The day after Valentine’s Day, I woke up feeling bloodshot-eyed, foggy-headed, and a little sick to my stomach.
I hadn’t had too much to drink. I hadn’t been ghosted, scorned, or broken up with. In fact, I’m happily married to a man who knows how to woo me despite being jaded by Hallmark holidays. Specifically, I’d enjoyed wings and beer the night before at a friend’s Brooklyn loft while enjoying a variety show of sorts. On the surface, the night was just fine. But my intuition told me otherwise.
It reminded me of the day before when I had covered a mental health story that had seeped deep into my psyche, that I felt misunderstood by a relative when I tried to open up about it, that I cried during the show’s opening musical performance because, well, I’m a pathetic person.
On February 15, I — and I’m sure many others, for various reasons — woke up with an emotional hangover, that sluggish, queasy feeling that lingers after a deep conversation, a therapy session, or even a dark movie. Though it’s not an official medical term, experts told me that this “symptom” is quite common and makes sense from both physiological and psychological standpoints.
“Our response [to the outside world] Our inner world is influenced by what happened yesterday.” Dr. Lila Davachi“We’re not just blank slates every morning,” said the Columbia University psychology professor who studies the effects of emotion on memory.
I was already feeling better. Here’s what else I learned, including why we get emotional hangovers, who is most susceptible to them, and whether there’s anything you can do to prevent or soothe them. Spoiler alert: water and rest are tried-and-true hangover cures, even if you’re not drunk.
Defining an emotional hangover
The definition of an emotional hangover varies from person to person. Perhaps the most notable is: Judith Orloff, MD Psychiatrist and author The Empath’s Survival Guidedescribes it as an “energy residue” left over from interactions with “energy vampires” – people who, whether intentionally or not, suck out your mental and emotional energy.
“The harmful feelings linger for a long time afterwards, making you feel tired, foggy, and moody,” she writes.
In my case, it wasn’t a specific person that I needed to recover from, but rather a somewhat emotionally draining set of circumstances that won’t subside simply because the sun has risen again. (It’s important to note that I’m not talking about the emotional aftermath of a world-shattering life event, such as the death of a loved one; this is more properly classified as grief and understood as something that needs time to heal.)
I’ve suffered from emotional hangovers after finishing a memorable book, after receiving hate mail from a reader, after a disagreement with my spouse, and so on.
“It’s normal to feel feelings of sadness or embarrassment the day after a really traumatic event.” Megan Bruneau“The concept is reminiscent of the ‘vulnerability hangover,'” which are uncomfortable feelings like anxiety or regret that arise after sharing deep emotions, needs or desires, the therapist and coach said, according to the mental health website. Treatment options.
According to Orlov, frequent emotional hangovers are most common among people with high empathy, highly sensitive people, and people with social anxiety. In other words, when your emotional antennae are hyper-tuned to the thoughts and actions of others, minor social events are amplified. What’s a light breeze on someone else’s radar is a gust on yours.
This mindset resonates with Abby Schafer, a 33-year-old flight attendant based in New York City. “I feel emotions really deeply, and when I fight with someone, it tears me up, whereas my partner is like, ‘Well, they’re wrong, so who cares?'” she says. “For someone like me, emotional hangovers are common because it takes a lot of energy just to process what happened.”
The brain and body during an emotional hangover
While we all know that a hangover is caused by a combination of dehydration, poor sleep, and other physical effects of drinking too much, the mechanisms behind an emotional hangover are a bit more mysterious medically. But experts have a few theories.
First, during an emotional experience — say, a confrontation with a lazy coworker — your fight-or-flight system is activated, causing a surge of stress hormones like cortisol, norepinephrine, and adrenaline in your body. Once the moment passes and your body settles into a “rest and digest” state, you may feel especially tired. “You feel tired when you’re recovering from a stress response,” says Bruneau.
The feeling could also reflect a mental tug-of-war between the amygdala, the part of the brain that processes emotions, and the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that tries to temper emotions with logic and decision-making. “Trying to control feelings of anger or anxiety and not react can be mentally exhausting,” says Bruneau.
Some studies have also shown that highly emotional events light up the brain in specific ways, and that light doesn’t go out as soon as the event is over. 2016 Survey In the journal Nature NeuroscienceDavachi and his colleagues measured people’s brain activity while they looked at both emotional and neutral images, and found that the brain states associated with the emotional experience persisted 20 to 30 minutes later, enhancing subsequent memory for non-emotional images.
This shows that, unlike video recordings, “how we see, perceive and remember the world is much more complex,” Davachi says.
Similarly, emotional moments can disrupt our attention: we shine a light on a happy couple after a fight with our partner, or misinterpret a friend’s silence after an awkward encounter with another friend. By ruminating on negative emotions, we (often unintentionally) delay our recovery.
“You have heightened awareness of the person and things associated with the trauma, but you may actually be suppressing everything else,” Davachi says, “and it’s also maladaptive because when good things happen, like getting a nice letter in the mail, you’re not allowing that to get you into a state that would otherwise make you feel good.”
Emotional hangovers might not be that complicated. Maybe you just didn’t take a deep breath, drink enough water, or eat a proper meal while you were bingeing on a distressing movie. Maybe your sleep was also erratic. “When we’re stressed, we tend to take less good care of ourselves,” says Bruneau.
After all, emotional hangovers are just another piece of evidence that our bodies and minds are connected. Kristen Guest“If the mind is overwhelmed or overstimulated, the body will undoubtedly feel it. Nothing happens in a vacuum,” says , a licensed social worker.
Emotional Hangover First Aid Kit
Emotional hangovers are not inherently bad; they are human. They may mean you need to set better boundaries, improve your communication, or practice working through uncomfortable feelings and conflicts. If hangover feelings are frequent and disruptive, you may need to do something more drastic, like quitting your job or breaking up with friends. Consider cutting out substances that are no longer serving you.
“In some cases, it’s good to get those signals, and “We need to train our brains and bodies to respond in different ways,” Guest says. She recommends drinking plenty of water and keeping a journal to notice patterns in the things, places, and people that tend to be emotionally draining. “Taking time to reflect is important,” she says.
Working with a therapist can also be very helpful. Emily HineThe writer and social work student discovered that: For example, she learned that unusual reactions to things said by a current partner may be linked to things said by a previous partner.
“We tend to lump all of these things together and it’s really hard to be like, ‘No, I’m going to deal with this particular situation as it is,'” she says. “It’s definitely a push-pull between the mind and the body, knowing that you’re safe but acknowledging that it’s OK for your brain to not feel safe. The brain is drawing evidence from what’s actually happened.”
For her, watching a TV show, playing a video game, or going for a walk can provide a helpful distance between the event and her reaction. Like a margarita hangover, Schafer has also discovered that time heals. “Be kind to yourself the next day,” she says. “That’s the rule I follow.”
