Is Alcohol Making Your Anxiety Worse?

Have you ever wondered if drinking alcohol is making you more anxious the next day?

It is very common to notice our anxiety levels spike after drinking alcohol. Many of our clients at Better Your Life share how alcohol initially seemed like a great way to unwind, until it started fuelling the very anxiety they were trying to escape from.

So In this video, we’ll explore the connection between alcohol and anxiety. why alcohol increases anxiety even if it feels calming at first. The reason why we get those post-drinking worries (known as hangxiety), and most importantly, what we can do to break the cycle and feel more in control.

For deeper healing and to understand the root cause and trigger of your anxiety, BOOK A CALL with an anxiety specialist to see how we can help: https://booking.betteryourlife.co.uk/

At “Better Your Life”, we are passionate about teaching you the skills and strategies to overcome your anxiety. We will teach you how to end anxious behaviour, regain control of your thoughts and feelings, and build your resiliency, self-esteem and self-confidence.

We will empower you on your journey to achieve your goals, reach your full potential and be the best version of yourself. Our mission is to prove that anxiety does not have to dominate anyone’s life.

Chapters:
01:57 The Hidden Cycle between Alcohol and Anxiety
02:36 The Science Behind Alcohol and Anxiety
03:35 Why You Feel Worse the Next Day
05:25 Alcohol as a Coping Mechanism
06:55 How to Soothe Anxiety Without Alcohol
10:09 Gut-Brain Connection and Alcohol
10:53 What to Do If You’re Worried About Your Drinking

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📝 What Is Anxiety?
https://betteryourlife.co.uk/blogs/blog-posts/what-is-anxiety
📝 How To Have A Conversation about Mental Health: https://betteryourlife.co.uk/blogs/blog-posts/how-to-have-a-supportive-conversation-around-mental-health
📝 5 Simple Techniques to Ease Anxiety: https://betteryourlife.co.uk/blogs/blog-posts/5-simple-techniques-to-ease-anxiety-calm-your-mind-and-body-in-minutes
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https://betteryourlife.co.uk/pages/breathing-techniques https://betteryourlife.co.uk/blogs/blog-posts/how-can-breathing-techniques-help-with-anxiety
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https://betteryourlife.co.uk/blogs/blog-posts/can-journaling-help-with-anxiety
https://betteryourlife.co.uk/pages/journaling-questions-to-reduce-anxiety
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https://betteryourlife.co.uk/pages/circle-of-influence-worksheet
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https://betteryourlife.co.uk/pages/anxious-thoughts-diary-worksheet
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📖Busy Mums Guide to Overcoming Stress and Anxiety
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Do you find that you reach for a drink and then experience anxiety after drinking? It’s common for people to experience alcohol and anxiety together, and it can be a sign of a bigger drinking problem. Consider stopping drinking to improve your mental health. 💬

