The Weird Reason You’re Tipsy—Even If You Haven’t Been Drinking (2024)

The next time you hit the bar but decide tostay sober, you might want to hold your nose. According to new research,you could still be affected by the smell of all the alcohol being consumed, even if you’re not drinking a drop.

The study, published in the journal Psychopharmacology, found that merely inhaling the scent of alcohol lowers your inhibitions and can make you feel a little tipsy.

To test how getting a whiff of whiskey could impact our brains and behavior, a team of researchers had a group of participants wear face masks that had been treated with either booze or a non-alcoholic citrus solution, while performing an impulse-testing computer task.

All participants were instructed to press a button when they saw either the letter “K” or an image of a beer bottle flash on the screen.

Sounds easy, but those inhaling alcohol were more likely to mess up and press the button at the wrong time. In other words, they showed poor impulse control.

Obviously, you’re not going to get wasted off of the smell of alcohol alone.

But the findings do suggest that you might decide to drink more—or have a drink when you weren’t planning to in the first place—simply because the smell of the alcohol has lowered your ability to control yourself.

The article Just the Smell of Alcohol Can Make You Tipsy, Says New Study originally ran on WomensHealthMag.com.