Feeling drained from the night before? It could be an emotional hangover.

I woke up the day after Valentine’s Day with glassy eyes, a dizzy head, and a slight knot in my stomach.

I hadn’t had much to drink. I hadn’t been ignored, snubbed, or broken up with. In fact, I’m happily married to a man who rolls his eyes at Hallmark parties but knows how to woo me: specifically, with wings and beer, which we’d savored the night before, along with some sort of variety show at our friend’s Brooklyn loft. On the surface, the night had been perfect, but my gut was telling me a different story.

It reminded me that the day before I had been reporting on a mental health story that had seeped deep into my psyche. I felt misunderstood by a family member when I tried to speak openly about it. I cried during the show’s opening musical act because, well, I’m a fool.

So, on February 15, I (like many other people for a variety of reasons, I’m sure) woke up with an emotional hangover — or that groggy, uneasy feeling that lingers after an intense conversation, a therapy session, or even a dark movie. While it’s not an official medical term, the “condition” is fairly common and makes sense from a physiological and psychological perspective, experts told me.

“Our reactions [to the outside world] They are driven by our internal world, and our internal world is influenced by what happened yesterday,” Lila Davachi, PhDColumbia University psychology professor who has studied how emotions affect memories said, “We’re not just blank slates every morning.”

I was feeling better now. Here’s what I learned about why we can get emotional hangovers, who’s most vulnerable, and whether there’s anything we can do to prevent (or soothe) them. Spoiler alert: Water and rest are tried-and-true hangover remedies, even if you’re sober.

Each person has a different definition of emotional hangover. Perhaps the most important one is: Dr. Judith Orloff, psychiatrist and author of The Empath’s Survival GuideHe describes it as “an energetic residue” left over from an interaction with an “energy vampire” or someone who, intentionally or not, saps your mental and emotional energy.

“Toxic emotions can persist for a long time and leave one feeling exhausted, confused or sick,” she writes.

In my case, it wasn’t a particular person I needed to recover from, but rather a set of emotionally taxing circumstances that didn’t subside simply because the sun had come back out. (Importantly, I’m not referring to the emotional aftermath of world-shaking life events, such as the death of a loved one, which are more appropriately categorized as grief, and best appreciated as something that will and should take time to get over.)

I’ve had emotional hangovers after finishing horror books, receiving hate mail from readers, and having disagreements with my spouse.

“The day after something really intense, it’s natural to feel lingering feelings of sadness or shame.” Megan Bruneautherapist and coach, she says. The concept reminds her of “vulnerability hangovers,” or uncomfortable feelings like anxiety and regret that can arise after sharing deep emotions, needs or desires, according to the mental health website Choice of therapy.

According to Orloff, frequent emotional hangovers are more common among empaths, highly sensitive people, and those with social anxiety disorder. In other words, when your emotional antenna is highly attuned to the thoughts and behaviors of others, small social bumps are amplified. What’s a breeze to others’ radars is a gust to yours.

This perspective resonates with Abby Schaeffer, a 33-year-old flight attendant living in New York City. “I feel emotions very deeply — when I get into a fight with someone, it tears me apart. My partner, on the other hand, thinks, ‘Well, he’s wrong, so it doesn’t matter,’” she said. “For people like me, emotional hangovers are normal because we spend so much energy just processing the event.”

While a hangover is a combination of dehydration, poor sleep quality, and other physical consequences of too much alcohol, the mechanisms behind an emotional hangover are a little more difficult to understand from a medical standpoint. However, experts do have some theories.

For one, during an emotional experience (say, a confrontation with a lazy coworker) the fight-or-flight system is activated, causing stress hormones such as cortisol, norepinephrine, and adrenaline to surge through the body. When the moment passes and the body settles into a “rest and digest” state, you may feel especially drained. “When we’re recovering from the stress response, it’s exhausting,” Bruneau says.

The sensation could also reflect the mental tug-of-war between the amygdala, the part of the brain that processes emotions, and the prefrontal cortex, or the part of the brain that tries to moderate them with logic and decisions. “It’s mentally exhausting to control feelings of anger and anxiety and try not to react,” Bruneau says.

Some research also shows that highly emotional events light up the brain in certain ways, and that light doesn’t go out as soon as the event is over. 2016 Study In the diary Neuroscience of natureDavachi and his colleagues measured people’s brain activity as they viewed emotional and neutral images. They found that brain states associated with emotional experiences persisted 20 to 30 minutes afterward, sharpening participants’ memory for subsequent nonemotional images.

This shows that, unlike a video recording, “we are much more complicated in the way we see, perceive and remember the world,” says Davachi.

Similarly, emotional moments can corrupt our attention: focusing on couples who seem happy after a fight with our partner or causing us to misinterpret our friend’s silence after an awkward encounter with another friend. By dwelling on negative feelings, we are (often unintentionally) delaying our recovery.

“Your awareness is heightened toward things that are relevant to that person or that trauma, but you might actually be suppressing everything else,” Davachi says. “And that’s also maladaptive, because if you also have good things happening to you, like getting a nice note in the mail, you’re not going to allow that to boost your mood the way it should.”

Your emotional hangover may not be that complicated: Maybe you failed to breathe deeply, drink enough water or eat well while engrossed in a tragic movie. Your sleep might also have been more irregular. “When we’re stressed, we tend not to take care of ourselves as well,” Bruneau says.

Ultimately, emotional hangovers are another indication that our bodies and minds are connected. Kristen Guestlicensed social worker says, “Our bodies will definitely feel it if our minds are overloaded or overstimulated. Nothing happens in isolation.”

Emotional hangovers aren’t bad in and of themselves — they’re human. They may mean you need to set better boundaries or improve communication or practice dealing with uncomfortable emotions and conflict. If you find the feelings are frequent and upsetting, you may need to do something more drastic, like quit a job or break up with a friend. Consider abstaining from the figurative substance that no longer serves you.

“It is good to receive these signals in some cases, and “We need to train our brain and body to respond in different ways,” Guest says. She recommends drinking plenty of water and keeping a journal to help spot patterns in what, where and who tends to bring us down emotionally. “It’s important to take time to reflect,” she says.

Working with a therapist can also be very helpful. Emily Heinwriter and social work student, has found that, for example, an overreaction to a current partner’s comment may be related to something their ex said.

“We tend to lump all these things together and it’s very difficult to say, ‘No, let’s deal with this particular situation as it is,’” she says. “It’s definitely a tug-of-war between your mind and your body, and knowing that you’re safe while also validating that it’s OK for your brain to not feel safe. Your brain is pulling evidence of things that did happen.”

For her, watching a show, playing a video game or going for a walk can be a good way to create space between the event and her reaction. Schaeffer has also found that, like a margarita-induced hangover, time heals. “Just be kind to yourself the next day,” she says. “That’s the rule I follow.”