The Connection Between Anxiety, Alcohol, and Nicotine

What You Need To Know

Many people drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes to manage their anxiety, stress, and other negative emotions. In the long term, they can actually intensify feelings of stress and anxiety.

To understand why alcohol and nicotine impact our mental health, it’s helpful to know more about how each substance effects the brain.

What Is Anxiety?

Anxiety is a general feeling of nervousness and unease about the future. In most cases, anxiety is a normal and healthy emotion — it can help us deal with stressful situations and motivate us to take action.

However, anxiety can hurt our mental and physical health when it becomes excessive and uncontrollable. Anxiety disorders are some of the most common mental illnesses in the world.

The Link Between Alcohol and Anxiety

While alcohol is often viewed as an “anti-anxiety” drug, it actually has many negative effects on mental health. Alcohol is often associated with an increase in feelings of anxiety and depression.

It’s a psychoactive drug that affects significant neurotransmitters in the central nervous system:

• serotonin;
• dopamine;
• norepinephrine.

Depending on the type of alcohol consumed and the amount consumed, alcohol impacts these neurotransmitters differently and produces anxiety in the brain.

How Smoking Relieves Anxiety

It’s no surprise that smoking cigarettes reduces anxiety and increases relaxation. Nicotine increases serotonin in the brain. Since serotonin is related to feelings of relaxation and reduced anxiety, this may partly explain why smoking cigarettes have such a calming effect on people.

• However, while nicotine may reduce feelings of anxiety in the short term, it negatively impacts mental health.
• Reducing particular hormones caused by nicotine addiction increases feelings of anxiety in the long run. It is leading people to consume more nicotine as a way of reducing these feelings.

When Anxiety Becomes Addictions: A Vicious Cycle

It’s easy to see how people may start off consuming alcohol or nicotine for one reason — to reduce anxiety. But then develop an addiction to these substances due to the changes they make in their brains.

Alcohol and nicotine may temporarily relieve feelings of anxiety, but they also have a long-term negative impact on the brain. As a result, they should be viewed as short-term solutions that are only effective in the short term.

Conclusion

There is no denying that alcohol and nicotine can temporarily relieve anxiety. However, they should not be viewed as effective long-term solutions to managing and reducing feelings of anxiety and stress.

Instead, exploring other ways of managing anxiety and stress that don’t cause long-term damage to your mental health is best. This can include things like:

• mindfulness meditation;
• yoga;
• physical exercises;
• attending therapy sessions.

In the modern world, you cannot make relevant decisions only for a short time. If you want to deal with anxiety more effectively, use the Sensera app. Download now to use working methods to deal with anxiety and become happier.