A hangover, that sick feeling you get in the morning after a night of partying and drinking, is a natural consequence of having consumed too much alcohol. What is the best way to handle it? There are a lot of myths about how to get rid of a hangover, which do not really help and may even worsen the condition of the person suffering from hangover, so it is important to learn about the myths and understand why they don’t work.
The best way to handle a hangover is to understand its nature. The sick feeling, the nausea, the vomiting, the thirst, and the splitting headache that a person having a hangover experiences is caused primarily by dehydration. The ethanol in alcoholic drinks has a dehydrating effect on the body. Alcohol also causes a lower than normal level of blood glucose, which contributes to the bad feeling during the hangover.
The first step in getting rid of a hangover is to address the primary cause–the dehydration. Drink a lot of water to help replenish the water in your body. Do not take pain relievers because they won’t help you; some medications like acetaminophen may even worsen the bad feelings and cause damage to your liver.
Contrary to what you’ve seen in movie scenes and what other people say, never consume coffee. Why? Coffee is a diuretic, it contributes to dehydration–the last thing that a person suffering from a hangover needs. Eat fruits instead, like bananas, which help in replenishing the lost electrolytes and potassium in your body. Banana is rich in potassium and other nutrients. Drinking natural fruit juice will help also. Eat eggs, poached, hard-boiled,etc. The cysteine in eggs helps in breaking down acetaldehyde, the toxin associated with alcohol metabolism and hangovers.
Take a hot shower, it has a relaxing effect on the body and will help you sleep through the worst of the hangover period.
But, of course, the best cure is prevention. If you can prevent a hangover (by not consuming too much alcohol), then do it. If it is unavoidable during a night of partying, you can use the previous tips. Also, before you go to sleep after partying and drinking, try to drink a lot of water, it will help lessen the dehydration that’s caused by the alcohol you’ve ingested.
Tweet This Post