22 Jun How to Cure an Emotional Hangover
Written by: Scott Dinsmore
Have you ever felt on top of the world one minute and moments later felt like you’d fallen off an emotional cliff?
Why is it that some of our favorite and most exciting experiences with others can often lead to us feeling drained or craving attention? Often the answer is that you’re hung over…emotionally that is. Let me explain.
Symptoms of an Emotional Hangover
You’ve just had an amazing set of experiences and you suddenly:
- Feel empty and alone
- Are craving attention
- Feel anxious, hurried and stressed
- Lose your motivation to be healthy (mentally and physically)
- Experience a feeing of excitement quickly replaced by feeling lost
Personal Story:
A few weeks back I had a reunion of sorts in Santa Barbara. I got the chance to reconnect with some of the most amazing people from my college and pre college life. Old roommates, friends and a bunch of familiar faces. I was on an absolute high all weekend. We all picked up right where we left off three, five or eight years ago. We didn’t skip a beat. The stories, the laughter, the energy, the excitement–it was all there by the buckets full. As contagious as that type of energy can be, we also made some brand new connections with those around us. It really could not have gone better.
Before I knew it, the weekend was over. Sunday afternoon I said goodbye and drove away, still bubbling with energy. Then within a matter of minutes, that energy converted into one of the heaviest weights I’ve experienced. The excitement turned to sadness bordering on mild depression. I got anxious. My mind started racing. All of a sudden I just felt empty. What on earth had just happened? It wasn’t until later in the day that it actually hit me. The hyper-stimulation from the weekend’s interactions had swung so dramatically from attention to alone time, that my body and emotions hardly knew what to do. I was emotionally hung over.
And this was not the first time. In fact this happens to me to some degree every time I spend focused time with high-energy people (I don’t even have to know them that well). It’s just the result of the pure stimulation.
Think back on the last few emotionally-packed events you’ve experienced. Perhaps a wedding, birthday party or new year’s celebration. Anything that involved a lot of focused human interaction that lasted for a couple days or more. How did you feel once the music stopped? Chances are you had the same emotional hangover I did. It turns out it isn’t that uncommon, at least from the anecdotal research I’ve done since really coming to grips with it. In the past weeks I’ve asked a number of people if they’ve ever had an emotional hangover and their immediate response was “yes!” Then they say, “Wait, what’s an emotional hangover”? Intuitively most people realize they’ve experienced one.
As with anything, the first time something happens, it catches you off guard. The second and third times it happens you recognize the feeling and start to notice a pattern. Then after another experience or two you have enough data to study it, learn from it and modify your actions. An emotional hangover is no different.
So the real question is what can we do about it?
A Word of Warning: The last thing you’ll want to do when feeing unresourceful is try to change your state. Do it anyway. On top of that, it’s not uncommon for an emotional hangover to be paired with a real hangover, which makes dealing with it all the more important. So be proactive and use the following to help get you cured.
Seven Steps to Curing an Emotional Hangover:
1. Recognize it. We tend to overreact when something happens to us that we don’t understand. Once you’ve accepted that you’ll experience these hangovers from time to time, they become much more manageable. It’s never fun to feel sad or anxious, especially when you have no idea why. Knowing and understanding why is always half the battle. Next time you feel this way, assess your symptoms and come to grips with it. Nothing else can be done until this happens.
2. Try to Understand it. Get out your journal and start writing. If you don’t have one, then now’s the time to stop into a bookstore and pick one up. I recommend a Moleskine. I write more when I’m alone after a big event than any other time. Write down what happened over the past few days. What was so exciting, invigorating and memorable about your experiences and interactions? What do you wish you could continue? Who do you want to see again? Maybe there’s even a special girl or guy you connected with–this will make the hangover especially intense and makes understanding it even more important.
3. Get Grateful and Dive into an Emotional Flood. Right along with understanding it comes being massively grateful for your experience. For the people, the stories, the fun and the excitement. What are you proud of from the event? What went right? Who made you feel special and how? Now expand it outside of this event to your life in general. Who are you so thankful to have in your life? What life situations, emotions and interactions could you not live without? Write them down. See them in your mind. Picture the sounds, the voices, colors, pictures, smells. Soak it all in. Flood yourself with positive emotions. Spend at least 5-10 minutes but perhaps an hour or more. The longer the better. When you’re feeling intensely grateful, it’s very difficult to feel negative emotions like fear and stress.
