Heart racing, head pounding and dread building?
“Hangxiety,” or the “beer blues,” is the one-two punch of anxiety and the physical consequences of alcohol, an awful unease that creeps in alongside the sobering light of day.
Neuropsychopharmacologist David Nutt, who specializes in alcohol’s effects on the brain at Imperial College London, recently told National Geographic, “Almost anyone who drinks any alcohol will experience alterations in their brain when they’re coming off the alcohol. With a small amount of drinking, that may manifest as confusion, but after larger quantities, you can have anxiety.”
While any alcohol can trigger hangxiety, experts say certain intoxicants are more prone to leave you with a pervasive sense of doom than others.
Cocktails that feature sugar and spirits can heighten anxiety by spiking blood sugar and blood alcohol.
Red wine is also a serious stressor since it contains tyramine and histamines known to trigger anxiety, Lisa Gunn, mental health prevention lead at UK’s health care charity Nuffield Health, told HuffPost UK last week.
By contrast, the lower ABV of beer equates to a reduced risk of morning-after anxiety, so long as you keep your suds to a minimum.
So why does the sauce leave us stressed?
Alcohol affects gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), a neurotransmitter in the brain that plays a pivotal role in regulating sleep and stress. According to the Cleveland Clinic, GABA calms the central nervous system, promoting feelings of serenity.
Booze binds to the same proteins that GABA interferes with, mimicking its effects while depleting its stores.
“This is why people feel more relaxed and disinhibited, and their racing thoughts reduce when they drink,” Yale School of Medicine professor Stephen Holt, who is also the director of the addiction recovery clinic at Yale New Haven Hospital, told National Geographic.
Alcohol also affects glutamate, a stimulatory neurotransmitter that boosts energy.
The increase in GABA activity while drinking diminishes the effects of glutamate, prompting the brain to produce an overabundance of glutamate that can leave boozers with more anxiety when the alcohol leaves their system.
Tipples also temporarily boost mood by increasing the brain’s production of the “happy hormones” serotonin and dopamine. But, post partying, these levels plummet, contributing to hangxiety.
Alcohol operates as a diuretic, and folks who hit the bottle may experience exhaustion and dizziness as a result of dehydration, symptoms that contribute to panic.
Registered nutritionist Rob Hobson told the Daily Mail this week, “Electrolyte imbalance may also be disrupted, and this may make anxiety symptoms worse by causing irregular heartbeat, depending on how much alcohol you consumed.”
While you can proactively pick your poison more mindfully, no matter what you drink, alcohol lowers inhibitions, a care-free abandon that leads us to do things we wouldn’t do sober and will likely regret upon sobering up.
Gunn says that folks who suffer from social anxiety and use alcohol to ease their nerves are particularly vulnerable to this post-party panic.
Meanwhile, recent research suggests everyone would live better, stronger and longer if they left the booze in the bottle.