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Do you ever find yourself reaching for a glass of wine or your favorite alcoholic drink to take the edge off the day, then waking up the next morning with that familiar anxious knot in your stomach and a feeling of dread? Now, it is very common to notice our anxiety levels spike after drinking alcohol. Many of our clients at Better Your Life share how alcohol initially seems to be a great way to unwind until it started fueling the very anxiety they were trying to escape from. And I get it. At the height of my own anxiety, I felt I needed a glass of wine to calm me down at the end of the day as well as during any social engagements. But this can quickly become a downward spiral. Now, welcome back to our channel where we talk about all things related to anxiety and our mental well-being. Now, if you’re new here, my name is Jennifer Roblin and I’m an anxiety specialist and therapist and I have helped thousands of teenagers and adults understand the root cause of their anxiety and I’ve given them the healthy strategies to calm their nervous system and avoid avoid their intrusive anxious thoughts. So, in this video, we’re going to explore the connection between alcohol and anxiety. Why alcohol increases anxiety, even if it feels calming at first, and the reason why we get those postdrinking worries. They’re known as anxiety. And most importantly, what we can do to break the cycle and feel more in control. Now, we will include some of our clients experiences as well and address the most frequently asked questions. So, they include things like can alcohol cause panic attacks and will stopping alcohol reduce anxiety. We’ll address all of these at the end. So, let’s begin by looking at the hidden cycle between alcohol and anxiety. Every time we turn on the television, we see advertisements showing happy and relaxed people enjoying their favorite tiffle. They’re laughing, they’re joking, they’re having fun. So, it’s easy to assume that a drink can help us to relax. And in the moment, it may well do because alcohol acts as a seditive, slowing down the brain and dampening any feelings of stress and fear. But that shortterm calmness comes at a long-term cost. So to understand the science behind an alcohol and anxiety, we need to recognize that alcohol interferes with key neurotransmitters in the brain. Now these include neurotransmitters such as GABA, which has a calming effect, and glutamate, which stimulates brain activity. Now initially alcohol increases GABA and it suppresses glutamate creating that chilled out mellow feeling. But once the alcohol wears off our brain goes into overdrive trying to restore balance and the result is increased heart rate, agitation, restlessness and anxiety. Now, according to the NH NHS in England, excessive alcohol use can alter our brain chemistry, making existing anxiety worse and increasing the risk of developing an anxiety disorder over time. So, why do we feel worse the day after a drinking binge? This is commonly known as anxiety, as I said, and it’s the name for the anxiety that follows a heavy drinking session. This form of anxiety typically starts in the morning after drinking alcohol obviously the night before and can include the racing thoughts, sweating, heart palpitations, that feeling of dread or guilt. We may have difficulty concentrating and a surge of those whatifs as if you can’t quite piece together the events of the night before. Now, alcohol is a nervous system depressant. And once it leaves our system, the rebound effect often leaves people feeling emotionally unsteady and physically uncomfortable. So a 2019 study published in Alcohol and Alcoholism found that people with anxiety and more prone to postrinking distress and it can linger for several hours or even days. Now Laura, one of my clients, she’s 38 years old. She came to me last year and shared how Friday nights were her way to decompress after a busy week. A couple of glasses of wine turned into a bottle, then two bottles, and the next day she’d feel tense, sick, and plagued with that critical um thoughts about herself. Now, the reason for this is that as our bodies adjust to the alcohol, we need more of it to get to that calm state again. And this is when the amount we drink can creep up. Now, as with the majority of our clients, Laura didn’t realize it was her alcohol fueling her anxiety. And as we explored her habits and introduced nervous system therapy and calming rituals, she began to sleep better, think more clearly, and reduce her alcohol intake naturally. Now, many people do drink to take the edge of social anxiety. They fall want to fall asleep faster. They want to switch off after work and feel more confident in public. But relying on alcohol creates dependency not just physically but emotionally emotionally too. It trains the brain to avoid healthy coping strategies. It will often block us from processing the root causes of our anxiety which disrupts our sleep patterns and then that further increases anxiety. So if you have noticed alcohol creeping into your life more regularly, this isn’t about blame or judgment. It is about becoming aware of knowing there is another way. When we are feeling anxious, stressed, and overwhelmed, many of our clients benefit from downloading the circle of control and influence workbook that’s over in the description. It helps them feel more empowered knowing that they have more influence over their thoughts and their feelings and their situations than they initially believed. So, click on go over on over to the description and just click on the link there. And before we jump into how to soothe anxiety without alcohol, if you’re finding this useful, please go ahead and like and subscribe to our channel as this helps us