This Is How Every Type of Alcohol Affects Your Mood, According to Science (2024)

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This Is How Every Type of Alcohol Affects Your Mood, According to Science? ›

Do you know how alcohol changes your mood? Different types of alcoholic drink change and shape your mood in different ways, says a study into drinking and emotions. Spirits may make you feel angry, sexy or tearful, while red wine or beer may make you feel relaxed, say researchers.

The results showed that different types of alcohol can trigger different emotions. Spirits, for example, were more likely to elicit negative feelings than all the other types of alcohol, the researchers said.

But red wine in a particular has been found to be the ideal drink for getting in the mood — in moderation, of course. Here's what makes that bottle of red on your wine rack the ideal choice for a romantic night in.

Alcohol interferes with the brain's communication pathways and can affect the way the brain looks and works. Alcohol makes it harder for the brain areas controlling balance, memory, speech, and judgment to do their jobs, resulting in a higher likelihood of injuries and other negative outcomes.

The study found that red wine and beer make people feel relaxed, while spirits make people feel sexy and energetic.

While both psychological expectations and mixers are valid reasons for why different alcohols affect the body differently, it appears there is one more possibility – Congeners. Congeners are the chemical impurities that are produced as byproducts of the fermentation and distillation process.

But can different drinks really influence your mood in different ways? The fact is no matter what type of alcoholic beverage you drink—whether beer, wine, or spirits—they all contain the same ingredient that gets you intoxicated: ethanol. Ethanol is a by-product of fermenting natural sugars.

“It comes down to the reaction time that the particular alcohol has in getting into the bloodstream,” he said, explaining that hard alcohol, like whiskey, gin, and vodka, gets into your system more quickly than beer or wine, triggering the mind/body interplay of emotions at a more rapid rate.

The people we polled said that certain forms of alcohol were more likely to give them different feelings. Men told us that wine, co*cktails, and India pale ales (IPAs) made them happiest when they drank, while women said that co*cktails, wine, and vodka left them with the most positive emotions.

Spirits, they say, are more often associated with negative moods, while wines and beer more often elicit a positive response.

What does science say about alcohol? ›

Alcohol interferes with the brain's communication pathways, and can affect the way the brain looks and works. These disruptions can change mood and behavior, and make it harder to think clearly and move with coordination.

In conclusion, Alcohol Explained provides a comprehensive understanding of alcohol and alcoholism, grounded in scientific research and real-world experiences. Porter's approach is compassionate and non-judgmental, aiming to educate and empower individuals struggling with alcohol addiction.

Highly concentrated beverages, like vodka and gin, are absorbed faster by your body. It also absorbs fizzy and bubbly drinks, like champagne or soda mixes, quicker than other drinks. How fast you drink: Chugging rather than sipping will increase your BAC faster and cause you to feel drunker.

Do you know how alcohol changes your mood? Different types of alcoholic drink change and shape your mood in different ways, says a study into drinking and emotions. Spirits may make you feel angry, sexy or tearful, while red wine or beer may make you feel relaxed, say researchers.

The Genetic Roots of Alcoholism

A study from December 2012 (also published in Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research) expanded on previous research that found the OPRM1 genotype moderates the pleasant and stimulating effects to alcohol among alcohol-dependent (AD) individuals.

This is how each type of alcohol alters your mood, according to the study. Red wine and beer may make you more relaxed… Respondents were most likely to report feeling relaxed (52.8 percent) when drinking red wine; although almost half of respondents also reported feeling relaxed when drinking beer.

“It comes down to the reaction time that the particular alcohol has in getting into the bloodstream,” he said, explaining that hard alcohol, like whiskey, gin, and vodka, gets into your system more quickly than beer or wine, triggering the mind/body interplay of emotions at a more rapid rate.

Really. We've all heard it: If you drink different types of alcohol, you'll probably feel drunk in different ways. But as it turns out, the theory that different kinds of booze will get you different kinds of drunk is not actually true.

Differences in emotions varied between countries, with the highest association with feeling energised, relaxed, and sexy being the South American sample from Colombia and Brazil. One third of people said that drinking spirits made them feel angry, or susceptible to aggressive urges.

Different types of alcohol do trigger different emotions, the study found. Spirits (gin, whiskey, vodka, etc) made respondents feel confident, energetic and sexy, while wine and beer generated feelings of relaxation. However, those were just the positive emotions expressed. The drinkers also recorded negative emotions.