We’ve all been there. Regardless of how much experience you might have with your drinking, you can’t escape a rough hangover after a long night in town. Drinks are great if you know how to handle them, but they take a toll on your body. The more you drink, the more you’ll feel bad tomorrow morning. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to know what the day after looks like when you mix a couple of beers and a few shots of whiskey.
But no matter how bad they might be — for some people, they’re living hell — you can beat them if you know certain hangover remedies. The best thing about these cures and tips is that they are pretty simple. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. Allow us to list down six ways how to recover from a hangover, and you’ll be one step ahead of your fellow drinkers the next time you hit the local pub. And don’t worry — you’ll thank us later.
The Act of Drinking and Its Effects on You
A hangover is a set of horrible symptoms that arise after drinking excessive amounts of alcohol. But the reason we say horrible isn’t just physical. This discomfort also affects people mentally, leading to poor performance in both professional and private life. Luckily, no hangover lasts more than a day.
The symptoms come about when there’s too much alcohol in your blood vessels. This is usually in the morning after a hard night of drinking. Of course, the symptoms of a hangover may vary from person to person, but they typically include the following:
- Rapid heartbeat
- Fatigue and overall weakness
- Depression and anxiety
- Dry mouth and thirstiness
- Dizziness and shakiness
- Nausea and vomiting
- Strong head and muscle aches
Unfortunately, no formula would suggest how bad of a hangover you’ll have if you drink this or that. Moreover, there’s no certain amount that will make you feel sick after alcoholic drinks. You can suffer from nausea and a strong headache from red wine just as much as from beer and hard drinks like spirits and liquors.
Drink Lots of Water
The major problem with alcohol is that it’s behind dehydration. Firstly, it’s a diuretic, meaning that it makes you pee and thus lose water. And by emptying yourself, you also lose electrolytes, which make your body work properly. On the other hand, excessive alcohol consumption leads to nausea and vomiting. These, in turn, lead to losing water again as you puke your guts out. The only way to deal with this is to drink more water.
You can and should consume water while drinking alcohol. Of course, we’re not suggesting that you water down your drinks. Instead, you should hydrate yourself in between two shots of strong liquor or even beer. However, if you don’t, and you experience the worst hangover the day after, you should, again, drink water. Not only will you hydrate your body, but you will also make yourself urinate more, emptying your body of excess alcohol.
Take Lots of Carbohydrates
Next up, you should consider eating more carbs. Namely, carbohydrates slowly release sugar into your bloodstream, which is a proven way of relieving fatigue. There’s an actual study that suggests this. It claims that people who eat breakfast that consists of carbohydrates have a better mood after binge-drinking the night before. The best way to do so is to consume oatmeal in the morning after a night out.
Eat Spice Soup or Drink Coffee
Another way to avoid a hangover after hard drinking is to eat soup and drink coffee. Your best bet is a bowl of chicken noodle soup. Yep! The one you consume to fight off the flu or common cold. The reason is simple: chicken noodle soup has lots of sodium, which, in turn, means rehydration.
On the other hand, coffee is great for fighting inflammation, which is common during heavy hangovers. But that’s not all. When you’re experiencing a hangover, the chances are that you’re less aware and simply discombobulated. However, coffee can help with that, making things clearer and allowing you to focus on your daily tasks.
Sweat Yourself
Although it’s not the most pleasant experience, sweating is actually quite beneficial for our bodies. This is especially true when we intake lots of harmful substances like alcohol. People who have troubles with alcohol addiction are no strangers to night sweats. But don’t worry — we’re not trying to scare you. We only suggest that you should also try it out if you’re going through a heavy hangover.
In essence, sweating is the way our body cools off. It’s a mechanism that’s opposite to having shivers, which represent muscle contractions as we try to warm up. Either way, while cooling off, we release sweat drops that are full of harmful substances. As such, alcohol will come out of us, leading to less severe hangover symptoms. To do so, you can go out to your yard during summer, turn the heating up in the winter, or just roll inside a blanket.
Take Pain Relievers
Yet another way to nullify the effects of alcohol is to use over-the-counter medicine. You should take anti-inflammatory drugs, as they’re great at relieving hangover symptoms. The best of the bunch are aspirin and ibuprofen. If you think about it, we use them in other scenarios, which include head and muscle aches, don’t we? They reduce pain and up the blood flow that’s been compromised due to excess alcohol.
Of course, taking meds is no joke. You shouldn’t eat aspirin like candy. Not only is no drug good for you in excess amounts, but it can also affect your digestive system. This will only induce more nausea and stomach pain, which are already symptoms of hangovers.
More Sleep and More Rest
Lastly, we need to talk about sleep. Another problem you might experience after heavy drinking is that you can’t sleep well. You might get up sporadically to drink some water as you dehydrate. On the other hand, your head might ache so much that you can’t relax and sink into your dreams. All this results in a lack of quality and amount of sleep.
The only solution to this is to combine the previous hangover tips and try to relax as much as possible. Sleep in or take naps during the day. Either way, don’t force yourself into doing anything if you can afford that. This means taking a day off from work and rolling inside a blanket with your TV off and the blinds on your windows down.
