Being aware of the impact of drinking on our mind and body, allows us to drink and socialise more mindfully. Essentially, drinking mindfully is essentially drinking with a sense of balance, sipping, savouring and developing a true sense of awareness.
Inserting a sense of ritual when drinking can help you ease into a mindful drinking mindset and put the theory to practice. How do you do this? Here are a few steps and tricks to play with next time you fancy a drink:
- Start by figuring out your own threshold – at what point are you still happy and having a good time? Stick to that and don’t go over.
- Plan your week: do you have events daily? If so, will you be drinking at all the events or can you choose to drink at the two you think will be most worthwhile?
- Take a moment before you sip your drink to smell it; take a deep breath and make a conscious note that you’re savouring and sipping a drink.
- With every drink, have a glass of water, this will help you to stay hydrated.
- Be conscious of the flavours you’re drinking.
- Avoid shots because you will drink those within seconds, when a mindful cocktail can be enjoyed for half an hour or more.
- Journal your mindful drinking journey. This will help you understand your behaviour, thought patterns and bring about a new sense of awareness.
Drinking can be a pleasure to be enjoyed. It starts with choosing the right drink for yourself, “quality rather than quantity” mindset, making mindful choices and looking at how many occasions you have and how the rituals around those occasions can benefit your balanced lifestyle.
By becoming more mindful about drinking, we can start looking at it as ‘cultural sophistication’, something to be enjoyed and savoured, the way it should be. By knowing our own thresholds, understanding at what point we feel our best, we can start to learn to live a more balanced lifestyle. Finding the process joyful, feeling good before, during and after, may take a little planning to start with, but this will soon become intuitive.
Bacardi-Martini offers mindful cocktails containing less than 1 alcohol unit and a range of options to fit your lifestyle. If you’re looking for no and low cocktails then try these three options: for no try Vibrante Spritz with MARTINI® Vibrante Non-Alcoholic Aperitif, and for low the La Vie En Rose with ST-GERMAIN® elderflower liqueur or a Mojito Spritz with BACARDÍ® Carta Blanca rum.
Click here to learn more about living your best life whilst drinking mindfully. Plus enter our competition to WIN a Wanderlust Mindful Package for three (worth £700).
Please enjoy responsibly, drinkware.co.uk for the facts
About the Author
She grew up speaking Gujarati and learned Sanskrit at school. Her first book, Saffron Soul, is a cookbook inspired by the vegetarian food of the Gujarat region. Her second book Prajna focuses on rituals, Ayurveda, happiness and spirituality.
Mira has her own chai brand called Chai by Mira (@chaibymira), hosts events and retreats and is a health coach and breathwork practitioner.
In partnership with Bacardi
Our spirits are exquisitely crafted with long tradition and great pride. And, as a 7th generation family company and the largest privately held spirits company in the world, our business has always been about more than liquids or bottles.
For 160 years, we’ve been proud to be a catalyst for connection. We believe our purpose is to spark real-life rituals to bring people together for key moments in celebration, conversation and contemplation. Be it over a celebratory toast, a reunion of old friends, an impromptu post-work aperitif or an epic gathering of communities bound by film, music, art or sports.
We’re more than rum.