‘Doc, my head is pound­ing!’ You’re parched and the sun is too bright, the world is too loud, and all you want to do is crawl un­der the cov­ers and hi­ber­nate un­til the feel­ing’s gone.

“You wake up af­ter a fête night and life hits you like a ton of bricks.”

Hang­overs can be a nui­sance at best, and crip­pling at worst. But we’ve got news for you—you don’t have to suf­fer through it. The rea­son why hang­overs feel so ter­ri­ble is that your body is in­cred­i­bly de­hy­drat­ed.

Re­searchers are still un­sure about the ex­act caus­es of hang­overs. How­ev­er, sev­er­al stud­ies con­clude that mod­i­fi­able bi­o­log­i­cal fac­tors, such as de­hy­dra­tion, gas­troin­testi­nal ir­ri­ta­tion, in­flam­ma­tion, chem­i­cal ex­po­sure, and dis­rupt­ed sleep are like­ly con­trib­u­tors to the symp­toms. Some re­search al­so sug­gests that ge­net­ics may play a role.

But while hang­over cures are a com­plete myth, there are a few things you can do to counter the al­co­hol de­hy­dra­tion and stay hy­drat­ed enough to avoid one or at least lim­it its crush­ing ef­fects.

How does hang­over de­hy­drate you?

There are a cou­ple of rea­sons.

One of the main caus­es of a hang­over is de­hy­dra­tion, and drink­ing al­co­hol de­hy­drates you faster thanks to its di­uret­ic ef­fects.

For one thing, al­co­hol de­creas­es the pro­duc­tion of the an­tid­i­uret­ic hor­mone (ADH). ADH is the hor­mone that helps your kid­neys man­age your body’s wa­ter con­tent; it tells your kid­neys when to con­serve wa­ter. When you drink al­co­hol and ADH pro­duc­tion is slowed, your kid­neys don’t know to con­serve wa­ter, so they pro­duce more urine in­stead.

An­oth­er rea­son, some­times a night of par­ty­ing re­sults in you spend­ing the night next to the toi­let. Vom­it­ing al­most al­ways re­sults in de­hy­dra­tion, and if you’re al­ready de­hy­drat­ed from drink­ing al­co­hol, throw­ing up will on­ly make it worse.

Hang­over symp­toms can in­clude:

• Fa­tigue, weak­ness, dizzi­ness

• Headaches, mus­cle aches

• In­creased thirst, sweat­ing

• Sen­si­tiv­i­ty to light and sound

• Ir­ri­tabil­i­ty, anx­i­ety

• Nau­sea, stom­ach pain

• In­creased blood pres­sure

The symp­toms that oc­cur dur­ing a hang­over may vary sig­nif­i­cant­ly from per­son to per­son. Fur­ther­more, the same amount of al­co­hol will af­fect peo­ple dif­fer­ent­ly, so it is im­pos­si­ble to pre­dict how much al­co­hol will cause hang­over symp­toms.

Some types of al­co­hol may al­so in­crease a per­son’s risk of ex­pe­ri­enc­ing hang­over symp­toms. For in­stance, re­search in­di­cates that con­geners, which are present in dark-coloured spir­its such as bour­bon, may wors­en a hang­over.

If a per­son no­tices worse symp­toms af­ter drink­ing wine, par­tic­u­lar­ly white wine, it is pos­si­ble that they have an in­tol­er­ance to sul­phites.

So how do we pre­vent this?

BE­FORE THE PAR­TY

1. En­sure you have a meal be­fore leav­ing home.

Drink­ing on an emp­ty stom­ach will speed up your blood al­co­hol lev­els so you get both drunk and de­hy­drat­ed faster. Be­fore your night out, make sure you have a good meal with carbs, such as sweet pota­to, com­plex carbs, nuts, legumes etc. This will help your body to slow down the amount of al­co­hol go­ing in­to your sys­tem.

DUR­ING THE PAR­TY

2. As a rule, it takes one hour for your body to process one al­co­holic drink, so mak­ing your drink last longer, and there­fore drink­ing less and more slow­ly will help keep you hy­drat­ed. Drink­ing too much al­co­hol too quick­ly means your body won’t be able to process it fast enough.

3. Switch it up

Drink a glass of wa­ter in-be­tween glass­es of al­co­hol. Opt for sparkling wa­ter in­stead of ton­ic, or go for a cock­tail that us­es co­conut wa­ter. If you have ac­cess to fruits and veg­gies that have a high-wa­ter con­tent, like wa­ter­mel­on, cu­cum­bers, berries and cel­ery, these are help­ful. You could al­so use fruits and veg­gies as gar­nish­es for your drink.

4. Choose a low­er al­co­hol con­tent

Choos­ing a low­er – not nec­es­sar­i­ly a low – al­co­hol con­tent drink can help you stay hy­drat­ed for longer. Drinks with a high al­co­hol con­tent will de­hy­drate you more se­vere­ly and more quick­ly. So the less al­co­hol that’s in your sys­tem, the eas­i­er it is to stay hy­drat­ed. Drink in mod­er­a­tion.

WHEN THE PAR­TY’S OVER

Can cof­fee help?

Cur­rent­ly, there is no cure for a hang­over, and con­sum­ing cof­fee is un­like­ly to pro­vide much, if any, re­lief. Sim­i­lar to al­co­hol, caf­feine, which is present in cof­fee, is a di­uret­ic. There­fore, it may fur­ther de­hy­drate the body, po­ten­tial­ly pro­long­ing or wors­en­ing cer­tain symp­toms of a hang­over.

5. Time is the on­ly sure cure for a hang­over. In the mean­time, here are a few things you can do to help your­self feel bet­ter:

• ↓Sip wa­ter, co­conut wa­ter or fruit juice to pre­vent de­hy­dra­tion. Re­sist any temp­ta­tion to treat your hang­over with more al­co­hol. It’ll on­ly make you feel worse.

• ↓Have a snack. Bland foods, such as toast and crack­ers, may boost your blood sug­ar and set­tle your stom­ach. Soup can help re­place lost salt and potas­si­um.

• ↓Take a pain re­liev­er. A stan­dard dose of an over-the-counter pain re­liev­er may ease your headache. Note as­pirin can ir­ri­tate your stom­ach.

• ↓IV hy­dra­tion if the hang­over is se­vere, as rec­om­mend­ed by your health­care pro­fes­sion­al. When you drink flu­ids, your body is on­ly able to ab­sorb about half of what you con­sume. IV hy­dra­tion, on the oth­er hand, boasts a 100% ab­sorp­tion rate. That means that you know your body is get­ting all of the nu­tri­ents it needs, and quick­ly.

Af­ter all is said and done, the sim­plest and most ef­fec­tive method to help hang­overs is man­ag­ing your al­co­hol con­sump­tion, be mod­er­ate and main­tain your hy­dra­tion via your wa­ter in­take.

You will not on­ly be able to pre­vent the hang­over, but en­joy “Fête af­ter Fête”.

For more in­for­ma­tion: https://www.may­oclin­ic.org/dis­eases-con­di­tions/hang­overs