We all suffer at some point from some unexpected and stressful event in our lives. It doesn’t necessarily have to be something bad, like a layoff, it can be a marriage proposal, expecting a baby… all of them are important changes in a person’s life and can provoke very intense emotions of joy, fear. , anger, sadness… All of this can cause exhaustion and cause us to have an emotional hangover the next day. Did you know the concept of an emotional hangover? As the name suggests, and as with a hangover from drinking alcohol, they are symptoms of discomfort that appear after a busy day or night.
In this Psychology-Online article, we will see exactly what What is an emotional hangover, the symptoms it has and what we can do to alleviate it.
What is an emotional hangover?
To understand what an emotional hangover means, we must know basic aspects of our emotions. Our mind is capable of continuing to feel the symptoms related to a situation for a long period of time even when the situation has ended.
Once the intense stimulus is over, such as an argument, the most intense emotions end, but we can be left with a negative emotional state until we finally overcome and accept the situation. These later emotions are stored in memory and influence the way we deal with future situations.
This type of hangover, like those caused by alcohol, cannot be avoided. Normally they are temporary but on many occasions we feed them and make them last over time by focusing only on the negative, for example.
Symptoms of an emotional hangover
Emotional hangovers can produce different types of symptoms depending on the type of stressful event we have suffered. We will be able to better understand what an emotional hangover consists of after seeing how it manifests itself.
Some of the symptoms of an emotional hangover are irritation, emotional exhaustion, headache, back pain, tiredness or physical fatigue among others. Furthermore, as we have mentioned, sometimes these emotional hangovers last over time and this can end up causing states of depression, anxiety, panic attacks, apathy, stress, among others.
This also causes attention and memory problems. When we are depressed and tired it is more difficult for us to concentrate and, therefore, store information in our memory. In the long term, these symptoms can damage the work, family, relationship, and social environment, among others.
How to minimize its effects?
Although emotional hangovers are inevitable, there are different things we can do to minimize their symptoms and make them last less over time. In the same way, this way we will be able to minimize the impact it may have on other environments in our lives. Next we will see how to get over the emotional hangover:
- An emotional hangover can make us see everything in a very negative way. Therefore, it is important that while it lasts we do not make any decisions. That is, when you finish arguing with your partner, do not decide to end the relationship, first wait until you calm down and see everything with a greater perspective because perhaps during the emotional hangover you are not being able to see the positive aspects of the relationship.
- On the other hand, emotional hangovers often appear because we have a very hectic pace of life. It is important that to reduce and minimize them we try dedicate time each day to ourselves. Taking a break by taking a bath, a walk or reading a good book are great ways to have a less elevated state of stress, which will mean that if an unexpected event occurs, the new feelings of stress will not add to the stress we already had.
- When we have an emotional hangover, implement ways to relax It is important. This doesn’t have to just be relaxing or meditating, it can also be doing sports, drawing, among others. Here you can see several.
- Review our internal language It can be essential to get out of the emotional hangover. Paying attention to whether we are providing feedback is key. We must try to change the “I’m worthless”, “everything goes wrong”, “it should be better”, “everything will go wrong”, etc. by other types of less harmful and more realistic phrases, such as, for example, “I haven’t been good at this but now I can improve the mistake I made”, “some things turn out well for me, and others badly”, “I do what I I can to improve and if I don’t achieve it, nothing happens”, “I don’t know what will happen in the future”.
- As a complement, a great help can be At the end of the day write down five positive things that happened. This will help you get out of that state of negativity typical of an emotional hangover. These positive aspects don’t have to be big things, it could simply be that you heard a song that you liked. If you like to write, you may find the following article interesting.
- Finally, accept what you feel and understand yourself. If you have gone through a major change in your life, it is normal that it will take you a while to assimilate it. If you want to cry, cry, if you want to take a day off and be in bed or on the couch, nothing happens. The only thing you should keep in mind is not to allow that emotional state to last over time. Allow yourself to be bad, with conditions and with a time limit.
This article is merely informative, at Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
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Bibliography
- Franco-Justo, C., & Mañas-Mañas, I. (2010). Effects of a mindfulness training program on the emotional state of university students.
- Hayes, S. C. (2015). Acceptance and commitment therapy. Desclée De Brouwer.
- Páez-Blarrina, M., Gutiérrez Martínez, O., Valdivia-Salas, S., & Luciano Soriano, MDC (2006). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and the importance of personal values in the context of psychological therapy.