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FROM avoiding temptation to blitzing your home of booze, there are a number of ways we’re advised to cut back on alcohol.

But now a new study has offered up a surprising new way to diminish your dependence on drink, which could boost your mental and physical health at the same time.

If you struggle with your drinking, giving up alcohol can feel like an impossible task.

Research carried out by scientists at Xinjiang Normal University found that exercising helped alcoholics cut down on drinking and significantly reduced their dependence on booze.

Working out also helped combat participants’ anxiety, depression and stress, as they reaped the benefits on their physical fitness.

“Exercise intervention as an adjunct to the treatment of alcohol use disorder patients is significantly effective,” researchers said.

Alcohol use disorder is the medical term for alcoholism or alcohol addiction.

It describes a strong, often uncontrollable desire to drink – even if it’s harmful to your health, putting your safety at risk and damaging relationships.

It’s estimated that over 600,000 people in England are dependent on alcohol, according to Alcohol Change UK – but only 18 per cent of them are receiving treatment for it.

For people that do seek treatment for their problem drinking, the risk of relapsing is as high as 90 per cent, study authors noted.

“Physical activity has been shown to affect alcohol use disorder both psychologically and physiologically,” they wrote in a paper published to the journal PLOS ONE.

“Physiologically, exercise can increase beta-endorphin levels, which are associated with post-exercise euphoria, and exercise may also mitigate the negative effects of ethanol intake through cellular-level mechanisms.

“At the same time, physical activity can improve mental performance and increase self-confidence, as well as bring about a relaxing and calming effect, helping to reduce psychological dependence on alcohol.”

The Chinese research team conducted a review of 17 trials that included a total of 1,905 patients with alcohol use disorders, who were asked to work out for a minimum of two weeks while receiving treatment.

Their review included a number of different types of exercise – from slow walking, jogging and swimming, to resistance resistance training, yoga, Pilates, and basketball.

Workout sessions could be between 15 and 75 minutes long, and most participants gave the “exercise intervention” a go for about 12 weeks.

PA

Researchers said yoga could be a helpful form of exercise for people to curb alcohol cravings[/caption]

They compared people’s dependence to booze – as well as their mental and physical health – to a control group who didn’t exercise while receiving treatment.

Researchers looked at how many drinks people had daily or weekly and used the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) to calculate people’s dependence to booze.

To assess participants’ physical health, researchers looked at how much oxygen their body consumed while exercising, as well as their resting heart rate.

For mental health, anxiety, depression and stress levels were assessed.

They found that engaging in any form of exercise significantly decreased the amount of drinks participants consumed on a daily and weekly basis.

Those who worked out to curb their alcohol cravings also had lower AUDIT scores – the lower the score for the 10-question screening tool, the lower the person’s risk of alcohol related issues.

Participants who exercised also had an improved resting heart rate and reported lower levels of anxiety, depression and stress.

“This study revealed that since most alcohol use disorder patients have poor physical functioning and lower-than-average physical fitness due to chronic excessive alcohol consumption and a lack of exercise,” researchers said.

They pointed out that several of the studies’ participants chose to do yoga alongside treatment.

“Yoga is a mind-body exercise that integrates breathing and mental training while practising physical postures,” they wrote.

“This study demonstrated that yoga exercise is a good intervention to complement alcohol use disorder treatment.”

The authors called on future studies to “carefully differentiate between the types of exercise and exercise intensity and to analyse the effects of exercise of different natures on alcohol dependence more deeply to develop the most suitable exercise prescriptions for the clinical treatment of alcohol use disorder”.

BEN DAVIES says player burnout talk among Prem stars has increased since Rodri’s injury.

And Tottenham’s long-serving defender refused to rule out future strike action over the increased workload sparked by Fifa’s new Club World Cup next year.

Reuters

Davies admitted Rodri’s injury has stoked up the ‘burnout’ talk[/caption]

Manchester City’s Rodri warned his peers were close to going on strike over the bursting calendar – days before the Ballon d’Or winner suffered a season-ending knee injury against Arsenal last month.

Player welfare is a hot topic across Prem dressing rooms and Davies said: “It’s something that players right now have been talking about.

“And it’s become a big conversation – and probably even more of a conversation since we saw Rodri discuss it and then have a pretty serious injury.”

Davies, 31, is Spurs’ PFA representative and pleaded recently for a three-week football blackout to help tackle the thorny subject.

Liverpool’s Andy Robertson then called for a taskforce of players and managers to be set up in a bid to solve the sport’s crazy fixture pile-up.

When asked if Robertson’s idea is a good one, Davies added: “It’s a difficult one right now. It’s probably a sensitive topic.

