A couple of months ago, I was the Matron of Honor at my sister’s wedding. It was a great time, and I was stressed for most of the day making sure that things ran smoothly. The next day I woke up with a terrible headache, still exhausted and feeling overstimulated by any noise or sensation. That day I ended up sleeping for 16 hours off and on, and only woke up to eat and drink water. It sounds like I was hungover from alcohol, doesn’t it? You’re right they are the symptoms of an alcoholic hangover, the funny thing is I had about two sips of champagne and then water and soda the rest of the night, so I wasn’t drunk. There isn’t a truly medical term for the experience I felt, but some googling prompted the term emotional hangover. So of course, I use my DBT knowledge to help me understand the concept. To understand why an emotional hangover can occur, we must talk about how emotions influence the body and its nervous system.
A lot of our understanding of DBT comes from a knowledge of our emotions and how they influence our body and nervous system. One of the main theories we believe is the Biosocial theory of dysregulation. This is what helps me to understand why we have an emotional hangover. The theory discusses how a different balance of chemicals in the brain can affect emotions. Another big part of the theory deals with how emotions can activate the nervous systems in our body. For example, say you are in the woods, and you hear a twig snap. You will immediately feel fear and experience a change in your body. That is because fear activates the parasympathetic nervous system which is more commonly known as the fight flight or freeze response. When the body activates the parasympathetic nervous system, it creates cortisol and adrenaline, both of which give you the energy boost that you need to fight, flee, or freeze, and keep you safe in a dangerous situation. It is an automatic response in the body that has led to our survival, but it can take a lot of energy out of you. This is why we have the term adrenaline crashes. In essence this is what an emotional hangover is an adrenaline crash just on a larger scale.
In the case of my story throughout the entire day my emotions were high and activating my parasympathetic nervous system on and off throughout the day. This causes my body to burn more energy and calories than I would on a normal day. I emotionally exhausted myself, and the way my body told me that is by giving me physical symptoms like a hangover. Now there could be other causes as well such as dehydration, in my own case I ruled it out because my water intake was roughly the same as a normal day. Honestly, it came down to the only thing that makes sense is that I had prolonged higher emotions that wore my body out and my sympathetic nervous system or the rest and digest nervous system, hadn’t had enough time to catch up. I am all about using my experiences to help others prevent them from going through something similar, so of course I’m going to give you DBT skills suggestions that can help you to prevent this from happening or reduce the symptoms.
First things first, make sure that you are keeping up with your PLEASE skills. By reducing your biological vulnerability factors, you can reduce the likelihood of having more extreme emotional reactions.
The next skill that I always recommend is TIP. TIP is an easy to use and often a discreet skill that you can use to help lower the intensity of your emotions in the moment. It may not fix the problem that you are currently in, but it will reduce your suffering during the event.
Finally, if you know that you are going to have a long or extreme emotional event occur (negative or positive), create, and practice a cope ahead plan that you can implement on the day of the event. Hindsight is 20/20 and this is the skill that I wish I would have taken advantage of before my sister’s wedding. Overall, just remember that your body gives you emotions and physical symptoms to tell you something, listen to it!
About the Author
Samantha Ruwe (she/her), M.A., LPC is a Licensed Professional Counselor who specializes in dialectical behavior therapy. She works with teens and adults in a warm, compassionate, and non-judgmental manner to help clients build a life worth living. Samantha knows that therapy can be daunting to begin and is supportive of clients at all parts of their counseling journey. Click here to learn more about Samantha’s experience and therapeutic approach.