It’s payback time and you’ve got a hangover. Even worse, you’re feeling anxious as well as ill. You’re suffering with ‘hangxiety’.
What is ‘hangxiety’?
Essentially, you’re experiencing a chemical imbalance in your brain. In fact, you’re experiencing a second one. You won’t really have noticed the first because the chemical changes brought on by the night’s opening couple of drinks simply made you feel that all is right with the world. This happens because of the alcohol stimulating the action of a calming neurotransmitter called Gaba.
Then, as you continue drinking, the alcohol presses another let’s-take-it-easy button in your brain. This one blocks the production of glutamate, a crucial stimulatory neurotransmitter that keeps you alert to a host of day-to-day worries. You still feel good because the reduction in glutamate serves mainly to make you even more chilled and less anxious. Any notion of payback time come morning simply does not register in your happy, stress-free thoughts.
As you get to those last few drinks (remember them?), they only increase the ‘no worries’ effect. Sheer drunken bliss… and very low Gaba; very low glutamate.
Of course, the chemical imbalance has by now gone way too far so your body sets about compensating for the problem. You might still be awake when this process starts, but it’s by no means a quick fix so you will be sleeping in your stupor while the bulk of the remedial work gets done.
Come morning, your alarm goes off like a klaxon and you’ll quickly find that your Gaba and glutamate levels have shot up. If anything, your system will have over-compensated with these worry-twitching transmitters, causing you another chemical imbalance. You might be feeling very anxious indeed.
Does everyone get ‘hangxiety’?
‘Hangxiety’ does not affect everyone equally. Some people seem naturally more pre-disposed to anxiety after just a couple of drinks rather than the excessive number required to suffer a full-blown hangover. A growing body of evidence suggests that people who are shy and introspective are likely to endure worse ‘hangxiety’ than their more confident, extrovert drinking peers. For a few, their ‘hangxiety’ can be so severe that it comes not tinged with guilt, but laden with it.
How to prevent ‘hangxiety’?
The only way to prevent ‘hangxiety’ is to ensure you don’t drink enough to suffer the self-inflicted punishment of a hangover, regardless of where that threshold might be. It’s entirely up to you to decide whether that means you quit drinking altogether or learn to moderate your intake by recognising when enough is enough.
And if you can’t, what then? Well, before you go out for a drink or two, try focusing on what you need or want to do the following day. And who you’ll be letting down if you allow your after work drinks to turn into another closing-time session.
If even a few social drinks can leave you feeling anxious the next morning you could try making one or more of them low-alcohol or alcohol-free. To take this tactic further, you could try ‘zebra-striping’ – a technique which involves alternating between alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks on a night out.
However, if you persist in drinking so much that you get a debilitating hangover each time, this could be the beginning of an unhealthy habit or addiction and your ‘hangxiety’ is only going to get worse, not better.
What to do if you are worried about your drinking
If you are worried about your drinking habits and feel you need support, you are not alone. CADAS are here for anyone who wants help with their addiction, and we provide a listening ear without judgement. For more information, read about the services we offer.
CADAS Helpline: 0800 254 5658
Available on weekdays 11am – 5pm (Wed 11am – 7pm)
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