Hi Wanderlust, it’s Emily here and I love my wine so much, I am actually qualified at WSET Level 2 and am planning to host my first wine tasting next year. Not something you often hear in the yoga scene, is it? Most yoga enthusiasts tend to be tee-total (or at least say they are), and hey, I completely get it! I am fully in support of ‘each to their own’. I know all the arguments for steering clear of drinking on the spiritual path, and for where I am in my life right now, that’s not yet something that’s quite right for me. Maybe in the future. But for now, let me tell you a little bit about my ever-evolving relationship with drinking, and the mindful tips I’d love to share with you for 2022.

So, what you should probably know is that I am not here to tell you to give up booze! How could I if I have no intention of doing that myself? But, what I intend to do this year is to become even more mindful about what I am drinking. I used to be a wild child, going back-to-back from ski seasons to summers crammed full of festivals and back to ski seasons again. I’ve partied a lot, and I’ve been hella out of control in places in my life, but I started to find a lot more balance when I discovered yoga and started to become more mindful about my life and everything in it, and especially what I was putting in my body. As a result, in the past couple of years I’ve become even more mindful about what I choose to drink.  

I have recently launched my own online yoga studio and community, The Joyful Wild, and I also run two companies, The Yeh Yoga Co and Secret Sunrise London – so you could say I am quite a busy, hectic person, and sometimes the stress of all of that leaves me reaching for a glass of wine most days. During the depths of the pandemic when we were #wfh every day, I did develop a ritual in drinking a glass of wine after I was done with work, as a way of easing the pressure of my 14-hour workdays at home.

So, here are some of the top tips that I have very recently gone through myself, to take a more mindful approach to drinking, without going cold turkey. Enjoy! 

Enjoy the ritual of preparation

Sometimes we are looking to have a drink as that ritual that separates our working day from time for ourselves, a way of celebrating, a way of commiserating, sometimes as a treat, or just because. So grab out your most fancy glassware, prepare some ice (why not crush some, or store funky shaped ice cubes in the freezer), grab a reusable straw, and get creative with your fruits and garnishes. Make a ritual out of the careful preparation of your drink, no matter what’s in it – like MARTINI® Vibrante Non-Alcoholic Aperitif or low ABV cocktail La Vie En Rose with ST-GERMAIN® elderflower liqueur.

I find that taking such care in the preparation of any drink means if you are still including the booze in your carefully crafted creation after that, chances are that because of all the time you spent creating something special, you’ll drink it a little slower and more mindfully than if you had just chucked a measure of spirit and some mixer over a plain old glass… that’s just asking to be necked, as opposed to savoured.

The power of placebo

If your favourite tipple includes a mixer you would never normally have straight, just have it straight. Trust me, tasting that flavour that you would only normally have with your spirit of choice, will almost ‘trick’ your mind into thinking you are drinking, and you’ll still get all those warm fuzzy feelings too.

Go through the rituals as above in preparing your ‘mixer-only’, and take your time over it. I regularly have a fancy G&T without the G, in a big gin goblet with botanicals crushed in and big slices of grapefruit or some basil leaves. It still ‘tastes’ like what I’m used to (after all, the tonic makes up most of the drink… or at least for most of us it does