Hangxiety: Do you medicate anxiety with alcohol?

It is said that a healthy body is a healthy mind, but a healthy mind is also needed for a healthy body.

The decisions you make in relation to your body, may be affected by excessive alcohol intake and may lead to feelings of anxiety

The health of your mind can be affected by what you eat and drink and what you eat, and drink can affect how you think.

What you eat, and drink may also be contributing to how you think and feel?

There is now a field of psychology, known as gut brain psychology.

Science has confirmed that there are neurons within the gut with similar nerve chemicals to those found in the brain, with scientists referring to this as your enteric brain. Your gut brain.

90% of one of these nerve chemicals; serotonin, is produced within your gut.

The Vagus nerve (named as such from its wandering through the body) communicates with your brain as it runs through the centre of the body and into your gut. 

80% of the nerve cells of the Vagus nerve, send signals to the brain from the gut. 

The Vagus nerve is how the gut controls the brain, and creates anxiety and other detrimental mental states, when it’s not functioning properly.

70% of your immune system is located in your gut.

What is hangxiety?

Hangxiety, the anxiety experienced during a hangover, can occur as a result of destroying or poisoning the good bacteria in your gut, known as microbiota (Greek for small life) through excessive alcohol intake.

If you think of the gut as a garden, then alcohol is akin to weed killer. Weed killer will kill healthy plants as well as weeds, if sprayed in the same vicinity.

A glass of red wine here and there, is said to be healthy for you and the substance resveratrol found in red wine is said to be rich in antioxidants. Resveratrol may help to protect the lining of blood vessels in the heart.

A whole bottle of red wine will (not may) cause inflammation in your gut, which can damage the wall of your gut lining leading to leaky gut syndrome. 

Food particles and other toxins in your gut, then cross the lining of your gut and enter your blood stream, triggering negative immune responses.

How alcohol affects your gut

While excessive alcohol intake is known to affect decision making in general, drinking too much on any given occasion also affects your decisions around what and how much you eat.

Food choices made under the influence of alcohol are usually high in salt and highly processed, adding to the risk of hypertension (high blood pressure).

Overeating may result in overthinking. Comfort food the next day, becomes discomfort food later in the day.

These choices may be influenced by the brain’s detection of dehydration.

Alcohol inhibits the release of an anti-diuretic hormone; vasopressin which means it increases urination as a way of expelling excess liquid.

By suppressing the production of vasopressin, alcohol tells the kidneys to release more water, which can cause dehydration, through excess urination and headaches and gives many people “morning sickness” the next day.

If you alternate your drinking with a 330 mls of water, you can offset this, but again the effectiveness of sticking with this strategy is compromised the more you drink as your self-control, sees you less in control of yourself.

Alcohol itself is a depressant and as such brings your mood down the more you drink. If you suffer from depressive episodes, alcohol can exacerbate these symptoms, by affecting your brain’s ability to release adequate levels of serotonin. There are many benefits to giving up alcohol.

Illegal stimulants or party drugs also synthesise the production or serotonin which may reduce your brain’s ability to regulate serotonin production and release, when the need arises, which may also lead to increased levels of depression.

While there is a belief that alcohol may settle your nerves after an unsettling or stressful day or week, there are breathing techniques that you can employ which may provide quicker relief and are easily topped up, as in repeated, if stress symptoms return, rather than your shot of a spirit or glass of wine.

The 4,7, 8 method is where you breathe in for the count of 4 seconds, hold for the count of 7 seconds and exhale for the count of 8 seconds. It is the longer exhale which stimulates the parasympathetic system, which recalibrates your breathing levels to calmer levels, after periods of stress or anxiety.

Back to Hangxiety and if the alcohol doesn’t wipe some of your good gut bacteria out, then the several cups of coffee or cans of energy drink you consume to get you through the morning after, may quicken your heartbeat, raise your adrenaline levels and raise your level of anxiety.

You will then spend the latter part of the day tired and emotional, in a depressive state.

Drinking excessively often enough, creates a feeling known as ‘hangxiety’ where your coping methods see you developing a case of swallowing the spider to catch the fly and regretting having swallowed the fly?

Here are 10 simple strategies to reduce anxiety and depression.

If you would like to speak to one of our experienced Australian-registered doctors, we are available seven days a week.