Why party drinking hits midlifers so hard – and how to recover quicker

Brain inflammation

Alcohol can cause initial feelings of relaxation – the so-called liquid confidence which makes us warmer, more flirtatious, but what’s actually happening is alcohol is suppressing activity in parts of the brain associated with inhibition. Even after you’ve stopped drinking, your brain and central nervous system are still affected while they process the alcohol. “We see neuro-inflammation,” says clinical nutritionist Stephanie Moore. “The brain is coated with an incredibly sophisticated blood-brain barrier, which decides what to allow into the brain that’s safe, and sieves out what’s not allowed. And so imagine a sieve that has tears in it, and chunky stuff that shouldn’t be getting through into the brain now can.”

Impaired cognitive skills

“It’s not just that it’s slowly pickling your brain, “ says Professor Nutt. “But people’s judgments tend to get disorganised when drunk. So it’s a question of whether you run the risk of doing really stupid things like falling over or getting mugged. Alcohol damps down your ability to stick to the rules.”

The dodgy belly

According to Dr Rossi, a research fellow at King’s College London and an expert on the gut microbiome, alcohol makes our gut lining a little bit more leaky or permeable “which  means things that normally can’t get into our blood system from our gut start to move in, causing low-grade inflammation in the body, which makes us feel unwell.”

You might suffer stomach pain, constipation, and high stomach acid for 72 hours. “It’s a sign your digestive tract is inflamed and overactive,” says Moore, “and that you’ve almost definitely killed off some of your healthy microbes.”

You might find your dashing to the loo. “Alcohol influences the motility in the oesophagus, stomach and small bowel. Plus that leaky gut can lead to low-level inflammation, which means that your gut muscles don’t coordinate as effectively and everything becomes a bit loose,” laughs Dr Rossi. “That’s also why people get reflux.”  

The pounding headache

“When toxins and nasty stuff that should stay in the gut leak into the bloodstream, you’ve got toxic blood, so to speak, and that is what causes you to feel very headachy, very delicate,” says Moore. “Your whole body can ache because the inflammation is systemic. It isn’t just in the liver and the gut, now it’s circulating around the body.”

Wrecked sleep

“Delta sleep, particularly as we age because we’re having less of it, is critical for our long-term neurological health because that’s where our brain mends,” says Moore. “In order to get that deep cleaning, the body has to be cold enough. And while the liver, a huge organism, is processing alcohol, it generates a lot of heat which stops your body cooling down.”

Ravenous cravings

“Alcohol stops us fat burning at night,” explains Moore. “The body’s priority is to break down that ethanol, so while the liver is prioritising that as an absolute must, it can’t do many of its other jobs around detoxification and turning body fat into ready fuel (one of the liver’s jobs at night). We are very metabolically active at night, there are lots of jobs to be done that require fuel. So that leads to people waking up at 3am  because their blood sugar has crashed. They’re getting an adrenaline surge, their heart’s pounding. And when they wake up ravenous, they just want that carb hit.”

Anxiety and depression 

At the party you may feel on top of the world but the more you drink in a session, it will cause feelings of tension and anxiety, because of the effects on our brain chemicals.  “The effects of alcohol are generally considered to be biphasic. At low to moderate blood alcohol concentrations (BAC) people may experience a stimulant-like effect where they have increased sociability, relaxation, and a sense of euphoria. However, as blood alcohol concentration increases, it acts as a depressant. “Dopamine is often lower during a hangover,” says Dr Craig Gunn,  Lecturer at the School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Bristol. “This may contribute to a negative mood and some of the negative effects on our thought processes.”

And what you can do to protect yourself