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Top Things to Know about Hangovers
• Before retiring, eat a banana (or avocado, baked potato with skin, beet greens) for its potassium and fiber.
• Hydrate with coconut water (for the magnesium) or a
sugar-free electrolyte packet in water. Avoid commercial sports drinks. Also set your choice of hydrated water at your bedside.
• Take a B-Complex vitamin and a Zinc vitamin.
• Doctor-approved Amazon sugar-free electrolyte packets,
B-complex and zinc vitamin recommendations are at the top of the page.
• Be careful with pain relievers. Read #6 again.
The Morning After
So you ignored everything above.
Welcome back.
1. Give it time
Unfortunately, this is the closest thing science has to a genuine hangover cure.
Your body needs time to metabolize the alcohol and its byproducts, rehydrate, repair irritated tissues, and return your brain and immune system to normal.
Hangover symptoms commonly peak around the time your blood alcohol concentration returns to approximately zero and can last 24 hours or longer.
Turns out Last Call wasn't actually the end of the evening.
2. Rehydrate
Drink water and other nonalcoholic fluids. If you've been vomiting or haven't eaten, electrolyte fluids may help replace what you've lost.
But electrolyte drinks aren't magic hangover erasers.
They're hydration—not an Undo button.
3. Eat Something
If your stomach can handle it, have a balanced meal containing carbohydrates, protein, and other nutrients.
Eggs, toast, fruit, oatmeal, yogurt, bananas—whatever sounds tolerable.
This is not the morning to prove your culinary bravery.
4. Rest
Alcohol may make you fall asleep quickly, but it disrupts normal sleep. Part of that miserable exhausted feeling may simply be because you didn't sleep nearly as well as you thought you did.
Give yourself time to recover.
A hangover is the collection of unpleasant symptoms that can show up after drinking too much alcohol: headache, thirst, fatigue, nausea, dizziness, sensitivity to light and sound, irritability, anxiety, and the overwhelming desire to renegotiate every decision you made the night before.
Hangovers vary tremendously from person to person. Genetics, how much and how quickly you drank, whether you ate, sleep quality, the type of alcohol consumed, and individual body chemistry can all play a role.
And contrary to popular belief, a hangover isn't simply dehydration. Alcohol causes your kidneys to release more fluid, disrupts sleep, irritates the stomach, increases inflammation, and temporarily exposes your body to acetaldehyde, a toxic byproduct created as your liver metabolizes alcohol.
Basically, while you were having fun, your liver picked up a second shift.
Interestingly, the feeling of a hangover is ancient, but the English word is relatively young. Hangover appeared in the late 1800s and originally referred more generally to something left over or surviving from an earlier time. By the early 20th century, it was being used for the unpleasant aftermath of drinking.
Which makes perfect sense.
The party is over. The headache stayed behind.
And here's the most important thing to know:
There Is No Magic Hangover Cure
Coffee doesn't cure it. A cold shower doesn't cure it. More alcohol doesn't cure it. And despite centuries of humanity desperately searching for one, science still hasn't discovered a magical food, pill, potion, powder, smoothie, vitamin, or breakfast that makes a hangover disappear.
The only guaranteed prevention is not drinking, and the best way to reduce your chances of getting one is to drink less and pace yourself.
Not nearly as marketable as MIRACLE HANGOVER ELIMINATOR!
But considerably more accurate.
Help Prevent Tomorrow's Hangover
1. Pace Yourself
The amount of alcohol you consume matters more than whether you drank beer before liquor, liquor before beer, or performed some complicated mathematical drinking sequence your college roommate swore by.
Drink slowly and know your own limits.
Your friend's liver is not your liver.
2. Drink Water
Alcohol increases urination and can contribute to dehydration. Drinking water throughout the evening can help you stay hydrated, particularly if you're alternating alcoholic drinks with water.
Add lemon or lime if you like.
Now it looks like a cocktail and nobody needs to know you're being responsible.
3. Eat
Don't drink heavily on an empty stomach. Food slows alcohol absorption, particularly when eaten before and while drinking.
