[emerged]

I sometimes explicitly create a log of the before and after state of mind. Before rowing: “I feel fine, but pretty lazy and stressed about XYZ” after rowing: “Struggled through and got a big endorphin rush toward the end, feeling good and much less stressed.”

Seeing fitness progress graphs helps as well (heart rate vs power output etc). I know for me personally monitoring my resting heart rate made a strong argument against pretty much any alcohol consumption.

[loeg]

What effect have you observed on your resting heart rate from alcohol?

[emerged]

It increases immediately and takes a few days to settle back down. After quitting my weekly average slowly continued to decrease. My RHH is a very consistent 46 bpm now and it was consistently in the low to mid 50s during the months/years I was routinely drinking on the weekends.

Obviously there are other factors like fitness, sleep, general health, but I was monitoring the numbers on a daily basis and the trends became really clear.

[loeg]

Thanks. I hadn’t noticed that myself but will have to pay more attention.

[maccard]

I've not been measuring my RHR for a while but when I was training daily my RHR would be up significantly for maybe 3 days after a night out even if I felt 100% the morning after.