Millions of people around the world deal with anxiety, which is a common mental health problem. It generally puts the body into “fight-or-flight” mode, which makes you feel tired, makes it hard to sleep or focus, and gives you headaches.

Anxiety can be caused by many things, such as certain personality types, stressful events, and pressure at work or school, to name a few. But sometimes it’s caused by something easier. For example, people may feel anxious after drinking alcohol, whether it’s situational excessive worried or worsening of the signs of a long-term anxiety condition.

In a lot of countries, drinking booze is seen as normal. The National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that 84% ↗ of American people aged 18 and up had drunk booze at some point in their lives. Some people also think of drinking as a way to relax and relieve stress, but studies show that drinking alcohol can make anxiety feelings worse. To find out more about this link, keep reading.

Why does drinking make you anxious?

To begin, it’s important to know how drinking changes the body. Most of the time, booze slows down brain function by depressing the central nervous system (CNS). It works with the chemicals glutamate, which makes neurons active, and GABA, which stops them from doing so. The resulting unbalance makes people feel sleepy and makes it harder for them to think clearly. Also, drinking alcohol can temporarily raise serotonin levels, which can make you feel good, but long-term use can lower serotonin levels, which can make you feel more anxious.

When you drink alcohol, it also turns on the brain’s reward system and makes more dopamine, a neurotransmitter that makes you feel good, come out and stay in your brain. But when the benefits wear off, the balance of neurotransmitters in the brain is thrown off. At some point, withdrawal signs like worry, nervousness, and restlessness start to show up.

Studies show that nervousness can be caused by alcohol both while drinking and after. As anxiety sets in, you might feel fear or panic all of a sudden. Also, alcohol can make anxiety problems worse in people who already have them. In other cases, nervousness shows up after drinking a lot because the brain is trying to get back to normal. Additionally, drinking alcohol can also lead to physical signs that look like nervousness, such as shaking, sweating, and a fast heartbeat.

Also, studies show that drinking booze raises the risk of getting worry conditions. There was a study ↗ in the Journal of anxious Disorders that showed people who drink alcohol are more likely to have anxious symptoms than people who don’t drink. The study also found that heavy drinking makes worry feelings worse compared to people who don’t drink.

Findings from another study in the Journal of Affective Disorders showed that older people who have a history of alcoholism are more likely to develop anxiety from drinking ↗. The researchers thought this might be because of how booze affects the brain and its chemical systems over time.

Notably, the CNS gets used to the way alcohol makes you feel down when you drink a lot of it. If the amount of alcohol in the body drops, it affects the brain and makes the body start to show signs of nervousness.

The Dangerous Cycle of Drinking and Stress

If you don’t handle your anxiety and drinking well, they can quickly turn into a deadly loop. worry can make drinking worse, but worry can also make people abuse booze very quickly. This occurs since people with anxiety problems may use booze to treat themselves. This method is used by a lot of people to dull their symptoms or calm down. But this can lead to a circle where people keep drinking to deal with their worry.

There’s also a chance of becoming hooked on booze. In this case, someone drinks more alcohol to hide their nervousness, which makes them more tolerant of booze.

It is also known that alcohol can affect the way medicines for anxious conditions work. For instance, taking benzodiazepines ↗ like Xanax and Valium with booze slows down the central nervous system, which can cause serious side effects like trouble breathing.

Drinking and having panic attacks

People who are having panic attacks feel a lot of fear and worry. Feeling dizzy, lightheaded, having a fast heartbeat, or passing out are some other signs. Because it changes GABA, a chemical in the brain that helps you relax, drinking alcohol can make panic attacks worse. This chemical is often lost when people drink a lot, which makes them more tense and anxious. Cutting down on drink use can lower the chance of having a panic attack.

When you drink, does your anxiety go away?

Feeling anxious the day after drinking booze is usually not a fun thing to go through. Here are some important things you can do to stop feeling anxious after drinking.

• You might want to limit how much booze you drink. To lessen your anxious feelings, limit how much booze you drink. You could also choose to quench your thirst with drinks that don’t contain booze.
• Don’t lose water. Alcohol can make you lose water. It’s good for the body to recover to drink a lot of water, which also helps reduce worry feelings.
• Don’t drink coffee. Caffeine can make you feel more anxious, so it’s best to stay away from drinks with caffeine. If you don’t drink coffee or energy drinks after drinking booze, your worry symptoms might not get worse.
• Mindfulness is important. Being mindful calms the mind and lessens the effects of worry. People who feel anxious after drinking can focus on the present moment and keep an eye on their thoughts without judging them.
• Get some help. Support can come from friends, family, or mental health experts. Talking to other people about these things can help lower your nervousness. A mental health worker can give you the tools and skills you need to deal with worry and get better faster.

Watch how much alcohol you drink.

Overall, drinking alcohol makes worry feelings worse, both while drinking and after. While alcohol can help with stress and anxiety in the short term, it can also throw off the balance of neurotransmitters in the brain, which can lead to withdrawal symptoms and physical signs like anxiety.

Keep in mind that drinking for a long time makes you more likely to develop worry conditions. Also, some medicines used to treat nervousness can have deadly side effects when mixed with drinking. So, be aware of the possible risks of drinking booze. If you find that drinking and worry make things worse, you might want to get professional help and stop drinking.