The opposite morning, I woke up with the hangover of all hangovers. (Note to self: Never a smart idea to catch up for a “casual” drink with an ex-boyfriend. Oooft.)
It had all of the makings of a day wasted in bed. Headache (tick), fatigue (tick), and an odd sense of arousal (tick).
This last one was only fueled further by a text from said ex-boyfriend saying, “You looked so hot last night.”
Good morning, libido.
As I lay there in a cloud of sordid thoughts, a transient query popped into my head: Am I the just one who gets ridiculously horny the morning after a number of too many cocktails?
Later that afternoon, I slurped the elixir of life (a Bloody Mary) in a dark pub with friends and commenced to ask around. Seems I wasn’t alone in experiencing this “hangover horn.”
I had wrongly assumed it was just men (and, for some reason, myself) who felt it the subsequent day.
I do know, a bit biased, but let’s be honest — blokes could possibly be in the midst of battle and still be up for it in the event you gave them the old wink and nod.
So I used to be happily relieved to find that my lady friends also found the hangover horn to be a typical occurrence after a giant night. Seriously, the outcomes were one hundred pc yes.
One friend admitted her orgasms seem extra intense with a hangover. Huh, me too.
One other friend joked that it was her body telling her it was dying and must quickly reproduce to avoid extinction. I mean, dramatic but insightful.
Interested by this phenomenon, I dug just a little deeper into the science. It seems, research supports my experience. Huzzah – seems we’re all hangover horn bags.
But let me provide you with my theory before I get to the scientific reasoning.
I feel we could possibly be feeling randy due to sexual arousal still lingering from the night before. The night where we practically gave ourselves blue balls (can girls get blue balls?) with the outrageous amount of flirting we took part in with none follow through. Reliving the back-and-forth banter, flirty gazes and cheeky innuendo gets us all hot under the collar.
Science, nonetheless, says one in every of the major reasons we feel this manner is due to dopamine. Yes, that cheeky little neurotransmitter answerable for pleasure and motivation.
Once we drink an excessive amount of, we deplete our body’s dopamine reserves, and the subsequent morning, we discover ourselves madly attempting to restore it back to a healthy level.
Our bodies send the message that sex equals dopamine, so why not give it a shot? Cheeky, cheeky body.
Another excuse is that our cortisol levels are through the roof. This hormone regulates our stress response and plays a giant part in that “hangxiety” we feel the subsequent day. When our cortisol levels are high (thanks, alcohol) we feel so anxious that we’ll do anything to distract ourselves from bad thoughts, and what’s a greater distraction than sex? Hence the urgent need for it.
Finally, we may be experiencing “hangover horn” since the alcohol from the night before could still be in our system, making us feel more sexually adventurous.
Anyone who has woken up next to someone they really shouldn’t have slept with knows that every one too well.
So sure, a hydralyte, aspirin or Bloody Mary might assist in the short-term, but what if roll within the hay turned out to be the final word hangover cure?
There’s this week’s to-do list sorted – find boyfriend (or unbox vibrator). Because no one should suffer through one other hangover without an orgasm. Nobody.
Truthfully, Gandhi’s got nothing on my advice.
Jana Hocking is a columnist and collector of kind-of-boyfriends | @jana_hocking
