Facing those boozy blues

While a night on the tiles can produce a helluva hangover, constant drinking does longterm damage.

In total, we spend almost a year of our lives hung-over. But what actually causes those banging headaches, lurching stomachs and fuzzy tongues?

HEAD, EARS AND EYE: You wake up with a banging headache, dry mouth and your tongue seems to have grown a carpet. You also have blood-shot eyes and find noise intolerable.

“All due to dehydration,” says Mel Wakemen, a senior lecturer from Birmingham City University’s Faculty of Health.

“Alcohol is a diuretic and makes, us pee a lot, so our body essentially becomes dry. Headaches can be caused by this, as blood flow to the brain changes.

“Your eyes dry out, so there is less fluid to lubricate the eyeballs. And you generally become oversensitive to noise when your head hurts.”

MIND: Details of the night before are hazy. You also feel down in the dumps, or even depressed and full of dread.

It’s not uncommon to experience some degree of memory loss, particularly after a very heavy drinking session. “Alcohol affects brain cells and stops them from storing information in our memory bank,” says Wakeman.

ALERTNESS: You can’t stop yawning and have difficulty concentrating

“Alcohol can disrupt sleep for a number of reasons,” says dietitian Christina Merryfield. “Firstly, if you have a lot to drink, you may need to get up in the night to go to the toilet. Secondly, a deep sleep helps the body to restore itself, but alcohol can affect the initial process needed for deep sleep, the first stage of sleeping, called ’rapid eye movement’ REM. This can also contribute to making you feel drained when awake.”

GUT AND STOMACH: You’ve got diarrhoea, might be queasy and throwing up, or completely ravenous and craving carbs.

“Alcohol can upset your stomach by raising your stomach acids, which causes you to feel nauseous and unwell,” says Merryfield. “This usually lasts 24 hours, but can be longer if you’ve drunk excessively.”

Feeling – and being – sick can also be due to a high concentration of alcohol in your stomach and bloodstream. “It’s our body’s way of protecting itself by making us feel rough, it’s giving us some aversion therapy to stop us doing it again!”

ARMS AND LEGS: Limbs feel heavy, tired and sluggish.

OK, so you were giving Jacko a run for his money on the dance floor until the early hours, and that might have something to do with why your arms and legs are aching so much, but yet again, dehydration has a lot to answer for. “Loss of fluid in the body affects the blood flow through all of our body tissues,” Wakemen points out, so this includes all your muscles and connective joint tissues.

THE STUFF YOU’RE NOT IMMEDIATELY AWARE OF:

When we drink too much, too often, damage can accumulate over time, and may not cause immediately obvious symptoms...

* Liver damage: The liver can regenerate itself but only up to a certain point; and too much booze over long periods leads to liver disease.

Symptoms include weight loss, jaundice, feeling sick and vomiting blood, but often damage will be silent “until around 75% of the liver is damaged”, notes Wakemen.

* Cancer risk: Research has found that alcohol is a risk factor for a number of cancers, including liver, breast and bowel cancer, with people who drink within the recommended guidelines generally having less chance of developing the disease.

* High blood pressure: A major factor in life-threatening conditions like heart disease and stroke, high blood pressure is often referred to as the ’silent killer’ because it rarely causes obvious symptoms. Research has found that alcohol can increase blood pressure after a boozy night, and in the long-term for those who often drink heavily.

* Weakened immunity: Ever wondered why you seem to feel run-down all the time, and keep getting colds when you’ve been burning the candle at both ends? Disrupted sleep, can affect the body’s ability to fight off infections, as can dips in nutrition.

“If you drink over the recommended amount on a regular basis, in time, a reduction in nutrients, along with damage to your liver and other organs, will reduce your ability to fight off infections and you’ll be more prone to illness,” says Merryfield.