One of the many things you notice after you turn 40 is how few glasses of wine can leave you feeling uneasy. Not just headaches and fatigue (although that exists), but also anxiety, nervousness and nervousness.

If you’ve only had a few, you might worry that you said the wrong thing the day before. If you’ve had more, you often feel an overwhelming sense of anxiety as you blame yourself for staying out too late, making a fool of yourself, or upsetting the host (even if you didn’t do it). A nagging fear that we can’t quite put our finger on.

Welcome to Hangxiety. Or the fear of beer. And those feelings of shame, guilt, anxiety, and fear after drinking seem to get worse as you get older.

“Alcohol is a depressant, so in the short term it makes you feel calm and relaxed,” says Karen Tyrell, chief executive of the charity Drinkaware. “But when that wears off, you feel a heightened sense of anxietyguilt and shame, especially if you’ve drunk so much that you don’t remember parts of the night. Your body has to go through a process to rebalance your brain chemistry, and your blood sugar levels will be low.

Not only does alcohol chemically change your brain, it also lowers your inhibitions, making you more likely to In fact do something that bothers you. “Alcohol lowers your inhibitions, which means you may speak inappropriately or reveal more than you normally would. This may cause you to do or say embarrassing things.

The final part of the puzzle concerns the impact on your sleep: experts believe that lack of sleep is one of the main causes of anxiety. According to Drinkaware, alcohol can affect the quality of your sleep and disrupt your sleep cycle, making you feel tired and sluggish. Alcohol in your system means you’ll also spend less time in the important rapid eye movement (REM) phase of sleep.

“All of these things, as the events of the night before play out in our heads, make for a perfect storm for anxiety.”

Age and anxiety

Why does our anxiety seem to get worse as we age? “I don’t think there’s enough research to fully know the answer, but what we do know is that we metabolize alcohol less efficiently as we age,” says Tyrell. “Our (body mass index) and fat-to-muscle ratio can also make a difference.”

Muscle tissue dilutes alcohol, so alcohol is processed more effectively by people with more muscle mass. In our late 30s, we begin to lose muscle mass and gain fat tissue, which changes our tolerance to alcohol. Women have a higher proportion of body fat than men and therefore tend to get drunk more easily, as well as having lower levels of the enzyme dehydrogenase, which breaks down alcohol in the stomach.

Finally, stress – which can increase as work and family responsibilities take over – can also cause us to get drunk more quickly by affecting the way our liver processes alcohol. And while there are no official figures on whether women suffer more from alcohol-related anxiety than men, according to a Cambridge University study, women are twice as likely to receive a anxiety diagnosis than men.

Yet despite these challenges, middle-aged women continue to be among the heaviest people. drinkers in the United Kingdom. A 2018 study published in the British Medical Journal Open found that there is a “middle-class phenomenon” of “risky drinkers.” A report from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development published in November 2023 reveals that British women are among the biggest problem drinkers in the world.

The report reveals that 26 per cent of British women engage in “heavy episodic drinking” at least once a month, compared to just 2 per cent of Italian women. While 45 percent of British men regularly drink to excess. (A binge is defined as six units in a single session for a woman and eight for a man).

“Anyone can experience anxiety after drinking, so it’s important to know you’re not alone,” says Tyrell. “However, those who are under a lot of stress or those who suffer from social anxiety may be particularly affected.”

Another reason anxiety can hit us harder in midlife is that the pressures of life increase as we age. “When you’re 20, you’re more likely to ignore a hangover and stay in bed to sleep. However, when you’re in your 40s, you have to take care of your parents, get up to take your kids to soccer, or worry about work. There’s more at stake.”

“Anxiety in general gets worse as people get older, so it stands to reason that anxiety after drinking also gets worse,” says Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, chairman of the Alcohol Health Alliance UK, Professor of Hepatology at the University of Liverpool and Special Advisor to the Royal College of Physicians on Alcohol. “I don’t know how much this has been studied, but it (anxiety) could also be due to particular personality types or be genetic. Along with the fact that our responsibilities become greater and we become more worrying as we age.

How to deal with it

Either way, how can we overcome it? “The first thing to do is to find out about your relationship to alcohol by taking the Alcohol consumption check test on the Drinkaware website,” says Tyrell. And if you want to drink less, there are some very good low or no alcohol drinks on the market, including alcohol-free prosecco.

However, if you want to continue drinking, she advises trying to “replace alcoholic beverages with water and set expectations with the people you usually drink with, explaining to them that you want to be home at a certain time or you do not do so. I want to drink too much.”

Rosamund Dean, author of Mindful Drinking, adds: “Focus on the benefits of drinking less, such as more energy, increased concentration, improved memory, stronger immune system, more restful sleep, less anxiety and fewer regrets. »

When it comes to drinking sensibly in social situations, Dean says preparation is key: “If you’re going to someone’s house, show up with a packet of kombucha. If you’re going to a restaurant, evaluate mocktail options online before you go. Avoid being embarrassed and having to make a quick decision on what to order while everyone else is drinking.

Tyrell says it can be especially tricky this time of year. Drinkaware research published this week found that 64 per cent of UK drinkers intend to drink more alcohol over Christmas than they usually would, with 57 per cent admitting they will drink to excess on the day. Christmas.

The guidelines for both men and women are to keep alcohol-related health risks low by drinking 14 units of alcohol or less per week. But this should be spread over three days or more.

“Christmas is always the perfect opportunity to spend time with friends and family, and our survey shows that alcohol is often the centerpiece,” says Tyrell.

Dean says we shouldn’t “blame ourselves for normalizing drinking.” “It’s the culture we all grew up in.” Society equates alcohol with celebration and friendship, and it’s so ingrained in who we are that it will take a long time to turn around.

“However, things are changing slowly. »