The benefits and harms of drinking beer before, after and during the bath

It is generally accepted that drinking beer in the bath is not just normal, but even useful. Moreover, this misconception is shared even by those for whom the use of alcohol in the steam room is categorically contraindicated. As an argument, erudite lovers of a foamy drink usually cite studies on how much it increases sweating. But not everything is so simple: let’s try to find out what happens in the body of a person who drinks beer before, during and after a bath.

The consequences of drinking beer before the bath

Beer is a low-alcohol drink, so it’s easy to lose your guard. It is believed that visiting a bath after two or three glasses of beer is a common thing. But a half-liter bottle of beer with a strength of 4% contains 20 g of pure ethanol, which is equivalent to 50 g of vodka. It is unlikely that anyone will argue with the fact that vodka cannot be drunk in the heat.

Carbon dioxide enhances the effect of alcohol. A drunk person’s mood improves, he is engulfed in euphoria, it seems to him that he can literally move mountains. As alcohol enters the bloodstream, the vessels dilate.

In the Russian bath, where the steam is moist, the load is somewhat easier to bear than in the Finnish sauna. However, here is what can happen if a person goes to the bathhouse after drinking a few glasses of beer:

• under the influence of high temperature, the vessels dilate even more, and they are already dilated due to alcohol. If a person is young and healthy, his body will endure this, although not without difficulty. But in the case when the walls of the vessels are weak, they often do not withstand and burst. If the vessel is located somewhere on the body, a bruise forms, but if the vessel of the brain breaks, everything can end in a stroke;
• in hypertensive patients, under the influence of alcohol and high temperature, pressure necessarily rises. Patients with atherosclerosis and varicose veins are at great risk;
• double overloads: due to alcohol and high air temperature, cause arrhythmia. A person with a not very healthy heart can have an attack or even a heart attack. The increased work of the heart adversely affects the hepatic artery, damage to which is deadly;
• even a healthy person who has drunk beer before a bath is in danger: his attention is weakened, even if a little, but coordination is impaired. In this state, you can easily slip or hit the sharp corner of the heater;
• any alcohol first causes euphoria, then drowsiness, which increases due to high air temperature. A person is able to simply fall asleep in a steam room or in a pond with cold water.

Is it possible to drink beer right in the bath

All of the above applies to those cases when a person drinks beer right in the bath, in between visits to the steam room. But in this case, the load on the body is even higher:

• The main advantage of the bath is the ability to remove toxins from the body in a natural way, through open pores. And then, before the liver had time to cleanse itself of toxins, a new poison enters it (and the body perceives ethanol only as a poison). Moreover, beer further enhances sweating, that is, dehydration of the body occurs against the background of its intoxication. The liver and kidneys in a similar situation experience huge overloads;
• canned beer is stabilized with cobalt. In the normal state, the liver copes with its excretion, but in the case when the body does not have enough water to dissolve toxins, cobalt can cause inflammation of the mucous membrane of the stomach, esophagus or intestines. Therefore, a person who drinks beer in a bath voluntarily takes the first step towards gastritis and stomach ulcers.
• usually in the bath beer is drunk cold. As a result, you can get a sore throat even in summer.

Of course, it is difficult to break away from the team and feel like a black sheep. For those who do not want to say a firm “no” to their friends who persistently offer him to drink beer in the bath, there is a way out: a non-alcoholic option.

Non-alcoholic beer contains a minimal amount of ethanol, but has all the beneficial qualities of regular beer. Of course, they cannot be abused. Doctors recommend limiting the dose of such beer to one mug.

Drinking beer after a bath

You can’t drink beer immediately after the bath either. First you need to restore the water balance and saturate the body with moisture. For this, green tea, various herbal teas, rooibos, berry fruit drinks, kvass, ordinary mineral water without gas are suitable. It is better to replace sugar in drinks with honey.

But two hours after the bath, you can drink one or two mugs of live beer. It is rich in vitamin C, has a beneficial effect on digestion and the nervous system.

When beer in the bath can be useful

As we have already found out, drinking beer in the bath is harmful. But this does not mean that you can not get benefit and pleasure from it. It’s simple: you need to splash the drink on hot stones. It is bred in proportion: 700 grams of beer per liter of water.

To make the smell in the steam room pleasant, you first need to splash plain water on the stones, and then diluted beer.

The steam of live quality beer has a lot of useful properties. Inhaling it, a person calms down, overcomes the effects of stress, and recovers from insomnia. Due to the antiseptic properties of beer, this steam is a very effective remedy for skin irritations and acne.

Beer contains antioxidants that strengthen capillary walls. Anyone who regularly does such procedures will permanently get rid of the red meshes of burst blood vessels. Inhaling beer vapor, a person strengthens the lungs.

If you apply beer foam on the face and neck, the skin will become more elastic, and small wrinkles will be smoothed out. Beer moisturizes the skin, whitens it and brightens age spots. You can also make a beer hair mask: this will strengthen them and make them shiny.

Beer, like so many other things in our lives, is a paradoxical product. Depending on how it is used, it can cause deadly harm and bring great benefits. Our ancestors knew about this: in the old days, drunk people were not allowed into the steam room.

In no case should you drink beer before and right in the bath. Only two hours after visiting the steam room, you can taste a live aromatic drink.