The morning after I have had a few drinks (something that happens rarely), I often feel better (elevated mood, better focus) than I would have if I had no drinks the previous night at all. Why does that happen?

December 17, 2012 10:09 AM

The morning after I have had a few drinks, I often feel better (elevated mood, better focus) than I would have if I had no drinks the previous night at all. Why does that happen?

I don't drink very often (maybe once or twice a month). When I do, I only have 1-3 drinks at maximum (this last time, it was fancy beer).

Am I feeling the positive effects of alcohol in moderation that medical literature always refers to? Maybe it helps me sleep better? Maybe it releases some neurotransmitters that keep circulating well after the alcohol wears off?

I'm open to either scientific and hare-brained answers as well as any of your personal theories of why this happens if it happens to you.

posted by Feel the beat of the rhythm of the night to Food & Drink (14 answers total)

I'd guess the nights you drink tend to be more pleasant evenings in other ways. Maybe because you are seeing friends, or are more relaxed, or just feel like you have the time to unwind a bit.
posted by 2bucksplus at 10:14 AM on December 17, 2012 [5 favorites]

For somewhere on the order of 6 or 7 years, I've gone from a drink or three 4-5 nights a week to 3-4 evenings in which I have a drink per year. One of the down-sides I've noticed from dramatically curtailing my alcohol intake is that I now find I need a little more sleep, and those times when I drink now, I find myself up and alert with less sleep.

I'm not sure it's the unwinding, it may be that the burst of easily metabolized alcohol does something for me (although if I have a sweet dessert I feel incredibly hungover the next day, so it's clearly not just simple sugars), but I've noticed something similar.
posted by straw at 10:20 AM on December 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

Are you possibly getting more sleep on those nights? I know that when I have a glass of wine or two before bed, it often makes me sleepy (in a good way) earlier than on nights when I don't have anything to drink - if the same happens to you, maybe you're hitting the sack 45 minutes or an hour earlier than you usually do and that's hitting a sweet spot for you sleep-wise.
posted by superfluousm at 10:23 AM on December 17, 2012 [3 favorites]

I've noticed that I have more focus and I'm less distracted when I have a slight hangover. Another thing I've noticed - music sounds better to me.
posted by davebush at 10:32 AM on December 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

The alcohol is helping you sleep better and more deeply, thus you are waking up more rested. The exact same thing happens to me wife. She only drinks once or twice a year, and the following moments are the best of her year. The other circumstances involved are the same mundane circumstances the rest of the year.
posted by TinWhistle at 10:37 AM on December 17, 2012 [3 favorites]

I noticed this as well, in the days before meds and a medical condition meant no more alcohol again. A small amount of alcohol the evening before - a few glasses of red wine usually - and I'd be happier, more relaxed, and sleep better, feeling better the next day.

There was however a variable, moving, line on alcohol consumption that when crossed would make sleep unsatisfactory, and the next morning pretty bad, with a worse mood and concentration.

Beer, in your case, is probably a bit better than wine as it'll be less dehydrating.
posted by Wordshore at 10:57 AM on December 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Hmmm. It's very possible that a few of you are right and I am experiencing this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_use_and_sleep#Alcohol_consumption_and_sleep_improvements

Man, I love the Internet.
posted by Feel the beat of the rhythm of the night at 11:11 AM on December 17, 2012

I think it's more complicated than sleep improvement. I'm a fairly anxious person and have noticed on a couple of mornings after one or two drinks a dramatic absence of anxiety. I don't think this has to do with sleep quality, as I would say I'm almost always well-rested.
posted by neuromodulator at 11:14 AM on December 17, 2012

A few drinks make you feel good. They relax you. They de-stress you. They lighten you up. It's not surprising you'd feel better afterwards.
posted by Decani at 12:35 PM on December 17, 2012

I don't think my experience is what you're talking about, Decani. It doesn't seem like the after-effect of a few hours of increased relaxation. It seems very much like a present-effect of something. I realize that sounds kind of vague and I can't do much better, unfortunately. It feels a bit like being on something, and not just like I was on something 10 hours earlier.

A friend of mine was prescribed painkillers for a little bit and what the way he described how it affected his depression reminded me of those moments I've had.

Oh, okay, maybe I can do better at describing it: I'm super socially anxious, in particular. I feel great, generally, by myself, but people are like psychic noise for me, somehow. Being around people makes me tense up. And these occasions to which I'm referring, where I've been out and felt better, I've felt like all the noise is gone. I've been walking down crowded streets and felt unusually relaxed and present, for me, and wondered if this is what regular people get to feel like all the time.

But the reason I don't think it's simply a product of the prior night's relaxation is this: I'm pretty relaxed when I'm by myself anyway. Before I head out the door and into these crowds, I'm not feeling all that tense at home. So I'm skeptical that the effect I'm experiencing while out has to do with how stressed out I was the night before, because I'm normally pretty low-stress right until I get out the door whether I was drinking or not.

So to me it feels (emphasis because I know that doesn't necessarily mean much about what it actually is) like it's not about quality of sleep or having had a period of low stress or still having any of the typical symptoms of being drunk, but that there's some longer, lingering effect that might not be dissimilar to a light dose of painkillers. It feels very much like some part of my lizard brain is actively being suppressed, and it feels good.

seriously i think if i felt this way all the time i would be a different person
posted by neuromodulator at 2:11 PM on December 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

I think it has to do with serotonin, myself. Alcohol gives your brain a big ol' "feel good" dose, but then the levels drop a bunch. I think that if you only have a few drinks, you may not have the big crash that usually comes during the hangover, which can be depressing, anxiety-inducing, and just all around suck. I think that what I feel - the elevated mood after only a few drinks - is more that I am just not feeling/hitting the terrible bottoms.
posted by sm1tten at 5:13 PM on December 17, 2012

I've been a drowsy, oh-god-where-is-coffee person since birth. But when younger, I would get absolutely hammered and the next morning: up at seven, chipper and trying to make pancakes for my hungover brethren. It was always a mystery. Never got a hangover, still don't on the rare occasions when one is warranted. I'd love to know the chemistry behind this as well.

My friends say it's because I'm not human.
posted by 2soxy4mypuppet at 5:40 PM on December 17, 2012

I too experience this, although intermittently. Sometimes I'll have a minor headache the next day, more often I will have little change from normal, and sometimes again I'll be mysteriously energetic and awake.
posted by Earl the Polliwog at 9:26 PM on December 17, 2012

I'm too lazy to do the really solid googling required to back any of this up, but I am under the impression that alcohol affects both dopamine and serotonin, which are the primary neurotransmitters most modern antidepressants affect. I believe that the way alcohol affects those neurotransmitters is not perfectly understood, and that its effects vary based on a person's particular brain chemistry and metabolism, but it may be that in your case moderate doses of alcohol are mood elevating for several hours after you've stopped drinking.
posted by pocketfullofrye at 9:54 PM on December 17, 2012