Is a alcohol a depressant

Health related question in topics Food Drink Addiction Drug Abuse .We found some answers as below for this question “Is a alcohol a depressant”,you can compare them.

Absolutely! Alcohol is a depressant that slows your brain activity down, which accounts for the “relaxed” feeling when drinking. [ Source: http://www.chacha.com/question/is-a-alcohol-a-depressant ]
More Answers to “Is a alcohol a depressant
yes, alcohol is a depressant
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_alcohol_a_depressant
Yes, alcohol is a depressant depending on what type of alcohol you’re drinking. Sometime if it’s white liquor you may not feel the effects at first but later on you’ll start to get a buzz that sneaks up on you. Brown liquor is the liquor th…
http://answers.ask.com/Health/Pharmacy/is_alcohol_a_depressant
Yes, it is. A good friend of mine suffers from depression all his life and is bi polar, but when he drank the doctors refused to help him and sent him to AA instead. Their excuse is he was not depressed but drank too much. 18 years sober an…
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090820163153AAvu2Uv

Related Questions Answered on Y!Answers

Since alcohol is a depressant, why does it make me happy when I drink it?
Q: Stimulant drugs also make you happy. But alas, alcohol is a depressant. It more or less acts as an inhibitory neurotransmitter. So, why happy?
A: It causes euphoria through some actions that are relatively unknown. We do know that it potientiates the actions of GABA, the major inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain. This is similar to the actions of Benzodiazepines like Valium and Xanax. While this is a paradoxical effect, it must be linked to an increase in release of dopamine, our “reward” NT. By allowing an increase in dopamine, it gives us the feeling of euphoria and also contributes to the addictive properties of alcohol. Ethanol also has action to reduce the effects of Glutamate, our major excitatory NT, at NMDA receptors. It does have minor stimulatory effects, especially at low doses. This is why a beer may “perk you up.” Through those actions, it may also be able to trigger dopamine release, but still, the overall actions of ethanol in the brain are unclear.
Why is alcohol considered a depressant?
Q: I’m suffering from depression, and the only time that I can feel somewhat happy is when I’m drowning myself in a bottle of some sort of alcohol….I’m also an extremely tense person, and the only time I can truly relax is when I’m drinking.So if alcohol can relax me, and give me a little bit of happiness, then why do people say it’s a depressant?
A: ‘Depressant’ does not refer to your emotional state, but what it does to your body’s physical metabolism and speed. It relaxes you, slows you down, relaxes the muscles, slows the heartbeat. A tense person will feel better in this state. I am pretty tense myself, and feel happy and relaxed after a drink.However, too much isn’t good for you either, because it dehydrates you and can be hard on your liver. It’s probably better to receive some other treatment for depression and only drink in moderation.
If alcohol is a depressant, why does my heart race when I’m drunk?
Q: I’ve read low doses of alcohol can increase heart rate by a few beats per minute, but I find after 4 or 5 beers my pulse rate goes up to what it would normally be during a cardio workout. What gives?
A: Here’s how heart rate works: your pacemaker cells in the heart will initiate beats all on their own, and if left alone the heart will beat very quickly. Normally at rest your brain sends signals to the heart to tell it to beat more slowly (or faster if you’re exercising but it’s nearly always slower than your pacemaker cells would go if left alone).Alcohol is a depressant. It interferes with the signals sent by the nerves to slow down the heart. Your pacemaker cells are then free to go as fast as they would like. In high enough doses, this can cause arrhythmias, heart failure, and sudden death.Side note: during my google search I ran accross this article about how people who have much higher heart rates when they drink are at an increased risk of alcoholism.
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