Prevention is the Best Medicine.

Most drinkers have experienced the dreaded hangover at some point in their lives.  The nausea, pounding headaches, exhaustion, body ache, and sensitivity to lights and sounds is certainly no walk in the park.  Yet drinkers invariably return to the sauce within days or weeks even after the most brutal hangovers.  Do we drink to excess because it’s human nature to want to alter your consciousness?  Or is it because of pure stupidity? 

Well, it’s probably a little bit of both – but if we demonstrate a little bit of intelligence and planning this Holiday weekend, we will all be able to party without the nasty side effects the next morning.

Avoiding a hangover is accomplished by a two-part strategic initiative:
 

1.  Hangover Prevention.  This is everything you will do before, up to, during, and after drinking to avoid the devastating effects of a hangover as much as possible.

2.  Hangover Cures.  Cures are all about what you’ll need to do the next morning to ensure that you’re back to normal by the end of the day.

It’s important to understand why we get hangovers in order to properly execute a prevention plan. A hangover is what your body experiences when you’ve overdosed on alcohol.  Hangover sufferers feel the way they do because of the build up of toxins and impurities in the body from consuming too much alchohol wreaks havoc on your nerves.  Combine too many impurities with severe dehydration and the depletion of essential vitamins and minerals, and you’ve got yourself a recipe for a miserable morning after.

Obviously, the best way to avoid a hangover is to not drink at all.  The second best way to avoid a hangover is through prevention.

Prevention Do’s and Don’ts

Do:

1.  Know how much you can handle and don’t exceed that amount.  If it takes three (3) beers for you to start feeling tipsy, don’t plan on drinking 12.  This sounds pretty obvious, but you’d be amazed by how much difference it makes if you know how much you can handle, and if you plan to cut yourself off by the end of the evening at that limit.  The cut-off plan will help you to naturally pace yourself, but without it, it’s all too easy to get carried away and drink to excess.

2.  Take a multi-vitamin, or a vitamin B complex.  Drinking alcohol depletes the B Vitamins especially, as well as Vitamin A, and Vitamin C.  Supplementing your vitamin intake a few hours before you plan to drink may help mitigate the effects of vitamin depletion.

3.  Eat breads, and oily greesy foods before drinking.  Eating these foods before drinking will help absorb alcohol and prevent it from entering your bloodstream too quickly. The grease coating your stomach wall will act as a barrier prevening quick absorption of alcohol into the bloodstream. Better yet, try to continue snacking while you’re out drinking.

4.  Choose light colored drinks.  All alcoholic drinks contain something called "congeners."  Congeners are what helps give certain types of alcohol their unique flavor.  They are also responsible for the cause of many hangover symptoms. Darker alcoholic drinks such as whiskey, red wine, and brandy have the most hangover causing congeners.  Light, or clear drinks such as gin and vodka contain the least amount of congeners.

5.  When drinking liquor, opt for top-shelf.  Higher quality liquor is often referred to as "top-shelf."  Top-shelf liquors contain fewer impurities than low quality, budget brand, and house-special liquors.  This is because the filtration process is usually much more extensive and thorough in top-shelf brands.

6.  Stick with one type of alcoholic drink.  Mixing beer with wine or liquor is never a good idea.

7.  Hydrate Yourself.  Drink a glass of water before you start drinking, and in between drinks.  Don’t worry, this will not diminish the good feelings that having a few drinks will give you, but it will help prevent the worst hangover contributor – dehydration.

8.  Stay awake at least one hour after your last drink and before going to bed.  When you go to sleep, your metabolism slows down, which in turn slows the elimination of toxins from your body.  Staying awake an hour after drinking and before going to bed can have a significant impact on your likelihood of suffering from a hangover.

9.  Drink a large glass of water and take an aspirin or ibuprofen before bed.  Always, always, always remember to have a glass of water before going to sleep.  Dehydration is the worst culprit of hangover pain, and a glass of water before bed goes a long way to prevent it.  An aspirin or ibuprofen will help relieve any pain you may experience the next morning, if you’ve managed to fall victim to hangover despite your preventitive measures.

