There’s nothing more fun than drinking before a flight. You have a few hours to kill and decide to past the time and grab a glass of your favorite alcoholic beverage. If you are planning to drink before leaving for your destination country, think twice. Drinking on board or before a flight is a bad idea and should not be encouraged. Here are the reasons you should not indulge in drinking prior to a flight.
Drinking On A Plane Good Or Bad Idea
You may feel more intoxicated
At 36,000 feet, you can’t expect breathable air. This is why airplanes are pressurized. Even if stationary, cabin air has far less breathable oxygen than on the ground. While studies have revealed that drinking booze doesn’t affect your blood alcohol content, it can still be metabolized quickly and can exacerbate the effects of altitude sickness.
You can’t board your connecting flight
Even if you drank just two bottles of light beer before your flight, the effect can be greater at a higher altitude. Your only hope is that a long walk to the gates to your connecting flight will help clear your head. If worst comes to worst, you may not be able to make it to your connecting flight. The guard at the gate may not allow you to board if you appear intoxicated.
You might get arrested
Aside from not being allowed to board on the plane to your connecting flight, you might also be escorted out of the airport and straight to the security office for questioning or even detention.
Motion sickness is a lot worse
Drinking alcohol before a flight can give you an unsettling feeling in your stomach due to pressurized oxygen.
Alcohol and your brain
After drinking booze or any other alcoholic drink, it will need 30 to 60 can mean you are expecting your body to cope with more alcohol in lesser time than your liver can actually process. In this case, excess alcohol tends to travel through your bloodstream un-metabolized and unchanged. The concentration of alcohol in the bloodstream increases.
As alcohol makes its way through your blood, it reaches the brain and acts as a sedative, slowing down transmission and impulses between the nerve cells, which is responsible for your thoughts and movement. In addition, alcohol increases the flow of fluids through your kidneys increasing the possibility of dehydration.
Alcohol And Your Brain
What does alcohol do to you during your flight?
During a flight, the relative humidity at high altitude is very low. It is believed that the humidity is lower than that of a desert. When flying 8 to 10 hours, you are prone to severe dehydration. A 10-hour flight can cause loss of up to 2 liters of water in adults.
Drinking and flying simultaneously may have a serious effect. The combined effects may include itching in the legs or uneasiness or the urge to frequently urinate. That is why it is recommended to avoid drinking too much while on a plane.
Aside from that, cabin pressure in a plane is lower compared to most of the places on the planet. With the decreased pressure, the ability of the human body to absorb oxygen also decreases. This may result in a condition called flight headedness or hypoxia. This is the same feeling you will have after drinking on a flight.
One of the drawbacks of drinking alcohol aboard a plane is that it can make you feel intoxicated easily. When this happens, you will exhibit aggressive behavior that other passengers may not like. Surely, you don’t want to make a fuss while flying. If you are drinking, avoid eating salty foods as this will only worsen dehydration.