Alcohol-Drinking Behaviors Remain Unaffected Despite Terrible Hangovers

After a night of heavy drinking, most people experience a hangover. This feeling of dehydration and discomfort impairs judgment as well as the ability to perform many actions, and can elicit a depressed mood. That should make you rethink drinking again, right? 

Think again. According to an article from HowStuffWorks, 75% of alcohol consumers have experienced a hangover and 15% have one at least every month. Additionally, one out of four college students experience the feelings of a hangover each week. But the sickly and nauseating feeling induced from the hangover does not deter drinkers from drinking.

Researchers from the University of Missouri and Brown University conducted a study to help gauge insight toward the habits of drinkers. The findings will be published in the May issue of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

The study consisted of 386 participants who were instructed to keep a diary for three weeks in order to record their drinking habits: what they drank, how much they drank, if they had a hangover the next morning, and if they expected to drink again the day they experienced the hangover.

The findings, documented in this Live Science article, revealed that hangovers experienced by the drinkers had a very small effect on their drinking behavior. The evidence suggested that the hangovers merely delayed the person's time to start drinking again.

The researchers, Thomas Paisecki of the University of Missouri and Damaris Rohsenow of Brown University, concluded that the three-week diaries suggested two things: drinking habits are dependent upon factors such as days of the week and social plans, rather than how one feels following a rough night of binge drinking; and the enjoyment derived from drinking may outweigh the negative consequences of hangovers. Since a hangover is a result of withdrawal, once you start drinking again you gradually begin to feel better. However, that won't make you feel any better the following day.

To read more about this study, visit this Live Science article, and to read more about hangovers, visit this HowStuffWorks article as well as this CNN News article.