Why do people drink? When it comes to surveys, the most common answer is: To relieve worry and stress.
Alcohol changes our mood, behavior and thinking. Alcohol makes people more sociable, carefree, relaxed and courageous. A 2004 study even came to the somewhat surprising conclusion that alcohol has the ability to sharpen the mind.
Scientists at the University of London even want to have found out that students who drink a glass of wine every now and then during the week have significantly sharper thought processes than those who do not.
A drink helps reduce stress at the end of a busy day and can be a social tonic. However, alcohol consumption can also have very dangerous effects on the mind.
Drink to the blackout
Researchers found that alcohol interferes with long-term memory formation, and that short-term memory can be impaired after just two or three drinks.
Blackout is the most common form of memory loss in drinkers. Blackouts are short episodes of amnesia in which people can take part in events – often physically or emotionally charged – and later fail to remember what they did. Alcohol affects memory by disrupting the hippocampus, a part of the brain that is important for memory and navigation.
Because alcohol is a depressant, it has a greater effect on mood when the person is stressed or depressed. Alcohol makes people happy and relaxed at first, but ultimately it increases anxiety and causes mood swings. Which leads to the vicious circle that the consumption of alcohol leads to short-term improvement in mood, but actually increases the severity of the symptoms of stress, anxiety and depression and thus leads to the consumption of higher and higher amounts of alcohol in order to maintain the initial effect.
The general mind, spirit, and behavior of alcohol is an important issue. Know your personal limits and drink responsibly – so that everyone can enjoy the good things about drinking alcohol together.