Hangxiety: why do we let it take over?
Hangxiety: The feeling of overwhelming guilt, stress, and worry you experience the day after a drinking binge. Hang-over Anxiety.
Believe it or not, there is an actual scientific cause for this. When you drink alcohol, there is an increase of the GABA (gamma aminobutyric acid), which causes you to feel relaxed and calm. As soon as you stop drinking and finally go to sleep, your body starts to have withdrawal symptoms from GABA. Leading to that Sunday prang of hangxiety.
Here’s a few things to remember when hangxiety strikes to level yourself out.
- It’s not you. It’s the GABA.
Remember, hangxiety isn’t actually caused by things you may have forgotten to do, or the thought of heading to work early tomorrow morning but in fact it’s the real chemical changes in your brain that are making you stress about all these things that, let’s be honest, you wouldn’t usually stress about. Remind yourself, did this bother me yesterday when I was feeling fresh and chirpy? No. So don’t let it take over now.
- Preparation before and whilst drinking
Now this one may sound simple but it’s essential, make sure to fill up before you start drinking, drinking on an empty stomach is never a good idea. Eat a good meal and stay hydrated, although you probably don’t want to be yelled ‘hello no h20’ at you in the club, you’ll thank yourself in the morning swapping out every other drink for a glass of water, it ain’t called the ‘elixir of life’ for nothin’.
- Get up and go.
One way to get out of your head is to just get up and go, go about your day as though you hadn’t drained the bar and tried to order a drink from the DJ booth. Take a long shower to help get your blood flowing, do that 12-step skincare routine and get some fresh air in your system. This is a one way ticket to realise ‘actually all of that stuff I’ve been stressing about isn’t so bad afterall’.
- Call a friend
When you’re hungover, you need a bit of attention, we all do, we’re only human. Just try to avoid texting and jump on the phone or meet up with a pal face to face, there’s nothing worse than overthinking that ‘omg can’t believe u did that last night’ text, when really it can be met with an explanation and laughter over the phone.