10. Have morning-after supplies ready just in case.  Be ready for the morning after with bottled water, mixed fruit, breads, and sports drinks.

Don’t:

1.  Do not drink on an empty stomach.  Drinking without food in your stomach results in almost immediate alcohol absorption into the body, and will put you on the fast-track to a miserable hangover.

2.  Do not mix drinks.  Stick with one type of drink, and no more.  This is more important that most people realize.  Each type of alcohol has it’s own unique range of impurities and toxins.  Drinking a variety of alcoholic beverages will introduce a broader range of impurities and toxins into your body.  The more impurities, the worse the hangover.

3.  Avoid mixed drinks with sugary/syrupy mixers.  The sugar found in mixers (the stuff used to make dacquiris, pina coladas, house margaritas) raises your blood sugar, and the resulting sugar crash, combined with excessive alcohol greatly compounds the side effects of a hangover.

4.  Avoid dark alcohol.  Dark alcohol contains more congeners than light alcohol.  Congerers  are the chemical elements that result in the dreaded hangover experience.  Brandy, red-wine, and whiskey are the worst culprits.

5.  Do not smoke cigarettes.  This is a tough one for a lot of part-time smokers, and probably impossible to expect from smokers.  But, if you can avoid cigarettes, do so at all costs.  Cigarettes introduce many more impurities and toxins into your body than drinking alone, and will always lead to a much worse hangover.  Imagine all of the nasty symptoms typically associated with a hangover.  Now add the disgusting symptom of ashtray-mouth.  Yuck. 

6.  Don’t drink caffeinated beverages.  Caffeine is a diuretic and compounds the effects of dehydration.  This means that you should not consume drinks such as Irish Coffee and Energy Drinks + Vodka.

7.  Do not drink cheap/low quality alcohol.  Spring for the good stuff, it’ll be worth it the next morning.  Cheaper, low-quality brands have a less extensive filtration process than the good stuff, meaning there are typically more hangover causing impurities in the cheap stuff.

8.  Avoid carbonated mixers.  Carbonated mixers such as soda-pop, tonic water, and soda water increase the rate of absorbtion of alcohol into the body.

9. Do not take acetaminophen (Tylenol).  Tylenol is tough on the liver.  Alcohol is tough on the liver.  Combine the two, and you’ll have a very unhealthy mix.

10.  Do not binge drink.

Next Morning Cures:

Do:

1. Drink a tall glass of water with an asprin or ibuprofen.  Rehydration is critical.

2. Sleep if you can – avoid bright lights, loud noise. Sleeping in a dark, quiet room will help alleviate painful hangover symptoms.

3. Replenish throughout the day with a sports drink (Gatorade, Powerade, etc.).  Sports drinks such as Gatorade actually help the body rehydrate better than water, and are great for replenishing essential salts and electrolytes.

4. Eat light, bland foods – fruit, bananas, bread.  Your body will be able to handle light foods better than heavy, greasy stuff.  Heavy meals may lead to vomiting.

5. Take a multivitamin or B vitamin complex.  Your body will be deficient in important vitamins the next morning.  Adding them back to your system will help alleviate the symptoms.

Don’t:

1.  Do not drink coffee in the morning.  Coffee is a diuretic, and will only serve to compound your dehydration.

2.  Do not drink alcohol to ease the symptoms.  Having a Bloody Mary in the morning is a popular practice to relieve hangover pain, but introducing more alcohol into your body to relieve the symptoms assiciated with drinking too much alcohol is just plain silly.  It may help numb the pain, but it will delay your recovery.

3.  Do not drive, operate heavy machinery, etc.  Having a hangover can be just as bad as being intoxicated when it comes to driving and operating machinery.  Your senses are dulled, judgment and depth perception are impaired.  You risk injury to yourself and to others.