4. Move and Breathe. This is my solution to most challenging things I come up against. Stress and anxiety can be caused by something as simple as taking short quick breaths and focusing on the wrong things. Oxygenate your body and your mind. Take some big deep breaths. Start by walking and breathing. Maybe 5 counts in, hold for 20 counts and 10 counts out. Then really start to move. Go for a run, do some yoga or hop on your mountain bike. You pick. Ideally stay outside where it’s fresh and the scenery is soothing. Just about everything feels better after a workout. Who cares what it is. Just move. This can be an excellent time to get grateful too. There’s nothing wrong with doing them at the same time. This isn’t a bad way to cure a normal hangover either.
5. Eat Foods that Serve You. Most of you know what this means. Do things that support your body and your mind. Eating is one of those things where your actions can be so dramatically different based on whether you’re thinking short term or long term. If you’re stuck in your hangover, you’re likely to treat your body poorly. But if you’ve just gone for a nice run and gotten incredibly grateful, you’ll want to nurture your body properly. Just take Michael Pollan’s advice and eat food, not too much, mostly plants. I would stick to mainly water-rich vegetables. Grab a big salad and a nice glass of water. Easy on the meat, cheese and cream dressing though. If you already feel emotionally heavy, those will feel like adding a 50lb weight to your back. Your body and emotions will thank you.
6. Ease Back Into it. When feeling drained, alone and down and out from one of these hangovers, the immediate thought is to get around more people. You’re craving stimulation so this is natural. Just like an alcoholic will tell you the quickest way to feel better after too many drinks is to drink a little more (you can imagine how slippery that slope can be), that only prolongs the inevitable. If you over stimulated for a few days then take your medicine. Be by yourself and take time to understand your emotions.
My first thought after my emotional hangover was to set up dinner plans with someone, anyone. I racked my brain with whom to meet. Then I stopped myself and decided to enjoy a nice meal out all alone. I had my journal and a book. That was all I needed. You will be craving connection. Resist the urge to start calling, texting, tweeting or facebooking. None of that chatter will help for more than a few seconds. Then you’ll want even more. Be happy being alone for a while. Then reconnect slowly by finding a close friend or significant other.
7. Be Conscious for Next Time. Now that you understand a bit more about your emotions, what happened and how you properly dealt with it, be aware of the fact that it will happen again. As sure as you’ll spend more time with people you care about, you’ll have another emotional hangover. There is nothing wrong with this. Unlike the ones that come from too much booze, I believe an emotional hangover is a perfectly normal and healthy part of the human spirit.
The path to improvement often starts with experiencing, followed by understanding and finishing with action.
We all have experienced emotional hangovers to some extent. Maybe yours are trigged by things different than mine. Take some time to understand what leaves you feeling empty so you can recognize it and take action.
Most people fear and dread what they don’t understand. This can trigger quite the unhealthy emotional cycle. Crush the fear with understanding. Take a few minutes right now to write down what you’ve noticed produces your emotional hangovers. Realize what you’ve done to exacerbate or remedy them. Have a plan for what you’ll do next time.
And do yourself a favor. Don’t be so hard on yourself next time you feel your emotions have overdosed on the one thing we all crave–human stimulation and connection. After all, that’s the best part of life.
What caused your last emotional hangover? Did you realize what was happening? What did you do to deal with it? Please share in the comments section below.
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LT
Posted at 14:08h, 23 JuneGreat Post Scott!
I can relate to the problem you describe. I have been in the USA for the last 4 years (for work), and visit my home country (22 hour flight) once a year for 2 weeks. I have great friends here, love my job and have a good life. I also look forward to my home visit every year for the obvious reasons of hanging out with friends and family. But the flight back to USA is the most depressing thing I do every year (Please do not misunderstand this as me being unhappy here. I love living/working here). I could not have described what I go through any better than what you did at the beginning of your post. It takes me a couple of weeks to get back to a normal emotional state. Here’s how I end up dealing with this:
-I evaluate my overall goals and priorities and make sure I work hard/smart enough to justify any sacrifice I and my loved ones make.
-Music is a big help in the recovery process.
-I try not to be alone (contrary to #6 in your post) because that’s very hard for me. In fact, every time I get back from the trip, I take a shower and head straight to the office rather than being alone in the apartment.
Ian
Posted at 05:27h, 26 JuneNice post Scott. I guess we all suffer from emotional hangovers now and again and I think you give some great ideas on how to deal with them here. As a therapist I find that many clients have difficulty accepting emotions like sadness and see them as negative. It’s important to realise that all emotions are useful. I love your idea of spending time alone when feeling emotionally hungover. Sometimes that’s what we need to bring back balance in our lives.
