Have you been out drinking last night? Are you still feeling hungover this morning? Are you looking for some ideas on how to cure your hangover? Or just want to know what foods to eat that are good and bad? I’ve had my fair share of hangovers and have tried many different hangover cures.
What’s your go-to hangover cure?
We all know the best cure for a hangover is to not get one in the first place. But, let’s be real: that’s just not going to happen during the holidays. You’re going to overindulge, you’re going to throw up, and you’re going to spend a day lying on your couch in the fetal position.
It may seem like there’s no way out of this inevitable cycle of self-destruction, but if we pool our collective wisdom, maybe we can come up with some good hangover cures. We already have a few ideas:
Drink water, eat carbs: This is how my roommate and I survive our annual Christmas Eve party, where half the fun is seeing how much we can drink before passing out. Before we go to bed, we drink two glasses of water and eat bread (carbs help you absorb alcohol). When we wake up, we take Tylenol and drink more water and Gatorade. Then we sleep again until it’s time for Christmas dinner.
Don’t mix your drinks: Our resident wine expert says that if you stick with one type of alcohol throughout the night, it’ll be easier on your body (and your head) than if you switch between beer, liquor and
The internet is full of conflicting information about the best hangover cures
The internet is full of conflicting information about the best hangover cures. In our experience, the best hangover cures are completely free and highly effective: water, sleep and coffee.
Here’s how they work:
Water helps your body recover from dehydration. Alcohol is a diuretic, which means that it causes you to urinate more frequently. Because you’re losing more water than usual, your body also loses vital salts and minerals.
Sleep allows your body to rest and recuperate. You may feel like you need to keep drinking or get active again to shake off a hangover, but your body needs time to recover from the effects of alcohol, so give it some rest.
Coffee can help with headaches by constricting blood vessels in your brain. It also provides a helpful energy boost if you’ve been sleeping through the morning.
Some people swear by drinking more alcohol
Though hangovers are a universal experience, they’re not very well understood. There’s no universally accepted definition of what a hangover is, and there’s no cure that works for everyone. Researchers have made some headway in understanding the underlying causes of hangovers, however, and we know that certain factors — such as alcohol content, congeners and concentration — play a major role.
Some people swear by drinking more alcohol for the best hangover cures. The common belief is that having a drink in the morning will help you cure last night’s excesses. But does this work?
Research into the effects of “hair of the dog” shows that it probably doesn’t help with hangovers — at least not much. It may temporarily suppress symptoms by numbing your brain with more alcohol, but it won’t help your body recover from its toxic state more quickly or effectively than letting nature take its course.
Some believe the hair of the dog will do the trick and munch on pickles to absorb the salt they need
From the scrambled eggs at Mom’s Diner to the Bloody Mary at some bar, Americans have their pick of the best hangover foods.
But for many around the world, it’s not a greasy spoon breakfast that does the job. It’s a pickle.
Yes, pickles are a common remedy for hangovers in other countries besides America. They’re eaten in Japan, Germany and Poland. Pickled cabbage is also popular in Russia.
To explain this, let’s get to the bottom of why we have hangovers. The symptoms — headache, fatigue, nausea — come from dehydration, low blood sugar and a build-up of toxic by-products after your liver metabolizes alcohol into acetic acid (the main ingredient of vinegar). Some believe these effects can be remedied with more alcohol (another reason for the Bloody Mary), but that’s no cure-all.
What does help is sodium: Salt helps replenish electrolytes lost from sweating and drinking too much water to dilute the alcohol in your system. It also helps you retain water to combat dehydration. Sure enough, pickles are among the saltiest foods around.
People get very strongly divided on what is best for a hangover
For me personally, the first thing I reach for when I wake up after a night of far too much fun is some dark chocolate, as it has healthy fats to ease the hangover and is delicious. However, this will certainly not suit all tastes. Nevertheless, we want to know what you think works best for you.