Does this sound familiar: you conquer your personal Everest (win a competition, celebrate your wedding, finish a marathon after training for months) and… after feeling on top of the world from the joy, you wake up feeling empty, apathetic, physically tired, in a bad mood, with a sense of anxiety, etc.? Where does this come from? Everything is fine and even great, isn’t it?
It seems that you are feeling an emotional hangover. It is a state that occurs after extreme emotional experiences – whether good or bad. Why is that? After all, the events were joyful!
The thing is that your body is experiencing powerful stress. And stress is a set of non-specific adaptive (normal) reactions of the body to the impact of various stressors. For the body, there is no difference if something very good or very bad happened. In general, any strong emotional experiences can become stressors.
Lost an apartment – stress; bought an apartment – stress. Got divorced – stress; got married – stress too!
If there are too many emotions and they are bright, like a torch, and not just like a candle, you can expect an emotional hangover, because there is an excess, an oversaturation of emotions, as it happens with alcohol.
The good news is that no hangover lasts forever – just like alcohol intoxication stops sooner or later. Similarly, strong emotions cease to have undesirable consequences. And, probably, you need to endure them from several hours to several days.
What to do if the state of emotional hangover captured you and pressed you against the wall?
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You are not sure where to begin?
○ Accept the fact that this is happening without resisting or running away – this is a temporary condition and not a disease.
○ Give yourself a break: there were too many emotions. And for the glut to dissipate faster, you need to arrange a “detox” for yourself: relax, read, watch good old movies, paint, etc. In general, everything that relaxes you will do.
○ If you want to cry – you need to give yourself this opportunity, without “kicking” yourself for this “strange” behavior.
○ Slow down. This will replenish the energy spent: go for a walk, get some fresh air, feed the ducks swimming in the pond in the park, look at the river or the clouds.
○ Don’t make any big decisions until you “recover”. First, you need to get back to normal.
Knowing and understanding the laws by which the psyche functions allows you to better understand yourself and not be afraid when something unusual happens. If you read Mindspa articles, then your competence in the field of understanding emotions definitely becomes higher – and this is a valuable contribution to your psychological health.
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