Brenda Sedore
Posted at 19:56h, 26 JuneVery interesting post. I’ve never thought about having an “emotional hangover”, but I’ve experienced it a few times. Now I understand what I was going through.
I think one thing we have to remember is that we are emotional beings. It’s important to let our feelings out and experience them, whatever they happen to be. The commenter above said it so well. Some people see sadness as negative. I don’t think you can view any emotion as negative or positive. They are what they are. Your tips on dealing with them are spot on.
Thanks. 🙂
Scott
Posted at 14:42h, 29 June@LT: So glad it helped. Music can be an amazing state changer. I always keep a playlist of inspirational songs on my iphone so I can fire them up whenever need be. Very powerful. Great call. Your method sounds good for dealing with your time away from home. As long as you are always convinced that what you’re doing is the best for your overall fulfillment, then you are in a good place.
@Ian: Thanks for the thoughts. Being alone can be counterintuitive but in small doses it’s helpful. I do not recommend spending days and weeks alone if you are feeling really empty but being conscious and getting comfortable with yourself is important. In fact I think I am heading up to Lake Tahoe this weekend for an alone weekend just to recharge, write, read and think through things. I can’t wait!
@ Brenda: That’s awesome to hear. It’s funny how the term Emotional Hangover is not familiar, yet it seems to resonate with so many people when they hear it. Agreed that emotions are not negative or positive, but are all here to serve and teach us in some way. We just have to be open to finding that reason even when we are in our most unresourceful states. I hope this gives you some ideas for the next hangover!
Happy Reading!
Scott
Nate
Posted at 04:59h, 15 JulyVery helpful article. I have been having these hangovers for a while and I was so confused because they really became apparent after I quit drinking. So I had quit drinking, but was getting worse hangovers? What the hell?
Your article helped me to finally understand what was going on. I was falling into the trap of craving attention, getting depressed, letting down my self-care… everything that you covered in your article.
The best realization for me from this was that there is not something wrong with me, it is just a natural comedown from social stimulation. Brilliant
Anna
Posted at 19:17h, 16 NovemberThe first emotional hangover I can recall was at the age of 14. I attended a concert that I had been anticipating for months, and when it was over I felt completely wiped out and down in the dumps (though the concert was enjoyable and met my expectations). I didn’t know how to explain to my parents what was going on, and I was probably afraid to even try.
A few years later, I had quite the e.h. after my senior prom. I attended with a guy I had a huge crush on, and knowing that he didn’t feel the same way hurt even worse after spending prom together.
I found your post today after searching for information on emotional hangovers. I am just coming off of a few very exciting days where I had the opportunity to meet a celebrity of sorts, someone who I really look up to and had, up to this point, only “talked” with via the internet. It was exciting enough to see him in person, but what ramped it up even more for me was his warm and personal response when I introduced myself.
I think it’s hard for me to accept that this long-anticipated event is over and that I may or may not have the opportunity to be face-to-face with this extraordinary person again. All day long my stomach has been doing flips and my heart will feel like it’s racing now and again (just run-of-the-mill anxiety symtpoms for me; I seem to have problems with anxiety beyond the scope of emotional hangovers). I think the word for this whole experience is “bittersweet.” Come to think of it, bittersweet is something that all of my emotional hangovers seem to have in common.
Thank you for your helpful post on this topic.
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Deb
Posted at 09:30h, 06 AugustThanks for this. As an introverted actor, I experience emotional hangovers quite frequently, and that is what I’ve actually always called them. After I close a show or something, or after a tech week, can be some of the worse emotional hangovers. Over time I’ve gotten a few things down that seem to help quite a bit, and there’s only one thing I slightly disagree with that you had, which was that you need to not be around people for a while to work out your emotions. I agree with it somewhat, but I also find that after doing that, or instead of it even, spending time with someone I’m very close to, like my bestfriend, or my boyfriend helps more than anything.
This did helped me solidify the procedures I normally go through to deal with the issue.
Kerry Flood-Mellen
Posted at 16:32h, 16 JulyI am so happy that I discovered this. I’ve been experiencing an emotional hangover today after a really fun going away party for my aunt who just retired and is moving to Florida in two weeks. However, this mainly happens after any family event. I have a pretty large extended family, but a lot of people have moved away over the years and it my hometown where I grew up and still live feels a little empty. Thank you so much for writing this, it’s really going to help the next time there’s an event coming up that has the potential for an emotional hangover.