Ever wondered why feelings of anxiety are more powerful with a hangover? Hangovers not only create greater stress for your body, but they also reduce dopamine levels in your brain which help to combat anxiety.
Feeling hungover after a night of drinking alcohol may involve headaches, tiredness, nausea and even sickness – noticeable physical effects. But many people would say that a hangover also affects their mood, general motivation, and ability to do and cope with everyday things. For some people, while excessive alcohol on a night out may seem to lift mood or suppress inhibitions at least temporarily, the next day they experience anxiety during the resulting hangover – or hangxiety as some people are calling it.
As your body recovers from a hangover, your body is put under great physiological stress. Hangovers cause changes to our immune system and they increase cortisol levels (often called the stress hormone), heart rate and blood pressure – all changes that also happen when a person is anxious.
Meanwhile, hangovers also affect your brain and brain function. According to scientists, brain activity involving dopamine is lower during a hangover – and this is important, because dopamine has an important role to play in regulating anxiety levels. The heightened physiological stress, combined with reduced ability to regulate anxiety, means that any additional stresses experienced by a person during a hangover can be more difficult to cope with. If you add sleep deprivation to the mix, it’s easy to see why people sometimes experience low mood on a hangover and can find it difficult to manage daily tasks, as their cognitive functions, such as memory, decision-making and attention, are impaired.
Research from the University of Bristol has shown that people typically experience a negative shift in their emotions during a hangover. Many of the study’s participants also reported feeling that they had more difficulty regulating their emotions, compared to when they weren’t hungover. “In other words, people feel bad during a hangover and find it difficult to pick themselves up,” says research author, Craig Gunn. Unsurprisingly, this reduced ability to regulate emotions can contribute to increased anxiety and feelings of overwhelm.
People who already experience anxiety are particularly susceptible to “hangxiety”. Sometimes people experience guilt and worry if they have drunk excessively or they get more angry while they are drinking - and all of these things are linked to mood change during a hangover, say researchers.
Together all of these factors highlight why mood changes during a hangover aren’t just unpleasant, but may be linked to increased conflict with other people and reduced productivity and ability to cope. Of course, the best way to avoid hangxiety is to avoid drinking altogether – or to drink in moderation.
For alcohol advice, information and tools to help make better choices about drinking, see the Drinkaware or Alcohol Change websites.
If you are struggling with your mental health, you can find local sources of support on this website.
