The physical symptoms of a hangover are well-documented, but for an estimated 12% of people, the most punishing part of the morning after the night before is all in the mind.
Heading into our first festive party season post-lockdowns is undeniably nerve wracking. But has it made our collective hangxiety worse?
Raise the spectre of hangover anxiety in conversation and one word – dread – recurs again and again. “I wake up with just this general feeling of dread: about the day ahead, about the night before,” explains Abby*, 31. “I can neither stay in bed and snooze nor get up and feel ready for the day ahead. It’s like getting stuck in this awful limbo and there isn’t really a way out of it, because ultimately the damage – the drinking – is done.
This Christmas marks the first, proper festive party season since the start of the pandemic, and after two consecutive fallow years, that means – for better or worse – the annual office bash is back in the Outlook calendar. Socialising with colleagues is surely up there with the most hangxiety-inducing scenarios: the person in charge of giving you a pay rise looking on as you stack it down a flight of stairs is the stuff that stress dreams are made of .
What happens during a hangover that causes our minds to spiral so wildly? “When our body breaks down alcohol, it produces acetaldehyde,” explains Dr Craig Gunn, a lecturer in the school of psychological science at the University of Bristol, whose current research explores how hangovers impact the thought processes behind everyday behaviours. “This is more toxic than alcohol itself and our body needs to deal with it as it strives to get back into balance .
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