If you’ve ever woken up the morning after a night out with a hungover head and a feeling of complete exhaustion, even though you hadn’t had a drop of alcohol the night before, you’ve probably experienced an emotional hangover. This isn’t a clinical diagnosis, but an informal name for a condition that can affect anyone from time to time.
When an emotional hangover occurs
It usually appears after numerous contacts or intensive interactions with people. We can feel especially emotionally drained at times when we have to actively communicate with others. For example, during the New Year holidays, when families traditionally gather together , or in the summer months, when the days become longer and warmer, and there are many festivals and other public events taking place around.
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An emotional hangover can also result from conflict or a situation where another person projects their emotions onto us instead of regulating them. Emotions are quite contagious, so when we spend time with someone who is anxious or angry, we may start to feel the same way.
Sometimes emotional hangovers occur for less obvious reasons. For example, after a busy day at work, a session with a psychologist , a minor quarrel on public transport or at the supermarket checkout, or even after watching a movie with a tense dramatic plot.
How to Recognize an Emotional Hangover
In different people, this condition makes itself known through a variety of reactions and symptoms, such as:
- physical – fatigue, nausea, headache, muscle tension;
- emotional – bad mood, irritability, feeling of detachment from the surrounding world;
- behavioral – the desire to be alone, to “go numb,” not to leave the house, to sleep at unusual times.
In addition, the moment matters. If after an unpleasant event or burdensome communication you feel exhausted and even a good night’s sleep did not help restore resources, this may indicate an emotional hangover.
Although anyone can experience this condition, some are more susceptible to it and experience it much more severely. For example, highly sensitive people or introverts, whose internal “batteries” drain much faster during social interactions.
How to Avoid an Emotional Hangover
It is difficult to completely prevent this condition, since we cannot always predict how emotionally tense a particular situation will be. At the same time, an emotional hangover can occur within a couple of hours after the event and last from a few minutes to several days – it all depends on how much the circumstances affected us.
So if you’re about to have a lot of social time with friends or family, or you’re going to a big event and you know it’s draining you, there are a few steps you can take.
First, set boundaries and limit the time you spend in emotionally draining situations. For example, agree in advance that you will spend no more than two hours with distant relatives and will not discuss your personal life with them.
Second, give yourself a chance to fully recover before the next event. Think of it like recovering from a cold: get plenty of rest, eat well, watch comedies , spend time on your favorite hobby, and hang out with people who give you energy, not take it away.
