This is when a woman is most sexual – but that’s not what

One morning I woke up with a huge hangover. Note to yourself, having a “casual” drink with your ex is never a wise move. oh.

The whole day was wasted in bed. Headache-tick, fatigue-tick, and a strange feeling of excitement-tick.

This last problem was further exacerbated by a text message from her ex-boyfriend: “You looked hot last night.”

Good morning, libido.

As I lay there with my mind filled with dirty thoughts, a quick question popped into my head – I’m the only one who gets super horny the next morning after drinking too many cocktails Human?

Later that afternoon, my friends and I drank elixirs (Bloody Marys) in a dark bar and started asking around. Turns out I’m not the only one who’s experienced this “hangover horn.”

I mistakenly thought that only men (for some reason, myself) felt this way the next day.

I know, that’s a little biased, but let’s be honest – if you give them the usual wink and nod, they’ll probably be in the middle of a fight but still be ready.

So I breathed a happy sigh of relief when I discovered that my female friends were also finding that hangover horns were a common occurrence after a long night. To be honest, it turns out to be 100% yes.

One friend admitted that her orgasms seemed more intense when she was hungover. Haha, me too.

Another friend joked that her body was telling her that she was going to die and that she needed to breed quickly to avoid extinction. I mean, dramatic but insightful.

Curious about this phenomenon, I delved deeper into the science. It turns out that research supports my experience. Hooray – turns out we’re all hungover hornbags.

But before I get into the scientific reasoning, let me give you my theory.

I thought we might be feeling horny because the arousal from the night before was still lingering. We pretty much gave ourselves blue balls that night (can girls get blue balls?) and we engaged in outrageous flirting without any follow-up. Reliving the back-and-forth banter, flirtatious glances and cheeky hints got our blood boiling.

However, science shows that one of the main reasons we feel this way is dopamine. Yes, that cheeky little neurotransmitter is responsible for happiness and motivation.

When we drink too much, we deplete our body’s dopamine stores, and the next morning we find ourselves frantically trying to get it back to healthy levels.

The message our bodies send is that sex equals dopamine, so why not give it a try? Shameless, shameless body.

Another reason is that our cortisol levels are high. This hormone regulates our stress response and plays an important role in the “anxiety” we feel the next day. When our cortisol levels are high (thanks to alcohol), we feel so anxious that we will do anything to distract ourselves from bad thoughts, and what better distraction than sex? What about the powerful ones? Hence the urgent need for it.

Finally, we may experience “hangover horns” because the alcohol from the night before may still be in our systems, making us feel more sexually adventurous.

Anyone who’s ever woken up next to someone they shouldn’t know knows this.

Sure, a hydrolyzate, aspirin, or a Bloody Mary might help in the short term, but what if a roll in the hay was the ultimate hangover cure?

This week’s to-do list is sorted – find a boyfriend (or unbox a vibrator). Because no one should have to experience a hangover again without having an orgasm. No one.

Frankly speaking, Gandhi had no idea what I was suggesting.

Jana Hocking is a columnist and boyfriend collector | @jana_hocking