Thread by @garwboy

Happy New Year all

If you 'celebrated' last night, and are 30 or over, you've probably spent today grappling with a phenomenon @elisjames flagged up recently

The 'psychological' hangover. The intense anxiety/unease that lays you low all day, or longer. What's that about?

/1

@elisjames It's a bit of a cliché, in the UK at least; when you start drinking at 18 (*cough*) you can cane it all night, wake up and feel crap for a couple of hours, but then bounce back and do it all again, guilt free and right as rain

But as you get older, that gets... harder

/2

Usually around your late twenties, but especially after them, your hangovers change. The physical effects may be less intense, but they endure longer. And the mental aspect is way worse. No more laughing it off, it's at least a day of feeling crap/sluggish/paranoid etc.

/3

I've been trying to work out the formula, but as a rule of thumb, I'd say that, once you hit 18, every year you age adds 1 hour to your hangover.

So in your teens, it's mostly gone when you wake up. In your 40s, settle in, it's here for the day now.

Or something like that

/4

Now a lot of this will be due to the physical and neurological effects of age. When we're younger, we just are more physically resilient, and can recover faster. Hence pro sports people are invariably in their 20s, and mid thirties is often 'over the hill'.

/5

This will apply to your ability to recover from the toxic consequences of alcohol too.

That's basically what a hangover is; not the alcohol per se, but the biproducts of your body clearing it out from your metabolism. Like soot clogging an engine

theconversation.com/hangovers-happ…

/6

Thing is, if you're a regular drinker as you develop, then your body will grow to adapt to the presence of alcohol as well. Your liver enzymes will adjust to deal with it etc.

link.springer.com/chapter/10.100…

/7

This might explain why your hangovers are briefer, but often physically more severe, when you're younger. Your young body is going "What the hell is all THIS? GET IT OUT" [Vomit]

Your older body says "Ethanol again is it? Hang on, I'll fire up the cleaning system, as per"

/8

Obviously, there's also the aspect that when you're younger, you're more likely to just drink more overall. Because you CAN! Away from home the first time, surrounded by like minded people, why wouldn't you? And thus, more physical symptoms from a higher toxic dose

/9

But however it comes about, if your *physical* hangover symptoms reduce as your age, then the *mental*ones seem to increase, to compensate. And they can last much longer. You get 'the fear', or a general anxious, nervous state that badly impacts on your waking life

/10

It turns out, alcohol consumption seemingly has a direct impact on your brain's ability to regulate and control your emotions.

academic.oup.com/alcalc/article…

It compromises the brain in numerous ways, and one prominent one seems to be the effective management of emotions

/11

This likely involves the amygdala, a known hub of emotion production and regulation, and a key region for the experience of fear and anxiety.

Unsurprisingly, there seems to be a link between the amygdala, alcohol, and the experience of anxiety

sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

/12

Research suggests the progression of a hangover leads to different emotional disruptions, like depression-style symptoms occur earlier, anxiety ones later

sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

Ever had that hangover period where you feel really 'low', then just nervous when it ebbs?

/13

There's also how alcohol tends to hit more complex brain regions 'harder' (they're more sophisticated, so have more to disrupt). And there's little more complex than the prefrontal cortex

And among its many functions are... regulating the amygdala

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…

/14

So, basically, one thing alcohol does *very* well (or, more specifically, it's biproducts) is scramble our brain's ability to effectively process our emotions, causing us to feel nervous, paranoid etc. while we're hungover.

Why does this affect us more as we age, though?

/15

Well (as @elisjames pointed out on @distantpod), much of it will be social/cultural. When you're younger, you have fewer responsibilities and day-to-day pressures, plus you're with like-minded people. You have less to 'fear' from alcohol consumption and subsequent hangover

/16

But there's likely more to it than that. It may well be due to the fact that the brain hasn't fully 'matured' until age 25 or so. And one thing that hasn't matured is its ability to control and regulate emotions, particularly via the amygdala.

/17

In a strange way, the younger brain not yet figuring out how to fully deal with emotions may be protective. The morning after it may be thinking "I feel like shit. Am I meant to feel like shit? Maybe. Is this normal? It might be. I'll just make a note of this and crack on"

/18

By contrast, the hungover 40-something brain is going "Got a LOT of negative emotions being churned up here. That's not meant to be happening. This isn't good. Something must have gone veeerry wrong. I'd better figure out what it is, even if it takes me all day"

And it WILL

/19

And it could be that the physical effects of alcohol are playing a role too. Your body is feeling like crap with all the toxins, the gut-brain axis means your subconscious mind knows all about this, so it activates the 'danger' alerts.

psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/the-at…

/20

But because it's so deeply physiological, your conscious brain (already compromised by alcohol toxins) just gets 'negative emotions', and no useful info. So it knows 'something' is wrong, but not what. So you get general, implacable, anxiety that you try to attach to things

/21

That's with a fully mature brain, though. A younger brain and body, better able to physically shrug off the alcohol effects and less 'rigid' about how to handle strong negative emotions, experiences the whole thing differently.

It's one explanation, anyway.

/22

So, if you're over 30 and are still struggling with the general, implacable sense of anxiety and unease resulting from last nights revelry, odds are you didn't do anything awful, it's just this is how your brain reacts to alcohol now.

Sorry about that

/23

Hope this thread has proved useful

If you'd like to know more about the weird/wonderful/infuriating ways in which our brain deals with emotions, I've a book about exactly that published 12/01.23

You can pre-order now. I'd appreciate that

Cheers

amazon.co.uk/Emotional-Igno…

/end

A thread from yesterday about the psychological component of hangovers, aka 'the fear', 'beer fears', 'hangxiety', and so on

Particularly relevant for the over 30s, or those embarking on #DryJanuary

https://twitter.com/garwboy/status/1609681135826616320

@MikeBubbins Happy new year squire. I remembered that this was something you were keenly aware of as well, so here's a thing I did

https://twitter.com/garwboy/status/1609681135826616320

Ever wondered why you get 'the fear', or 'hangxiety' when hungover like a swine?

Well, wonder no more

#Brains #Alcohol #Emotions

https://twitter.com/garwboy/status/1609681135826616320