Menu
Menu
Alcohol and mental health share a complicated relationship (yes, more complicated than ex-lovers who are "just friends"). Enjoying a little alcohol isn't unhealthy or wrong. But unchecked drinking can often lead to disastrous impacts on your mental health. If you often feel irritated, anxious, down, or guilty after drinking, you're not alone. With Sunnyside, you'll build healthier drinking habits and improve your relationship with alcohol—in a 100% judgment-free zone.
15-day free trial. Cancel any time.
Many of us have been there—the dreaded morning-after hangover. Hangovers can leave you feeling irritable, lethargic, anxious, and weak. Sometimes, we may also harbor feelings of guilt and regret about the previous night’s events. When our mind and body fall into that state, managing our daily commitments and responsibilities becomes difficult, causing stress and pressure to pile up. Additionally, alcohol can throw off your sleep schedule and cycle and reduce sleep quality. This leaves you more vulnerable to feelings of anger, frustration, sadness, and anxiety.
Yes, alcohol can worsen anxiety. Hence, it’s best for a person experiencing anxiety to avoid alcohol as much as possible. While you may feel more relaxed and calm when you first start drinking, these sedative and soothing effects wear off pretty quickly. And because alcohol changes the levels of chemical messengers in your brain, it may leave you feeling more anxious and stressed. Many people find themselves reaching for alcohol to cope with painful emotions and events. Understandably, it can be scary to reach out for help if you find yourself in a similar situation. But seeking professional advice is a significant first step to developing healthier coping mechanisms in the long run.
Yes, people who choose to stop or cut back on alcohol generally feel happier and healthier in the long run. By practicing better habits, you’ll get more restful sleep—plus, the dreadful morning-afters are less likely to pay a visit! You’re less likely to feel irritated, tired, distracted, or guilty the next day, allowing you to perform better at work and nurture healthier relationships. You’ll also gain a clearer insight into the ‘why’ behind your urges, and this can motivate you to find healthier coping mechanisms.
Mindful drinking empowers you to take charge of your drinking choices. You’ll make decisions based on your health, wellness, and personal goals rather than your cravings and urges. Other than building a sense of confidence and empowerment, mindful drinking also encourages you to create better habits, which help enhance your sleep, mood, and overall wellbeing.
Sunnyside is a mindful drinking app that empowers you to practice healthier drinking habits. You’ll receive accountability messages, daily motivation, tips, and tricks to help you achieve your wellness goals. Through the app, you can also track your drinking and monitor your progress in terms of improved sleep, money saved, and calories avoided. And if you need a listening ear or a helping hand, our real-life coaches are here to support you!
Tell us a little about yourself and your goals so we can personalize your experience. This is a judgment-free zone.
Every week we’ll give you a recommended drink plan for the week ahead to help you reach your goals, which you can adjust.
Via a simple text-message interface, we’ll remind you to track your drinks every day, and provide nudges to stack on target.
Our upbeat and positive eduation, motivation, tips, and tricks will keep you on track every day of the week.
You’re joining a community of members who have been through exactly what you’re going through and have achieved amazing results. Here’s what some of them have said about using Sunnyside to nurture healthier drinking habits.
When I first started I was a bit leery about the whole thing. I am 70 years old and retired and didn’t think that I needed someone to tell me how much to drink. So I took the 15 day free trial and found out that it really helped me control my drinking. These guys are not trying to change you, just your drinking habits, which has help me a lot. Sometimes I would drink just to drink and that came to a stop. I still do what I want to do, I’m just doing it differently and it really working well for me. – Rene
Over the last two years I became a bit of a heavy drinker. After 84 days with Sunnyside, I’m now a moderate drinker, on my way to becoming a social drinking. The transition was easier than I thought. -Ted
I’ve been trying to cut back on my drinking for years and this is the only way I’ve actually done it. I’m so extremely happy with just the mindfulness that it has provided me. It’s not judgy. It doesn’t make you quit immediately. It is just a way to cut back and be mindful of your drinking and I really appreciate it. It’s honestly transformed my life. -Stefani
I love this program – it’s simple and supportive. I feel like I’m on my way to making some lasting changes without ever feeling shamed. Also the coaches are real & respond personally (not just bots). -Lucy
Sunnyside members see big results in their first 30 days, and it only gets better from there. Start with your 15-day free trial, then stick with it if it’s right for you.
