--- title: Exercise and Alcohol: We Drink More On Days That We Work Out description: People tend to drink more alcohol on days they've exercised, a study finds canonical: https://time.com/3421965/more-alcohol-on-workout-days/ author: Mandy Oaklander article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-09-23T16:27:26.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T10:21:27.841Z article:section: Health og:title: We Drink More on Days that We Work Out og:description: People tend to drink more alcohol on days they've exercised, a study finds og:url: https://time.com/3421965/more-alcohol-on-workout-days/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt79a5d7f91cc8a986/6986a4c7169ab06f5327b537/gym-treadmill1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5150 og:image:height: 2897 og:image:alt: gym treadmill og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: We Drink More on Days that We Work Out twitter:description: People tend to drink more alcohol on days they've exercised, a study finds twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt79a5d7f91cc8a986/6986a4c7169ab06f5327b537/gym-treadmill1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # We Drink More Alcohol When We Exercise > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators.  by [Mandy Oaklander](https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. Sep 23, 2014 4:27 PM UTC  People on Treadmills People on Treadmills Getty Images  by [Mandy Oaklander](https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. Sep 23, 2014 4:27 PM UTC First we sweat, and then we swig: A new Northwestern Medicine [study](http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2014/09/we-drink-more-alcohol-on-gym-days.html) published in the journal _Health Psychology_ finds that people tend to drink more alcohol on days they’ve exercised. The study looked at 150 adults between the ages of 18-89 who used a smartphone app to record how much they exercised each day — and how much alcohol they drank for three weeks at different points of the year. Previous studies have found that the more active among us are also the larger lushes. But this study didn’t exactly confirm that. Instead, the stronger link occurred between exercise days and the number of drained glasses, with beer being the most popular post-workout alcoholic beverage. Both physical activity and alcohol intake increased Thursdays through Sundays. Even after the researchers controlled for the fact that people have more alcohol-related social events on the weekend, that many prefer to drink primarily on weekends, and that drinking patterns often differ by season, the association still stuck. The scientists aren’t sure why there’s such a close link, but they have some ideas. “It could be that people who are more physically active on a given day have to use all their willpower and cognitive resources to get themselves to be active, and they don’t have enough willpower left to resist the temptation of a drink at the end of the day,” says David E. Conroy, lead study author and professor of preventive medicine and deputy director of the Center for Behavior and Health at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Other possible reasons: people proud of their workout might want to reward themselves for being good, socialize further over drinks, or even (mistakenly) view alcohol as a good way to replenish fluids, the study says. But other studies show that too much alcohol can negate some of the good that exercise does — in addition to adding calories after a hard-earned burnoff, alcohol might even [impair muscle recovery](http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0088384). If “dehydrate to rehydrate'” is your motivation to get to the gym, you’re not alone. 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