What the heck is this, and what can I do about it!
Introduction
I think its fair to say that we have all experienced symptoms of fatigue, headache, nausea, vomiting, muscle tension, feeling drained or irritable, or had a general sense of sadness, anxiety or even depression at some point in our lives. But when you experience a number of these symptoms together, or for prolonged periods of time, and they debilitate you from navigating through your every day (or days), you may be experiencing something else entirely.
What the heck is an Emotional Hangover?
I recently had the pleasure of learning firsthand how powerfully persuasive the body can be when it is in need of a serious break or a reset, and you’ve pushed yourself beyond your body and mind’s capacity to rebound on its own. In my opinion, emotional hangover is the perfect name for it! Although I feel as though this is a fairly new term, for a condition that has been around for some time.
About three weeks ago, I had an emotional hangover; a bad one! Although I hadn’t had a drop of alcohol, I felt as though I had polished off half a 40oz of dark rum to myself! If you’ve ever had a hangover, or a debilitating migraine, you can likely relate to what I might have been experiencing. Thing is, I had neither, yet, I could barely get out of bed to reach the toilet, and when I finally made it there, I had to strategically decide which end was going to benefit from the porcelain the most. (Sorry, TMI, I know, but I want you to know how serious it was.)
First, the science…
To properly explain what an emotional hangover is, I think it is important to first understand the link between the body’s hormones and the body’s stress response. You may not realize it, but the Endocrine System (hormones) and the Nervous System (stress response) are directly linked, and therefore, directly influence each other. Actually, to be completely factual, the Nervous System (NS) is in complete control of every other body system. Yep! Every other body system! This is why it is often referred to as the ‘Master control system’. (There is one that will rule them all , is how I like to put it when I am presenting this topic to a group – shout out to Lord of the Rings.)
One of the easiest examples for people to relate to on this, is public speaking. Public speaking is said to be the most common fear in the world. Some say they would rather die than speak publicly (that’s how intense the fear is). Did you ever notice, no matter how much you went to the bathroom before hand, or how little you had to drink before having to stand up and speak in public, you always need to go to the bathroom first? That’s because the body’s NS is triggered by your fear of public speaking and is preparing the body to either fight, flee, or freeze (the stress response), which it can’t do effectively if it needs to go to the bathroom, so… it will tell the body to eliminate so as not to have to worry about this when the threat arrives.
Another example is travel. Have you ever noticed when you either arrive to your destination or arrive back home, your bowel movements are not the same? Some people won’t even go ‘number two’ at all when traveling! That’s your NS telling the Gastrointestinal System (GI) that it does not feel safe enough to be in such a vulnerable position, so just wait until the threat has passed. And, just to be clear, our bodies do not
distinguish or discriminate between a real threat and a perceived threat. To the NS, a threat is a threat, no questions asked. And it will act accordingly, and fast, because it thinks it is saving your life.
The secondary control system, the Endocrine System (ES), works a little slower, but is just as effective at controlling other body systems. Let’s use the same examples. When you are getting ready to give a speech or to board a plane, your body receives external input that the event is about to occur (you see the podium, hear your name get announced, see the flight attendant heading to the boarding doors). Seeing as your mind has already associated these inputs with a warning that the stressful event is about to occur, the NS jumps into action. The NS sends out rapid signals throughout the body to prepare to defend itself against the looming threat. The ES responds to this call of duty and releases specific hormones that will signal the other body systems to react. There is much more involved than just a simple release of hormones (lived experience, genes, epigenetics, nutrition, sleep, etc.), but we are not going to get into all of that here.
Essentially, when the call is received, the ES releases stress hormones, such as cortisol and adrenaline, which kick the body into action to defend itself. The Cardiovascular System kicks into full gear to increase heart rate, blood pressure and blood glucose levels; the Respiratory System works to bring in more oxygen; the Muscular System gets engaged and muscles get tighten and get ready for action; and your body’s special senses are all heightened. In order to ensure these systems can function optimally, the body signals the Digestive System, the Urinary System, the Reproductive System and the Immune System (there are differing positions on this one) to go ‘off-line’ until the threat has passes so the body can prioritize survival. This whole system is highly efficient, effective, and high functioning, but relies heavily on the adrenal glands.