Feel your best, inside and out.
Enjoy more restful sleep and brighter mornings.
Every month you’ll be cutting out unnecessary calories.
Greet the day with increased energy and focus.
Save real cash every month by spending less on alcohol.
Mindfulness lets you enjoy drinking more, by consuming less.
The Mindful Drinkers is a group for people who want to cut back on their drinking. The group is a judgment-free zone grounded in positivity. The community aims to cultivate a sense of connection for those who prefer mindfulness over the traditional “all-or-nothing” approach. You’re invited to share your story about how you integrate mindful drinking into your daily life, offer encouragement, and ask questions.
Every Sunnyside membership includes all the features below, plus a free 15-day trial to make sure it’s right for you.
Sunnyside gives you simple, accurate tools to track your drinks that you’ll actually love to use.
Every Sunday we’ll share your plan for the week ahead that you can adjust and customize as needed.
We have real human coaches available for when you need a nudge or a bit of motivation. But only if you need it.
We’ll share advice, education and motivation on a daily basis to keep you on track with your goals.
Drinks cut, money saved, improved sleep… we’ll help you measure success in the terms that matter to you.
Sunnyside is easy and simple to use, but is backed by proven habit change techniques reviewed by our advisors.
Sunnyside utilizes proven behavior-change techniques to help you reach your goals, and it’s all reviewed by our team of experts.
Our goal is to be transparent and honest with you about Sunnyside. It’s in our DNA. Here are a couple common questions, but please email us if you have more.
With Sunnyside, you'll explore, unravel, and improve your relationship with alcohol. This leads to restful sleep, money saved, and fewer hangovers. Mindful drinking also elevates your mood and helps you focus better during the day. A Sunnyside subscription starts at $8.75/mo, less than the cost of two drinks. Everyone starts with a 15-day free trial to test it out. And we're nice about refunds if it's truly not right for you.
We believe that everyone who drinks can benefit from more mindfulness and healthier habits. You can join Sunnyside no matter what your starting point is, and we’ll help you hit your goals, even if it means stopping drinking entirely. Sunnyside offers a 15-day free trial, and you can cancel at any time.
Definitely not. Talking to a coach is completely optional. You can take advantage of the planning, tracking, behavior change, analytics, and amazing results without ever talking to anyone.
Sunnyside builds a meaningful awareness of your drinking patterns. You'll learn how to evaluate and improve your habits to avoid the negative impacts of alcohol on your mental health. You'll also have access to real-life coaches who can give you tailored advice based on your wellness goals. All this from the comfort of your own home!
Sunnyside equips and empowers you to take full charge of your drinking urges and decisions. We're a safe, supportive, and judgment-free space where members can evaluate and reflect on their drinking habits. We employ proven habit-change techniques like pre-commitment, conscious interference, and belief and positivity to help you practice better drinking habits. Our methods are reviewed by habit-change and alcohol-use experts.
We take data privacy and security very seriously. We never sell your information or use your drinking data for marketing tactics. Review our Privacy Policy
The Sunnyside community is made of thousands of people who enjoy drinking but want to create more mindfulness around their consumption, whether it’s to cut back or stop entirely. We’re moms, dads, professionals, students, and everyone in between.
Changing your habits is never easy, but very possible. Sunnyside is an on-the-go accountability partner that offers motivation, tips, tricks, and actionable plans to help you foster healthier drinking habits. It will take discipline and a little time. But we’re here to support you each step of the way.
Last Updated on May 15, 2023
Download the free drink tracking PDF template here.
Since 1949, May has been observed as Mental Health awareness month to raise awareness about mental health and help ensure it’s discussed and taken seriously.
Being that we work in alcohol health at Sunnyside, our team has always been open about mental health, helping ensure our employees needs are met, and that we do our best to decrease the risk of burnout or other mental health issues. Every three months we designate a “mental fitness” week and encourage all employees to take a day off and do something nice for themselves and their mental health.
