Here’s a fact that has been substantiated by more than one study: people who exercise more drink more. Writing in the New York Times, health columnist Gretchen Reynolds tells us that that relationship may be a good thing, or at least not a bad thing. Reynolds cites recent research at Pennsylvania State University, in which researchers surveyed a representative group of 150 adult men and women age 
18 to 75 who already were enrolled in an ongoing, long-term health study at the university, about their exercise habits and their drinking habits. What did they find? Unsurprisingly, people drank more on days that they exercised more. And, Reynolds writes, “the data did not show that exercise incited or exacerbated problem drinking. Only very rarely during the study did anyone report drinking heavily, which the researchers defined as downing more than four drinks in succession for a woman and five for a man.” Why, exactly, are exercise and alcohol so fond of each other? There’s another study for that, and Reynolds tells us that its authors “point out that in lab rodents, both exercise and alcohol have been shown to increase activity in parts of the brain related to reward processing. The animals seem, in animal fashion, to get a kick out of both exercise and drinking.” In the words of one researcher, feeling a slight buzz after a workout may, without overt volition, look to extend and intensify that feeling with a beer, a glass of wine or a cocktail.
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