If you’ve ever had a night out with the lads or ladies that ended up getting a little wilder than you anticipated, you’ve probably experienced a hangover. In fact, if you’re reading this there’s a good chance you have one right now. The causes of hangovers are actually not yet fully understood, but many factors are believed to take part in the perfect storm that your body endures when you’ve been just a little too abusive to your liver.
The most widely known and scientifically agreed upon cause of a hangover is dehydration. This comes from a number of changes alcohol causes in your body. For one, alcohol itself is a diuretic. This means it flushes water out of your body and makes you urinate more than normal, as you may already be familiar with. Additionally, alcohol actually increases the rate at which water can literally evaporate out of your body, causing you to lose substantial amounts of water to the air around.
Alcohol also has a wide array of other effects on your body. It drops your blood sugar, is metabolized by your body into very toxic chemicals, puts you in a malnourished state, weakens your body’s immune system, and can carry a number of congeners with it that can possibly exacerbate the severity of a hangover. With these multi-faceted causes in mind, let’s look at seven of the best cures to help when you have a hangover.
1. Pedialyte
Pedialyte is an electrolyte drink that was originally intended for very young children. When kids get sick at a young age it can be hard to keep their small volume sufficiently supplied with fluids and electrolytes, so Pedialyte was introduced it was marketed, and still is for the most part, as a way to keep sick children at a safe hydration level.
Before long, however, people began to realize that the hydrating blend of electrolytes and nutrients was incredibly effective in treating hangovers. This is most likely due to its ability to fight dehydration, which is one of the major causes of a hangover. In fact, Pedialyte is so effective at hydrating you that Olympic athletes in countries where Gatorade isn’t available often drink things like this instead.
2. Gatorade
Speaking of Gatorade, as you probably already know it’s also highly effective at combatting dehydration. In addition, Gatorade contains sugars, which can also help fight hangovers. In studies, the correlation between alcohol and low blood sugar has been established, but the mechanism and its impact on hangovers are not. It is still recommended to get some sugar into your body if you are hungover though, as low blood sugar can become a severe condition called hypoglycemia rather easily, and this can lead to coma or even death in worst case scenarios. Gatorade has been a classic hangover treatment for some time and is certainly worth a shot with its electrolyte-rich hydration and sugar.
3. Water Before Bed
One way to prevent a hangover entirely is to try and stay as hydrated as possible before you go to bed. You can do this however you like, but generally, a good foundation is to make sure you drink a large glass of water before laying down to turn in for the night. This alone might not be enough depending on how sensitive you are to alcohol and how much you drank. Many people also recommend alternating between drinking one alcoholic beverage and one glass of water. Not only will this keep you better hydrated throughout the night but can also help slow down your alcohol consumption.
4. Exercise
If exercise sounds like the last thing you want to do when you have a hangover, we don’t blame you. While hangovers can be debilitatingly painful, and it may sound counter-intuitive to try and get a sweat going while potentially dehydrated, if you combine light exercise with good hydration it can help reverse the effects of the alcohol more quickly than lying around. Your body actually metabolizes alcohol and some of the other chemicals in liquor, called congeners, into chemicals that are orders of magnitude more toxic. This can be a contributing factor to the lingering discomfort you feel the morning after drinking. By exercising and drinking plenty of fluids, as mentioned, you give your body an opportunity to sweat some of the toxins out if possible, and getting the blood pumping will help your body filter out the toxins more quickly.
5. Pain Medication
This is a fairly self-explanatory way to alleviate a headache and pain associated with hangovers. Typically, Advil or some other ibuprofen based product is best for this. It is not recommended to take Tylenol, or anything containing acetaminophen after drinking because this painkiller is hepatotoxic. This means that in your body acetaminophen has to pass through the liver and can actually harm the tissue in the liver, much like alcohol. By doubling up on substances that strain your liver’s ability to filter and metabolize toxins you can actually overwhelm it and risk causing permanent or potentially severe damage. For this reason, if taking a painkiller shy away from ones that contain acetaminophen.
6. Coffee
Much like exercise, this is one of the treatments you need to be more cautious with. Caffeine, and therefore coffee, are diuretics just like alcohol, so a large serving can actually dehydrate you more than you already are. If you have coffee every day though it is important to try and get some form of caffeine in your body so that you don’t actually go through a caffeine withdrawal while recovering from a night of drinking. This can make a headache much worse. Caffeine mixed with pain medication can synergistically work to enhance the delivery and effectiveness of the pain relief though, so it may be worth sipping some coffee in the morning. Just remember to also drink something to hydrate you as coffee alone won’t accomplish this.
7. Vitamins
Lastly, one of the best things you can do to treat a hangover is take a multivitamin. This can help with the malnutrition that can be induced by a night of drinking. As a diuretic alcohol can cause you to literally urinate a substantial number of vitamins and nutrients right out of your system. This leaves your immune system vulnerable and your body weakened. Taking vitamins such as B12 and C can help restore your immune system quickly and get your body back into working order as fast as possible. A vitamin along with an electrolyte drink is a great strategy to get your body the nutrients it needs to recover as quickly as possible.
