Hangxiety: The link between anxiety and alcohol (Excerpt)
Source: https://www.detroitnews.com/
By Elizabeth Bulat, M.D.
April 22, 2019
Pay attention to how you feel while you’re drinking and afterward. When anxious feelings surface, turn to healthy alternatives like meditation, deep breathing or exercise.
Drink long enough – or hard enough – and you’re probably familiar with the dreadful feeling that comes the morning after a night of over-imbibing. Maybe you try to replay the evening’s conversations in your mind or scroll through text messages to make sure you didn’t send something you regret. Or maybe you immediately start issuing mass apologies to friends and family.
While this can be a normal reaction to binge drinking, it can also be a sign of a deeper issue, something called “hangxiety.”
Anxiety is a common feeling when people drink too much. And for people who are already prone to depression and anxiety, alcohol can worsen symptoms of those conditions.
Hangxiety explained
Hangxiety has become a buzzword that describes the uneasy feeling that often accompanies heavy alcohol use, but what does it really mean? Here are some answers to common questions about the connection between alcohol and mental health, and how to manage it best.
Q: What is hangxiety?