Although heavy drinking is still unhealthy according to experts, it turns out going to the pub isn’t.
This comes after new research from the University of Oxford found that visiting your local pub makes you more sociable, and drink more moderately.
The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), a voluntary organisation that aims to protect local pubs, commissioned primate behaviour expert Professor Robin Dunbar to carry out a series of studies.
Through these studies he found that visiting your local pub strengthens your social network and makes you healthier and happier.
The nature of small, community pubs means that they are often visited by the same people, regularly. Therefore people quickly build up friendships and relations with staff, as opposed to larger, high street chain pubs.
Furthermore the regularity and relation with the pub means that regulars are less likely to drink excessively.
CAMRA carried out their own survey to support Professor Dunbar’s report, in which 45% of respondents stated that they drank in a pub on a regular basis. However only 22% of those said they had a regular local.
