We've all been there—we've all had one too many drinks that took us right over the edge and have had to pay for it the morning after. Whether that meant you to had to go to class or work or even just stay in bed, the throbbing headaches, the nausea and the incessant spinning have all made us think to ourselves that we would never touch even an ounce of alcohol ever again.
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The older you get the higher your pain tolerance
Fortunately for us, a new study published in the journalAlcohol and Alcoholismhas revealed that hangovers become less severe and easier to manage the older you get! The study in question explains that our pain tolerance increases as we get older, which allows us in turn to be able to handle the after effects of binge drinking much better than in our younger years:
Hangover severity declines with age, even after controlling for the amount of alcohol consumed. Sex differences were greatest in the younger age groups but became significantly smaller or absent in the older age groups.
And added:
The relationship between age and hangover severity is strongly mediated by subjective intoxication. Pain sensitivity, lower with aging, might be a mediator.
The wiser you become, the less severe the hangover
The study also notes that as we get older, we gain more social responsibilities (work, family life, etc) so our brain naturally programs itself to know not to over do it.
Not surprisingly, with age comes greater amounts of accumulated previous experience to know how your body reacts to dangerously high volumes of alcohol. Meaning that with a few more rotations around the sun, we learn to gauge our tolerance so as to not let it affect us as much the day after.
However, this doesn't mean that you should go get drunk as much as possible. You should still drink responsibly—the study itself only proves that your hangovers will not be as bad as they once were.
