Emotional Hangovers

How many times in my life have I come home after an event feeling joyful and energized only to crash hard at home, with the joy fizzling out into anxiety and loneliness? Often enough that when it happens I understand that I’m having some sort of emotional hangover: after such soaring highs come crushing lows. I understand it but as far as I know, I’ve never really tried to do anything about it. I usually just ride it out, knowing that eventually I’ll feel better.

This year, after cooking Thanksgiving (celebrated back in October in Canada) for 23 people and spending an entire weekend preparing and socializing, I came home on Monday to a serious low. Everything felt flat and scary and I felt more lonely than I have since meeting MTW. I knew that what I needed was rest after so much activity, but I couldn’t relax. I knew I needed time alone to recharge but all I wanted to do was call all my friends, get out of the house, talk to someone until I felt better. After walking circles around my apartment, complaining to MTW over text, and playing endless games of Candy Crush, I finally sat down and googled “emotional hangover”.

I was impressed that I found something speaking to exactly what I was experiencing. In his article, Scott Dinsmore describes the symptoms like this:

” Feel empty and alone ; Are craving attention ; Feel anxious, hurried and stressed ; Lose your motivation to be healthy (mentally and physically) ; Experience a feeling of excitement quickly replaced by feeling lost. “

The advice that followed was carefully thought out and ended up being quite helpful. Here’s what I ended up doing after reading the article:

• I journaled about the weekend. I wrote down all the reasons that it was hard and fun, I wrote down what I learned and what I wanted to do differently next year. In the article, Dinsmore talks about focusing on gratitude so I thought about how thankful I was to have so many people to celebrate with, that I was able to prepare such fresh, local food, and that MTW was there with me the whole time, helping in any way he could. Already I started to feel the tension and fear soften and I realized that this was the first time during Thanksgiving weekend that I had stopped to give thanks.
• Next on the list is “moving and breathing”. It was a beautiful day so I got on my bike and headed to the mall to buy a fancy tea mug that I had been thinking about all month. The exercise, riding my bike through piles of leaves, the sunshine, and treating myself to something I really wanted all served to calm me right down. When I got home I felt both relaxed and energized. I spent some time practicing my belly dance choreography and felt the last lingering anxiety float away.
• Dinsmore also recommends “eating foods that serve you”, so I made myself a tryptophan sandwich (the mood-lifting hormone found in turkey), and a great big salad for dinner.

Later my Dad called to tell me about how much he’d enjoyed the meal, and to explain why he had left early. He said that he was feeling so good, but knew he would need time to come down emotionally and prepare for work the next day. He needed to prepare for his emotional hangover. It was great to talk to someone who understood exactly what I had experienced, and to share some of what I had discovered.

In the end it turned out to be the relaxing, comforting day that I needed. In fact, I ended up feeling so good that I had a hard time getting to sleep because I was feeling so excited about the week ahead.

In the month since then I have had other opportunities to practice these techniques, with varied success. I find, as is usual where emotions are concerned, that it’s too easy to be complacent and tell myself that this is how I feel and I can’t do anything about it. Still, I know that if I make an effort to practice gratitude, to think deeply about the things that make me happy, and act in ways that nourish and strengthen, I feel better.