Alcohol & CNS: What’s the link?

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Alcohol consumption affects the central nervous system, including the brain, spine, and nerves, causing impaired thinking, movement, balance, memory loss, confusion, emotional instability, and poor decision-making. Alcohol exaggerates emotions and can hinder coordination, making simple tasks difficult to accomplish.

The central nervous system is a part of the body that includes the brain, spine and surrounding nerves, all of which are affected by alcohol consumption. Alcohol and the central nervous system are linked by alcohol’s depressing effects on the mind, emotions, speech, and the ability to judge and make decisions. When alcohol is consumed, central nervous system deterioration follows a routine behavior, ranked first by the inability to think clearly followed by improper movement and lack of balance. Memory loss and confusion are also common symptoms associated with alcohol and the central nervous system, as are emotional outbursts and instability.

There are many known relationships between alcohol and the central nervous system, most of which involve the mind, emotions and physical behavior. The first connection that has been extensively studied is the impaired ability to make wise decisions or judgments. When alcohol is consumed in large quantities, thinking becomes fuzzy and unclear, often resulting in memory loss, confusion, and poor critical thinking skills. Poor decision-making also increases during this period, as proper brain function is hampered and depressed following large amounts of alcohol.

Emotional depression and mood problems also result from alcohol consumption, even though alcohol is perceived as an emotional and physical stimulant. Although emotional outbursts can occur during a drunken or confused state, alcohol is believed to exaggerate emotions and cause people to become volatile and have mixed emotions. Because behavior and decisions often occur as a result of a feeling or emotion, poor decision making will also occur while the central nervous system is depressed by alcohol consumption. Happiness, anger and sadness are common emotions experienced while drinking and are often exaggerated and appear in a specific sequence.

Poor balance and coordination are also common examples of the relationship between alcohol and the central nervous system and often involve clumsiness and poor posture. Because the mind controls all aspects of behavior and physical movement, the depressant action of alcohol can hinder movement and balance. This can also affect areas such as driving or using machines, as coordination is often slowed and fuzzy. Successful execution of simple tasks can often become quite difficult to accomplish as a result of alcohol consumption.




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