So you’ve just spent a fun evening of drinking, revelry, and shenanigans with your friends. The drinks were being poured faster than you could down them. Before you knew it, your buzz got a little sloppier than you expected. That’s when you saw the writing on the wall decided to wrap up the evening with a few pints of good ‘ol H2O. But, you still wake up the next morning to the worst pounding headache you’ve ever felt in your life. It feels like someone is slowly pounding a railroad spike into your skull to the beat of Aha’s “Take On Me”. What can you possibly do to get rid of this awful hangover? Here are a few options.
Sleep
One of the easiest ways to overcome a hangover is just to go back to sleep. According to Raj Dasgupta, an assistant professor at the University of Southern California and a fellow at the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, while you’re sleeping, your liver is working overtime to cleanse your body of all of the harmful alcohol you put into it. But, he doesn’t guarantee that your drunken sleep will be restful.
“Sleeping does help out in that it gives your liver time to do its job, but there’s multiple awakenings throughout the night, so you’re not getting good, refreshing sleep,” he told Mel Magazine. Now you know; so if you wake up hungover and wonder whether it’s chill to go back for another visit with the Sandman, follow your instincts and pass out.
Plus, you won’t feel the terrible, earth-shattering headache when you’re in dreamland frolicking with unicorns and your middle school crush. Just make sure that before you hop back in the sack, you gulp down some more water and maybe take some aspirin or ibuprofen and definitely eat something containing thiamine. “In order for the liver to do its job, essential enzymes such as thiamine are needed to metabolize the alcohol,” Dasgupta said. You can get this buy eating eggs and steak.
Hair of the dog
Hair of the dog is a reference to the act of applying the hair of a dog that bit you to the wound. At some point, people actually believed that you could cure the wound by literally applying the hair to the area and then wrapping it up. Obviously, that didn’t work well and probably actually caused more infections.
The modern-day version actually might work though. It’s a widely held belief that hangovers are caused by dehydration. But, some people think they are actually caused by Methanol poisoning. According to Adam Rogers, author of Proof: The Science of Booze, if you’re suffering from methanol toxicity, you can alleviate it by imbibing more alcohol.
“The notion is if a hangover is methanol toxicity, you’re going to have another drink and the ethanol displaces the methanol off the enzyme and you will feel better,” Rogers told The Independent. Doing this will likely get rid of your hangover for a little while, but you need to be careful. If your plan is to slam Bloody Marys until you can no longer feel pain, you need to reconsider. Instead, a little alcohol (to get you out of withdrawal), followed by water and (maybe) an aspirin is the way to go.
Pickle juice
Some people believe that drinking pickle juice has more health benefits than sports drinks like Gatorade and Powerade. The salty brine that is used to pickle cucumbers and various other vegetables is full of salt and electrolytes. It might not be as pleasant as your favorite sports drink, but it will probably work faster to get your body back to normal. Plus, you can shock all your friends by opening up a pickle jar and chugging it in front of them.
Drinking pickle brine to cure a hangover isn’t anything new, they’ve been doing it in Poland for years. “Pickle brine has got lots of natural vitamin C,” Żaneta Jamrozik, a student from Krakow told MUNCHIES. “To us, it’s the same as having a cup of tea in Britain. But what makes it good for a hangover is the sourness. It kills the horrible aftertaste of any alcoholic mix and gives you an energetic kick.”
Sex
This cure might not have the scientific backing of some of the other cures, but we don’t think that will dissuade you from trying it. Besides just giving you something else to do besides lying in bed trying not to think about the excruciating pain in your temples, alcohol consumption is known to lower testosterone in men according to EliteDaily. Luckily, sex can help bring those hormone levels back to normal. Plus, if you get really sweaty, you might just sweat out all the toxins. So there’s that too.
Greasy food
Science has already told us that eating a greasy burger or a plate of French fries with gravy won’t actually make us feel better after a night of heavy drinking. But fat is known to coat your stomach so if you can eat a rich, fatty meal before you go out drinking, you’ll likely feel better in the morning. And if you didn’t, at least you’ll get to eat some tasty food before you spend the rest of the day in bed miserably catching up on your favorite Netflix shows. If you’re already hungover, some comfort foods will actually help alleviate your hangover symptoms. According to TheHealthyDrinker, eggs are one of the best hangover foods ever. That’s because they are chockfull of amino acids that will help your liver with detoxification.
Coffee and pain medication
There’s no shame in turning to over-the-counter painkillers the morning after a night of drinking. Scientific research shows that hangovers are the result of an inflammatory response by your nervous system. Taking an aspirin can make you feel better when paired with water. But, if you really want to feel better pair your aspirin with a hot cup of coffee. Caffeine and anti-inflammatories are scientifically proven to battle the effects of ethanol on your system, according to The Telegraph.
Water
Alcohol is a known diuretic. Chances are, if you feel awful the day after a night of heavy drinking, it’s because you didn’t drink enough water. If you can chug a few pints of water before bed, you’ll probably feel better in the morning. If the night got away from you and you forgot to drink water, make yourself chug a few glasses every time you get up to use the bathroom. Plus, drinking water will help flush the harmful toxins out of your body. It’s probably the only hangover cure that will definitely work. It just takes a little time and you’ll be back to your normal self, ready to start the drinking marathon over again that night.
