The hangover happens when the person, who consumed alcohol in an exaggerated way, wakes up the next day feeling headache, pain in the eyes and nauseous. These symptoms are caused by the dehydration that alcohol causes in the body and by excessive work by the liver to eliminate alcohol from the blood.
Alcohol is a diuretic and therefore the person when drinking makes a lot of pee, getting quickly dehydrated. Basically the more pee a person does, the faster they will get drunk, increasing the risk of hangover the next day. So the secret to escape the hangover is not to drink, but if you drink, for each glass of alcohol you should drink 1 glass of water.
How to Identify Hangover
Anyone can get hangover, just have consumed more alcohol than their liver is able to metabolize, and so even those who only drank 1 or 2 doses of alcohol can get drunk and wake up from hangover. Some of the main symptoms of hangover are:
- Strong headache;
- Pain in the eyes and sensitivity to sound and light;
- Nauseation and vomiting;
- General malaise and body aches;
- Stomachache;
- Dry mouth and thirst;
- Lack of appetite;
- You do not remember what happened last night.
Usually these symptoms appear the next day after sleeping, but may appear before, between 4 to 6 hours after stopping drinking.
The intensity of the symptoms varies according to the amount of alcohol that the person consumed and so if the person does not remember anything of the previous night, it means that it consumed a great amount of alcohol and is in a state called Alcoholic Blackout, which is the temporary loss of memory.
How to cure hangover faster
To heal the hangover faster, it is essential to drink enough water to hydrate, but it is also recommended:
- Drinking fruit juices or sweet drinks like teas or coffee with sugar or honey;
- Drink coffee pure and strong;
- Take homemade whey to rehydrate faster.
- Sleep a little longer than usual, because it helps the body and brain to recover better;
- Take hangover medicines like Epocler, Engov or Alka-Seltzer, which help heal the hangover faster. See other examples of Remedies to combat hangovers;
- Eat light, healthy foods with no fats such as cooked fruits, vegetable cream, white rice or mashed potatoes for example;
- Eat foods rich in vitamin C and diuretics such as strawberry, orange, or pineapple for example, which strengthen the immune system and help the body eliminate toxins and recover from poisoning.
Another option is ginger tea, as this is a medicinal plant with diuretic, anti-inflammatory and detoxifying properties for the body, which should be drunk in these situations, 3 to 4 times a day. Watch what else you can do in this video by nutritionist Tatiana Zanin:
How to avoid getting a hangover
To avoid getting a hangover, it's best not to drink, but if you can not avoid it, a few tips to follow are:
- Take activated charcoal before drinking because this hinders the absorption of alcohol in the body;
- Before each drink drink 1 glass of water to ensure continuous hydration;
- Do not drink on an empty stomach and always keep something in the stomach, which can be sweet or salty;
- Always drink the same drink, avoiding mixing beer, wine, vodka and caipirinha, for example;
- Avoid drinks made up of mixtures of drinks such as shots or cocktails.
These tips will prevent you from getting drunk quickly, making you drink less, maintain hydration, and give your body more time to metabolize alcohol, which helps prevent hangovers. However, these tips should not be used to get more drinking because excessive alcohol consumption can lead to more serious health problems such as alcoholic coma and liver cirrhosis, for example.