The adrenal glands are located just on top of your kidneys and look like little triangle party hats, although they are generally not too active at a party (unless you are hosting).The adrenals are responsible for producing cortisol, so these little guys are called upon when there is stress. Thing is, when stress is chronic, they can get tired. This might not seem like a big deal, but… seeing as cortisol is critical to human survival (for real! It’s the hormone that wakes you up in the morning. No cortisol… no waking up!), when your adrenals get tired, the body will find other ways to make this critical hormone; like stealing other hormones to make cortisol.
Ok, I get it… what does this have to do with an emotional hangover?
Everything! Essentially, an emotional hangover is your body saying, “enough is enough, I’m taking the wheel here!”, and forcing you to rest, whether you like it or not.
Because cortisol is so crucial to survival, if your adrenal glands get so tired they can no longer function properly (in other words, you have had more stressors than your body has resources for), your body will shut you down. Consider an emotional hangover as complete system reboot – a hard reboot, not a soft one (for my fellow computer nerds out there). If it didn’t jump in and save the day by kicking your ass, you were heading for a complete system melt down (blue screen of death).
So why did I have an emotional hangover? I think it’s because I have been learning to ‘feel my feelings’, to be vulnerable and share, and in doing so, I forgot to take breaks from the heavy stuff to reset, and recharge before jumping into the next heavy thing. I’ve also been dismissing how hard everything has been for me the last few years, and recently too, and have neglected my need to be kind and compassionate with myself. All of these stressors meant that my stress resilience level has changed, and rather than recognize and respect that, I pushed through, as I always have, and my brink wall started to crumble. Tear down the wall! Tear down the wall! Tear down the wall! (shout out to PinkFloyd’s – The Wall).
Essentially, my body was experiencing emotional overload and just could not take anymore. My body had been trying to communicate with me and I hadn’t been listening, so it screamed so loud, I had no choice but to hear it. I spent that entire day, recouping from my hangover. Good thing I knew how to recoup.
What you can you do?
Step 1 – Recognize the Signs
This step is directly linked to step 5. You may not be able to do one without the other. It will depend on how well you know yourself, and that will depend on how much kindness, love and attention you have been giving yourself. In my case, step 5 was where I started because I had not been kind and attentive to myself. But now that I have been through this once, I am paying attention and am watching closely and adjusting all the time. Now, I’m at step 1.
The signs may be different for everyone, but if you are experiencing an overwhelming combination of symptoms, I would jump straight to step 2. For me, the signs are muscle tension (my right shoulder literally sits higher than my left when the stress starts to build), irritability, feeling drained, and a generally sense of sadness. Taking the time to reflect (step 5) is crucial to being able to recognize your signs if you don’t know them already.
Once you know what your signs are, I would suggest sharing them with someone close to you, who you can trust, so they can watch out for them too. Life is busy, and we unfortunately live in society that values self-sacrifice and service to others over self-care, so it could be very easy for you to miss the signs. For me, I brought in my husband, my soul mate, my rock, and my net when I fall. Just in case he misses the signs too though…I told him to watch the bed. I said, if I haven’t made the bed all week, there’s a problem, and I need your help.
Step 2 – Be Kind and Soothe
Based on my recent first hand experience, the knowledge I have gained over the last few years while becoming a Holistic Nutritionist, and the expertise I sought from my therapist after my hangover, the very first thing you need to do is be kind to yourself and take the time you need to soothe. We have a tendency to beat ourselves up when we need to take time for ourselves; whether due to illness or otherwise. This, unfortunately (and again), is the reality of the high productivity expectations and money driven society we live in, and going against this learned mindset is hard; really hard.
For me, my NS interprets to the action of soothe (just being) as a threat (a stress trigger) and activates my sympathetic NS (my fight, flight, or freeze response). My automatic response to threat is flee (fight). What that means for me is, I tend to get very uncomfortable in the soothe phase and panic to get out of it. Instead, I will quickly jump into a drive phase (accomplish something, be productive). The story I seem to tell myself is that I am not worthy of this time to rest and relax, I haven’t worked hard enough for it yet, there is more I need to do first. My internal dialogue goes something like this… “stop being a suck about this and get up and do something productive!”, or “Get tough you sissy! This is nothing!”, or “You are weak and are letting people down by sitting here doing nothing. Get up and get to that mile long to do list before you waste too much time.”.