reach more and more people who may be struggling right now. And please do hit the notification button so that you can get notified every time we make a new video about anxiety and our mental well-being. So to jump back in, here are some practical tools to break the cycle. Number one, obviously speak to an anxiety specialist. Anxiety is often really misunderstood. Now when I ask clients, what do you know about anxiety? Many explain to me how it feels, but they cannot actually explain what it is. So by understanding more about anxiety and knowing that it is evolutionary response to threat, we can change our relationship to anxiety. We can’t ever eliminate it, but we can change the way we think about it. Now, an anxiety specialist can also provide you with healthy coping strategies to soothe your nervous system while helping you understand the root cause of what’s causing your anxiety. So, number two is soothe your nervous system. Use breathing techniques like 478 breathing or box breathing. I’ve got videos on both of those on this channel. You can also try progressive muscle relaxation. Again, there’s plenty of videos on this channel and I’ll put some links in the description. Now, go outside and look up at the sky. It sounds crazy, but looking skyward sends a quick signal of safety to the brain and the nervous system. The opposite is true when we’re looking down, such as towards our phones. Now, from an evolutionary perspective, all of our predators were on the ground level. So, when we look down, we’re sending a signal to our nervous system that we are looking for danger. When we look up, we’re sending the signal that we’re safe. We can also create new evening rituals. Now, swap the wine for calming teas like chamomile or passion flour. Use journaling prompts to empty your mind and get your anxious thoughts on paper and out of your head. You can take a lovely hot bath where you can be grateful for what’s gone on that day or try a guided meditation. We can also get curious, not critical. Ask yourself, what am I hoping this drink will fix? Or another good question is, what am I trying to avoid feeling right now? And then ask yourself, what else could I try that would help with that? Number five, track your mood and drinking patterns. Now, many people find it helpful to keep an anxious thoughts diary or use a journaling questions to notice any triggers. Now, you can get a complete list of the journaling questions over in the description, as well as the anxious thoughts diary. They’re all free to download. Now, Ben, another one of my clients, he was 42 years old, and he shared that alcohol gave him the confidence to be social, but he always feels worse afterwards as he would have memory loss and couldn’t remember what he said or did. Now this was creating a great deal of shame and he was ti trying to piece together the events of the night before. Now together we were able to explore new ways to manage social anxiety without the crutch of alcohol. He started using breathing techniques before events and practice saying no without guilt using the tools that we taught him. He used to think he needed alcohol to fit in but it turns out he just needed support and better tools. It is also helpful to understand the gut brain connection and alcohol. Now, did you know that alcohol also impacts your gut health which directly affects anxiety? The gut is often referred to as the second brain as over 90% of serotonin is that’s the mood stabilizing chemical is produced in the gut. Now, alcohol disrupts gut microbi and irritates the stomach lining which can further destabilize mood and heighten anxiety. When the guts inflamed, the body becomes more reactive distress creating a vicious loop of inflammation, fatigue, and worry. Now, if this article resonates with you, know that you’re not alone and you don’t need to struggle with this issue quietly. You can book a complimentary 45minute consultation call with us at better your life where we can explore the root cause of your anxiety and provide you with healthy coping strategies. Like I say, you can also download the circle of control workbook, the journaling questions, the anxious thoughts diary. They’re all over in the description. They can help you. And also I need to add there are plenty of 12step programs to help with alcohol addiction. Now, you do deserve to feel calm without a crutch. Alcohol may feel like a quick fix, but the cost to your nervous system, your sleep, your clarity, and your confidence is often far too high. As an anxiety therapist and specialist, I’ve helped thousands of people find freedom from the grip of anxiety, and we work together to restore calm, uncover healthier coping strategies, and build confidence from the inside out. You don’t have to live in fear of when anxiety and panic will next take hold and self-destructive behaviors will kick in. So if you are struggling with anxiety and you would like gu guidance, our team are here to support you. Together we will find ways to reduce your anxiety and improve your overall health, your relationships, your well-being. A trained anxiety therapist can offer a personalized plan to help you understand the underlying cause of your anxiety as well as help develop healthy coping strategies that are focused on your unique individual needs. Now, taking care of your mental well-being is essential to our overall well-being. When left unresolved, anxiety can spiral out of control and have a significant impact on our relationships, our work, our school, our family life. If you’re ready to feel more in control without the spikes and the crashes, let’s talk now. Thank you for joining me on this video. It’s much appreciated. If you haven’t already, please do go ahead and like and subscribe. Until next time, take care and bye for now.