Consider it permission to order the fries.
4. Congeners May Matter
Congeners are compounds produced during fermentation and aging that contribute flavor and aroma to alcoholic beverages.
Some darker spirits, such as bourbon, tend to contain higher levels of congeners than clearer spirits such as vodka, and research suggests congeners may worsen hangover symptoms for some people.
However, ethanol is still the main culprit.
In other words, switching to expensive vodka does not grant you diplomatic immunity from a hangover.
5. Know When You've Had Enough
This remains the most effective strategy.
Everyone processes alcohol differently, so don't try to match someone else drink for drink.
When your body says, “We're good,” don't respond with, “But somebody just ordered shots.”
6. Be Careful With Pain Relievers
Alcohol can interact with common over-the-counter medications. Aspirin and NSAIDs such as ibuprofen can further irritate the stomach and increase the risk of gastrointestinal bleeding when combined with alcohol. Acetaminophen can present liver risks, particularly in certain drinking situations. If you're unsure what is safe for you, ask your doctor or pharmacist rather than taking something automatically before bed. Your liver has already received enough assignments for the evening.
• “Hair of the Dog” refers to drinking a "little" more alcohol the next morning to help you feel better. There's interesting science behind it. It is believed to affect the methanol in your metabolism, preventing formaldehyde from forming and helping your body eliminate methanol more easily through breath and urine.
• Drink a glass of hydrogen water. Hydrogen water is regular water with extra dissolved molecular hydrogen gas added. It may lower oxidative stress in your cells and reduce specific inflammatory markers. Drop a tablet into a glass of water, let it dissolve, and drink. A doctor-approved Amazon hydrogen water tablet recommendation is at the top of the page.
• Hydrate with coconut water (for the magnesium) or a
sugar-free electrolyte packet in water. Avoid commercial sports drinks.
• Eat a banana (or avocado, baked potato with skin, beet greens), take a B-Complex vitamin, and a Zinc vitamin.
I've added some "What's Up, Doc?" hangover information along the way. I've also provided some doctor hangover YouTube videos for you to view.
The Bottom Line
Human beings have been drinking alcohol for thousands of years and searching for hangover remedies for probably about one morning less than that.
We've tried coffee, raw eggs, pickle juice, greasy breakfasts, herbal concoctions, cold showers, more alcohol, and countless miracle products.
And after all these centuries, science's advice remains remarkably unexciting:
Drink less. Drink slower. Eat something. Stay hydrated. Give your body time.
Or, in bartender language:
You can't outsmart a hangover—but you can stop ordering before it starts taking reservations.
Fun Hangover Facts
The fancy word for a hangover is veisalgia. It combines the Norwegian kveis, meaning roughly “uneasiness following debauchery,” with the Greek algia, meaning “pain.” Surprisingly, it isn't an ancient medical term—it was coined by researchers in 2000.
“Pain following debauchery.”
Finally, medical terminology everyone can understand.
Greasy food doesn't magically absorb last night's alcohol. By morning, the alcohol has already been absorbed. A huge greasy breakfast may actually irritate an already unhappy stomach. Of course, that has never stopped anyone from looking at a plate of bacon at 10 a.m. and whispering, “Save me.”
Hangovers can last 24 hours—or longer.
Meaning sometimes your Saturday night can ruin your Monday morning.
A hangover can actually become worse when your blood alcohol level reaches zero. That's often when symptoms peak.
The alcohol left the building. Unfortunately, it left a forwarding address.
There is still no scientifically proven hangover cure. Humans have spent thousands of years experimenting with soups, eggs, herbs, pickles, animal parts, more alcohol, and things nobody should willingly put in their mouths.
Science's current answer?
Wait.
Thousands of years of research and we've arrived at “You're just going to have to suffer, Susan.”
The Romans had opinions. Pliny the Elder recorded remedies that included raw owl's eggs and fried canary.
Apparently the headache wasn't punishment enough.
