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You wake up.
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You → wake → ?
Your head throbs.
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head → throb → ?
Then comes the second wave: a low, gnawing horror at what you might have done.
uncertain
you → come → what
You scroll back through last night's messages, certain you said something wrong.
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you → scroll → something
You replay conversations worried you offended someone, embarrassed yourself, or both.
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you → replay → yourself
"It's that nagging feeling of dread," says 25-year old Eleanor Tobin who works in marketing and events in London.
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who → say → London
"If the day starts with me doing a checklist of my things - panically checking I have my bag, my phone - I know the anxiety is going to seep into everything I do beyond just reliving the night before.
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I → start → night
This is hang-xiety, a name coined in social slang a decade ago, for the anxiety that can accompany a hangover.
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that → coin → hangover
"Alcohol affects the body in many ways - the brain, sleep, hormones and nervous system - that all help explain why a night out drinking can be followed by an excessively anxious morning," says Celia Morgan, professor of psychopharmacology at the University of Exeter.
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Morgan → affect → Exeter
What alcohol does to your brain
Alcohol affects two chemical messengers in the brain: GABA and glutamate.
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Alcohol → affect → brain
GABA acts a little like the brain's braking system, reducing nerve-cell activity.
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GABA → act → activity
Glutamate is involved in excitation and alertness.
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Glutamate → involve → excitation
Alcohol enhances the effects of GABA and suppresses some glutamate activity, helping to produce that familiar feeling of relaxation and lowered inhibitions.
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Alcohol → enhance → relaxation
But the brain is constantly trying to restore balance.
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brain → try → balance
As alcohol wears off, the nervous system can swing towards greater alertness and arousal.
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system → wear → alertness
This can trigger anxiety.
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This → trigger → anxiety
"Everything is always 100% worse in my mind when you have a hangover than in reality," says Tobin.
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Tobin → have → reality
A 2023 study of over 5,000 students from the UK and the Netherlands, concluded that 18.3% reported symptoms of anxiety when hungover.
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% → conclude → anxiety
Genes play a part
Studies also suggest that not everyone gets hang-xiety, and the level of anxiety does not neatly correlate with how much you drink the night before.
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you → play → much
Existing psychological characteristics – and potentially genetics – appear to play a part.
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characteristics → exist → part
In 2019 researchers at the University of Exeter studied this in 97 social drinkers.
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researchers → study → drinkers
Those who drank reported a spike in anxiety the following day compared with a control group who stayed sober.
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who → drink → group
The effect was strongest in people who had scored highly for shyness before drinking.
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who → score → shyness
Morgan's research found that shy drinkers often felt less anxious during the evening itself.
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drinkers → find → evening
Alcohol was doing exactly what they hoped, quieting social nerves, but the rebound came the next day.
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rebound → do → nerves
"Shy people were hit even harder the next morning, with hugely elevated anxiety markers, especially when compared with those that weren't naturally shy," says Morgan.
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Morgan → hit → those
Innocuous moments get reinterpreted as embarrassing.
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moments → reinterpret → ?
A perfectly normal joke becomes, in the retelling inside your own head, a terrible mistake.
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joke → become → head
The anxious spiral can outlast the physical symptoms, because it feeds on itself: worry disrupts thinking, and disrupted thinking produces more worry.
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thinking → outlast → worry
If Tobin has been out Friday and Saturday night, by Sunday that spiral can become overwhelming.
"
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spiral → become → Sunday
Suddenly taking the underground can feel like a challenge - normal stuff feels hard when you got a really bad case of the 'Sunday scaries' triggered by two hangovers in a row," she says.
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she → take → row
You may have fallen asleep quickly after drinking, but that doesn't mean you've had a good night's sleep, researchers warn.
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researchers → fall → sleep
Alcohol disrupts sleep, including the pattern of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, which is important for emotional regulation.
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which → disrupt → regulation
Wake up dehydrated and sleep-deprived, and your ability to cope with anxious thoughts is already reduced.
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ability → wake → thoughts
"Light and broken sleep means you wake feeling on edge," says Dr Alanna Hare, President of the British Sleep Society.
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Hare → mean → Society
"Even if you have eight hours in bed, you haven't had a proper night's sleep, and a tired brain is more reactive to worry.
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brain → have → worry
What actually helps
The advice from researchers is unglamorous but consistent.
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advice → help → researchers
Moderating alcohol intake matters more than any remedy taken afterwards.
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Moderating → moderate → remedy
Drinking water between alcoholic drinks can help, so can eating during your night out.
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eating → drink → night
UK guidelines recommend no more than 14 units a week, the equivalent to six pints of beer or six medium glasses of wine, spread across several days.
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guidelines → recommend → days
…and 7 more, not listed.
The Aporia