“When you have seen the unions in other sports, especially in the US, come together and in the past they have taken some serious and drastic action with strikes and stuff like that…”

Davies is referring to industrial action taken in America which has seen lock-outs in basketball, baseball and hockey.

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So does the Welshman ever see the threat of striking becoming a genuine reality?

He replied: “It’s difficult to say never. I don’t know.

“That conversation has picked up in the last year or so. In football I’ve never seen it before.”

Davies hopes for change but the Tottenham star believes it is down to the governing bodies rather than the players to sort out the calendar.

He said: “It’s a tough one. There are times when there are so many games and it feels very continuous.

“We wouldn’t mind a solid block of time away from football.

“But, ultimately, we are in a situation where there are a lot of games and there are a lot of playing competitions. You do want to be involved in them all.

“As much as players will say what they want or would like to happen, it’s probably out of our hands until the competition organisers agree on finding a schedule that works for everyone.”

Reuters

Davies has made almost 300 Premier League appearances with Swansea and Tottenham.

The left-back has also won 90 caps with Wales and played at two Euros finals and a World Cup.

But Davies has played the same number of games for his country as his club – four – this season.

He has made three Europa League appearances – as well as one in the Carabao Cup.

Although, he is waiting for his first Prem action, he could be involved for Ange Postecoglou’s men at home to Rodri’s City in tonight’s Carabao Cup fourth round clash.

Davies, who moved to the North Londoners a decade ago and is in the final year of his contract, says Tottenham hold the cards on his future.

He added: “That’s probably in the club’s hands and not so much mine.

“I’ve been at the club a long time. My wife is from London, my son was born here.

“It’s definitely a huge part of my life. I’m very settled here right now.

“I do hope I will get more minutes. Sometimes in football you have to bide your time.

“All I can do is keep myself in as good nick as I can, work hard every day and when I do get those minutes then I have to do my best to show I am still capable of performing at the highest level.”

Davies, who attended a McDonald’s Fun Football session, said: “It’s incredible to see all these kids playing football.

“It shows how important programmes like McDonald’s Fun Football are to communities across Wales.

“As a parent, I love seeing kids getting active and having fun.”

Ben Davies was celebrating the latest free wave of McDonald’s Fun Football sessions this Autumn, available to all children aged 5-11 across Wales. Sign up now for your nearest free session at mcdonalds.co.uk/football .

NATHAN ASPINALL was left in stitches after a ref responded “I can’t tell you that” to his bizarre question.

The darts star was in action on Thursday for Event 29 of the Players Championship.

Aspinall found himself up against pal and Premier League rival Michael Smith in a third round clash.

Things did not go to plan for The Asp, who crashed out with a 6-3 defeat.

But both men were all smiles following an amusing incident in the final leg.

Smith left himself with just 16 points to seal victory.

While Aspinall faced a daunting task with a total of 236.

And hilariously, he asked the ref “can I leave a finish?” before hurling his darts at the board.

However, the man by the board had a blunt response, saying: “I can’t tell you that.”

This left everyone giggling, including the judge.

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And as it stood, Aspinall was unable to leave a finish as he took his points tally down to 194.

Smith appeared to laugh uncontrollably as he stepped up to the plate.

Yet he made no mistake with his checkout as he secured the win.

Last month Aspinall revealed he was nearing a darts comeback after undergoing painful treatment on an elbow injury.

He said: “I had to go back to the Matchplay and give it my all to try and defend my title, but I knew it was never going to happen. Obviously, after that I made the call to pull out of everything and get it done.

“It’s been a tough couple of months for me, but there’s light at the end of the tunnel. The treatment has gone fantastically and we’re not far off coming back!

“I’ve just been back to the hospital to get all of my results and basically, in a nutshell, I’ve had all these tendon problems, golfer’s elbow, tendonitis.

“So I’ve had six or seven treatments of shockwave therapy, plus rehab, but I was just still getting a lot of pain and a lot of swelling in my elbow.

“There’s basically a bone in my elbow joint that’s rubbing into things. So I need to have an injection with something called plasma directly into my elbow joint. That’s the last piece of the puzzle.”

MANCHESTER UNITED take on Leicester in a huge Carabao Cup fourth-round clash TONIGHT.

It’s the first time the Red Devils have been in action since Erik ten Hag was sacked as manager on Monday morning.

Ruud van Nistelrooy has been put in interim charge of the first team and will be in the dugout for tonight’s Carabao Cup clash.

Man Utd chiefs look to have found their next boss, with Sporting manager Ruben Amorim all-but confirmed as Ten Hag’s replacement.

• Kick off time: 7.45pm GMT
• TV/Stream: Sky Sports+
• Man Utd team: To follow…
• Leicester team: To follow…

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