Transcript:
If you’ve ever woken up at 4:00 AM after a night out with a racing heart and a sense of embarrassment, you’ve probably experienced ‘hangxiety.’ In the main article I wrote on my Substack about the chemical causes of hangovers, I discussed ethanol and the metabolic crisis it creates as your body tries to remove it. That’s not the only crisis happening, though!
Hangxiety is your nervous system struggling to regain balance after being disrupted by ethanol. To understand where this anxiety comes from, we need to look at the two most important neurotransmitters in your head: GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid) and glutamate.
Think of your brain like a seesaw. On one side, you have GABA. This is your ‘inhibitory’ neurotransmitter that promotes relaxation. On the other side, you have glutamate, an excitatory neurotransmitter.
When you drink, ethanol acts as a massive weight on the side of GABA. It mimics the effects of GABA, telling your brain to relax and calm down. Your brain doesn’t like this disruption! It tries to balance the seesaw by cranking up its own production of glutamate.1
Here is the problem: ethanol is a relatively short-term guest. As your liver clears it, that ‘fake’ GABA weight disappears. Your brain can’t respond quickly enough as it’s still trying to produce glutamate. Suddenly, the seesaw slams down on the glutamate side. This puts you into a state of hyperexcitability. That is hangxiety.
At the same time, alcohol triggers a massive spike in cortisol, your primary stress hormone. Usually, cortisol levels drop at night to let you rest. Ethanol keeps this from happening, leaving your body in a physical ‘fight or flight’ state long after the party is over.
This chemical chaos is made worse because you’ve lost your ‘Emotional Reset’ button. Ethanol also suppresses rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, which is the stage of sleep where your brain processes emotions and files away stress.2 Without it, the logical part of your brain is weakened.
The result is that your hyper-reactive, sleep-deprived brain begins worrying about worst-case scenarios. You aren’t just tired; you are obsessively reviewing every cringeworthy thing you might have said.
If you want a mental picture of this, think of your brain like a high-end nightclub.
While you were drinking, ethanol acted like a heavy-handed security team that kept everyone quiet and orderly. But when that security team suddenly leaves the building at 4:00 AM, the crowd goes wild. They pump up the volume, start a riot, and break windows. Hangxiety is like that riot. The good news? It’s temporary! Your real ‘security team’ will return as your brain chemistry returns to normal, usually within 24 to 48 hours.
How severe this hangxiety is depends on the person. Some people may never experience much anxiety after a night of heavy drinking. Others will suffer considerably and may need to avoid alcohol entirely. The same advice for avoiding hangovers also applies here:3
Keep yourself hydrated.
Eat something.
Use breathing exercises to calm down your heart rate.
Avoid caffeine or other stimulants.
Get plenty of rest
Ultimately, the best thing you can do is remind yourself that the sense of doom you feel isn’t real. Your brain is in a chemical imbalance. You’re not a bad person. The world is not ending. And you probably didn’t do anything that no one else hasn’t done before.
Thanks for taking the time for this separate audio deep dive. If you found it interesting, let me know in the comments!
