears to be increasingly taking note of this health-conscious trend among young people. “Businesses are promoting mental, physical and social wellbeing through initiatives that cater to evolving lifestyles,” the UK Night Time Industries Association tells Dazed. “The rise of no- and low-alcohol offerings, sober parties and thoughtful additions, such as quiet areas, are reshaping the sector to accommodate a range of audiences seeking meaningful experiences.”

This shift in emphasis is doubly important. Not only, as Professor Dunbar’s research shows, do pubs and clubs perform a social function that extends far beyond alcohol consumption, but they are actively under threat, with the latest data revealing that 32.7 per cent of UK nightclubs have closed their doors since 2020. Given early calls that sober raves might be the parties of the future, perhaps a little pressure from today’s health-conscious youth could help save the UK’s dying nightlife industry.

Ultimately, whether you choose to consume a little alcohol or abstain entirely, it is finding a balance between the pressures of online wellness culture and excessive partying that is most important here. This is something that I’ve definitely been guilty of. In falling down the wellness rabbit hole, I realised that at some point all social occasions became tied up with a sense of guilt, as if they were getting in the way of my journey towards bodily perfection. Where all the emphasis appears to be on Dry January at the moment, it seems at least some of us could benefit from something a little more moist – where good, old-fashioned fun still takes priority. 

*Name has been changed