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Having a hangover often fills people with dread - especially when they have to go to work the day after a heavy drinking session the night before.
And now scientists have revealed why going to work with a hangover can make doing a job such a slog.
According to researchers, those suffering from a hangover have a reduced ability to make decisions - making it more difficult to switch between tasks and retain information.
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The team at the Addiction and Mental Health Group at the University of Bath has said drinking heavy in the evening affects how people plan, set goals and make decisions the following morning.
The research, published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine, follows up from a report from the same team that claimed hangovers cost the UK economy £1.4bn per year in wasted productivity.
The new study involved 35 people aged 18 to 30, who were asked to carry out a series of tasks while on a hangover.
Researchers assessed their ability to change tasks, update and process information, and guide and plan their behaviour.
They found that when the test subjects were experiencing a hangover, their ability to retain information in their short-term memory was reduced, as was their ability to switch between tasks and focus on goals.
Craig Gunn, of the University of Bath's Department of Psychology, said: "We know that hangovers can have a big economic cost, but we did not know how hangover affects our ability to switch attention from one task to another, update information in our mind, and maintain focus on set goals.
"Our study asked participants to complete tasks measuring these processes when they had a hangover and again when they had not consumed alcohol.
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"The results suggest that all of these processes are impaired by a hangover, which could have consequences for other aspects of our lives."
According to the authors of the research, the findings could have important implications during the lockdown, after Alcohol Change UK estimated that 8.6 million more UK adults were drinking more frequently.
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Dr Sally Adams, from the Addiction and Mental Health Group at the university, said: "Anecdotally, we may experience reduced performance of daily tasks when we are hungover, such as planning activities and dividing our attention between several tasks.
"Our data shows that this impairment is likely the result of reduced capability in several core executive functions, which are important for tasks such as workplace performance and driving."
The article, The Effects of Alcohol Hangover on Executive Functions, is published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine.
