Your Favorite Cocktail Makes You Feel Sexy, According To Science

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The term “liquid courage” exists for a reason. Drinking liquor can turn anyone who might be shy into someone with confidence, or at least someone willing to be impulsive. We know confidence usually comes with drinking, but according to a new study published in the online journal BMJ Open, certain alcohols are linked to emotions like feeling more energized, relaxed, sexy, confident, tired, aggressive, ill, restless and tearful.

The study surveyed 30,000 18 to 34-year-olds spanning across 21 countries, all who had consumed each of the specified types of alcohol within the past year. All of the answers to the survey questions, provided in 11 languages, showed that the participants attributed certain emotions to different types of alcohol. The responses differed by gender and category of alcohol.

The study found that women were significantly more likely to associate certain feelings, minus aggression, with types of alcohol. The answers also differed based on age, where the 18 to 24-year-olds felt more sexy, energized and confident when drinking outside of the house.

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Heavy drinkers were more likely to select drinks associated with feelings of tearfulness and aggression when they were home or out. The findings indicate that the more dependent drinkers relied on alcohol to generate positive emotions associated with drinking and these participants were five times more likely to feel energized than the low-risk drinkers.

Out of all of the alcohol, spirits were the least likely to be associated with feeling relaxed at 20 percent and red wine was the type of alcohol most likely to produce a relaxed feeling at 53 percent. Many of the spirit drinkers, 30 percent, associated negative feelings like aggression with spirits. Over half of the participants, about 59 percent, associated spirits with energy and confidence and about 43 percent linked spirits with feeling sexy.

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While this is purely an observational study, meaning no official conclusions can be drawn about direct cause and effect, the researchers aimed to help explain just how linked our emotions are with alcohol, even though other factors might be at play.

Bottom line: If you’re big on the gin and tonics and you consider yourself to have some game when it comes to dating, there may be more science behind it than you think.