Considering this automatic response, and learning about the Threat, Drive, Soothe System described by Paul Gilbert (2009), the developer of Compassion Focused Therapy, my emotional hangover makes a lot of sense now. I essentially drove myself to burnout. See, when I feel threatened, my response to threat is drive, so I spend little, if any, time in the soothe phase. This is my downfall, and something I now know I really need to work on. My body mounted a physiological response to force me to soothe because I could not do this for myself. I had been spending far too little time in the soothe phase, and far too much time in the drive and threat phase; which essentially lead me to a burnout.
Now, I’m no therapist, or emotional researcher, but the symptoms, causes, and repair mechanisms for burnout, emotional hangover, and adrenal fatigue (a term the medical community continues to deny is a real thing) seem to be the same, or extremely similar. As such, I am drawing the conclusion that all three are essentially the same thing. (I would be happy to open a discussion on this however, so please feel free to reach out if you disagree.) So, as you continue reading, feel free to use which ever term you can relate to most.
Step 3 – “Embrace the Suck” (Brene Brown, emotional researcher and storyteller)
What exactly does this mean? Well, if we want to know more about being vulnerable and dealing with shame (which is exactly what this inability to soothe really comes down to), then we need to go to the shame and vulnerability expert, Brene Brown.
According to Brene, to be vulnerable, which is what we need to do to heal our souls, we need to get comfortable in the suck. Being vulnerable sucks! Especially for those of us who have worked so hard most of our lives to build ourselves an invulnerability cloak as a self-protection mechanism. But, also according to Brene Brown (and Oprah Winfrey –check out this podcast), we need to let go of what is no longer serving us. To heal our emotional scars, this means the invulnerability cloak has got to go.
I recommend you take 20-minutes to watch Brene’s TED Talk on The power of vulnerability as soon as you get the chance (get out your Kleenex). When I watched this, I felt like she was telling my story, and it really helped me come to terms with the reason for my emotional hangover; and was also the reason I knew I had to reach out to my therapist for support through this.
So…. Get comfortable in the suck. Being vulnerable is the only way to help yourself out of this.
Step 4 – Get Support
This is the most important thing you can do. But be cautious about who you get support from. If you have a therapist, I would suggest this be your first go to. As much as our friends and family love us and want to help, they are not trained and may end up misdirecting us or just helping us to numb the pain and hurt again, rather than helping us grow from the pain and hurt so we don’t end up in the same place again down the line. We must sit in the discomfort and feel the pain and hurt in order to be able to also feel joy and happiness. Otherwise, we simply teach ourselves to numb, which leads to avoidance and possibly addiction. Get the professional support you need, and if you don’t already have someone in your contacts for this, ask your friends and family to support you with a referral rather than a personal consultation.
Now, just to be clear… I am not telling you not to talk to your friends and family, this in itself can be very soothing, I am simply recommending you not rely on the advice of friends and family to help you recover from your emotional hangover, unless of course they themselves are a trained therapist.
Step 5 – Reflect and Adjust
Once you have gotten the support you need, take the time, IMMEDIATELY, not tomorrow or next week, or when you can fit it into your schedule, NOW! If you don’t take the time to reflect on where you are and try to implement the tools your therapist recommends, its going to be way too easy to fall back into the same old habits that got you here to begin with. I don’t know about you, but I do not want to experience another emotional hangover again. So… I’m practicing vulnerability. I’ve put my heart out there for you. I’ve let you see that I am not this tough, impenetrable, hard ass that I have made you think I am all these years. I am sensitive, and caring, and sad, and can be hurt. Yes, I am passionate, but that is because I care so deeply. Yes, I am verbal, but that is because I am willing to stand for something that is important to me. Yes, I am direct, but that is because I want to be truthful at all times, Yes, I will resist, but that is because my roots are strong. Yes, I need to sit in a tree and do nothing, but that is because I am human. All of this, is who I am, and that is ok, because I am worthy of fully embracing all I was made to be.
Conclusion
So, in conclusion, if you have, or are experiencing symptoms of fatigue, headache, nausea, vomiting, muscle tension, feeling drained or irritable, or have a general sense of sadness, anxiety or even depression, and these symptoms are debilitating, or have debilitated you from navigating through your every day (or days), STOP, REST, SOOTHE, EMBRACE, and GET SUPPORT.
“Compassion takes meaning, from experienced suffering.”
Nickie Felts