We also see on a daily basis the complicated relationship that alcohol and mental health have with each other. Our whole premise at Sunnyside is that you can build healthier drinking habits without quitting, and it’s absolutely true. Our tens of thousands of members are making small changes to their behavior that lead to a huge positive impact on their lives.
But the truth is that alcohol can have a very negative effect on mental health, especially if left unchecked. We want to encourage everyone to enjoy alcohol responsibly, but also be fully educated so you can make the best decisions possible.
Drinking alcohol will make you feel relaxed, decrease your inhibitions, and possibly help you have more fun in specific situations. Many also use alcohol to unwind after a stressful day or week, to enjoy a nice meal at the end of the day, and sometimes as a nightcap to help fall asleep.
The most common way alcohol impacts mental health that we likely all have experienced is the next day hangover. Even if you have a fun night, a hangover the next day can leave you exhausted, dehydrated, dizzy, and anxious. It can lead to self-loathing, laziness, and (potentially worse of all) a sense of impending doom that feels like it will never go away.
If you have this experience multiple times per month or week it can start to take a serious toll on your mental health.
In addition, alcohol can decrease your sleep quality, leading to a lack of rest and additional anxiety. In other words, it can snowball pretty quickly.
We designed Sunnyside because we wanted to build healthier drinking habits ourselves, but didn’t want to quit drinking. We literally built it for ourselves.
Like nearly 75% of U.S. adults, we too enjoy drinking alcohol for the relaxing properties, the ritual, the way it complements meals, and the ways that it can elevate social situations. But we also wanted more balance in our drinking habits and options. Being a Sunnyside member means improving your drinking habits not just by cutting back, but by adding new drink options to your house, learning to identify and cut back on cravings, and discovering alternative ways to unwind instead of having a drink. It means creating a lifestyle that is complemented by the occasional drink, not led by it.
Just as you track your calories if you’re trying to improve your diet, or you create a plan to improve your physical health, we believe alcohol health can and should be proactive. It’s something to be proud of. Alcohol is inherently not great for your body and your mental health–especially if left unchecked– so it’s simply true that the better you plan your drinking, the more you can avoid the negative effects.
When you start using Sunnyside, the key habit that you start from day one is tracking your drinks. Even before you think about your long-term goals and start to cut back on your drinking, we encourage you to simply track your drinks.
Through hundreds of thousands of conversations with our members, we’ve heard repeatedly that tracking drinks has a profound impact. The benefits range from person to person, but if you start tracking your drinks on your own, you’d be hard-pressed to NOT experience many of the following benefits:
For Mental Health Awareness month we’re sharing a simple calendar that anyone can use to start tracking their drinks and begin experiencing the benefits of using a service like Sunnyside to build healthier drinking habits that last a lifetime.
How the challenges works:
Sunnyside is a simple but comprehensive alcohol health system that will empower you to improve your drinking habits with no pressure to quit. Using our unique SMS-based tracking and coaching system, you’ll receive personalized drink plans on a weekly basis, daily motivation and education, and proactive recommendations to reach your goals.
In their first 30 days, most Sunnyside members cut back their total weekly drinks by about 30%, save over $50, and cut more than 1,500 calories from your diet (based on the average success of our members). Are you ready to join the mindful drinking movement?
Take our 3-minute quiz to get your custom plan and start your free 15-day trial.
Sunnyside is a system for creating a more mindful approach to drinking to help you reach your goals. Our members are seeing major benefits, including a 30% average reduction in weekly drinks, improved sleep, a healthier diet, money saved, and an overall improved sense of well-being.
Sunnyside is not designed to treat alcohol use disorder (AUD). For resources related to AUD, including how to get support, please visit the NIH website. We’ve also partnered with Moderation Management, a non-profit dedicated to reducing the harm caused by the misuse of alcohol.
Sunnyside is a system for creating a more mindful approach to drinking to help you reach your goals. Our members are seeing major benefits, including a 30% average reduction in weekly drinks, improved sleep, a healthier diet, money saved, and an overall improved sense of well-being.
Sunnyside is not designed to treat alcohol use disorder (AUD). For resources related to AUD, including how to get support, please visit the NIH website. We’ve also partnered with Moderation Management, a non-profit dedicated to reducing the harm caused by the misuse of alcohol.