Ancient Greeks believed cabbage could help. Cabbage has appeared repeatedly in historical hangover remedies, sometimes eaten before drinking and sometimes afterward.
The Greeks gave us democracy, philosophy, theater...
and “Have you tried cabbage?”
The Prairie Oyster became a famous American hangover remedy. Traditionally, it contains a raw egg yolk seasoned with ingredients such as Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, salt, and pepper and is swallowed quickly.
The name is misleading.
There is no oyster.
Unfortunately, there is still a raw egg.
Eggs Benedict may owe its existence to a hangover. According to the famous origin story, in 1894 New York stockbroker Lemuel Benedict arrived at the Waldorf Hotel suffering from the previous night's festivities and ordered toast, bacon, poached eggs, and hollandaise. The hotel's maître d' liked the combination and adapted it for the menu.
So one of brunch's greatest dishes may have begun with:
“Oh God. What did I do last night?”
Some historic American “hangover remedies” were actual commercial products. Bromo-Seltzer advertised relief for depression following alcoholic excess, while mineral waters and stomach remedies were marketed specifically to people suffering after overindulgence.
One mineral water even advertised:
“When Nature won't—Pluto will.”
Hangover advertising apparently had flair long before Instagram.
Fun Global Hangover “Cures”
Historical remedies, traditional foods, folklore, and some ideas that should probably remain folklore.
Ancient Greece
Cabbage. Raw, cooked, before drinking, after drinking—cabbage had quite the reputation.
Hangover status: Still cabbage.
Ancient Rome
Raw owl eggs or fried canary, remedies attributed to Pliny the Elder.
Hangover status: We'll take the headache.
Haiti
One folkloric remedy doesn't treat you at all. Instead, you punish the offending bottle by sticking 13 black-headed pins into its cork.
Finally, a cure that understands who's really to blame.
Germany
A traditional Katerfrühstück, or “hangover breakfast,” may include rollmops—pickled herring wrapped around onion or another filling.
Nothing says “my stomach is delicate today” quite like pickled fish and onions.
Netherlands
Pickled herring and onions have also traditionally been associated with the morning after.
Apparently Northern Europe looked at nausea and said, “More herring.”
Ireland
A hearty Ulster Fry may include eggs, bacon, sausage, potato bread, soda bread, tomato, and other fried breakfast favorites.
If it doesn't cure the hangover, at least you won't be hungry while you have it.
Japan
Umeboshi, intensely sour and salty pickled plums, are a traditional favorite.
The theory seems to be that if your mouth experiences something dramatic enough, maybe it'll forget about your head.
Mongolia
One widely repeated traditional remedy is a pickled sheep's eye in tomato juice.
Suddenly the Bloody Mary sounds positively restrained.
Romania
Ciorbă de burtă, a sour tripe soup made with beef stomach, is a traditional morning-after food.
Your stomach hurts, so naturally: more stomach.
Korea
Haejangguk literally refers to soup eaten to chase away a hangover. Recipes vary but can include beef broth, vegetables, cabbage, and—in some versions—congealed ox blood.
Korea didn't invent a weird little trick.
They invented an entire category of hangover soup.
Canada
Poutine—French fries topped with cheese curds and gravy—is a beloved morning-after choice.
Nobody has scientifically proven that gravy cures a hangover.
Canada has apparently decided further research isn't necessary.
Colombia
Changua, a breakfast soup containing eggs poached in milk with bread and cilantro, is a traditional restorative breakfast.
Which sounds considerably more reasonable than sheep eyeball juice.
American Cowboy Folklore
One wonderfully revolting Old West remedy was supposedly rabbit-dropping tea—rabbit manure steeped in hot water.
At this point, just keep the hangover.
Fun Global Hangover Expressions
Different languages have developed wonderfully descriptive ways of saying:
“I made some mistakes last night.”
English
Hair of the dog — shortened from “the hair of the dog that bit you,” based on the ancient belief that a wound could be treated with hair from the offending dog.
Eventually somebody applied the logic to alcohol:
What hurt you last night can fix you this morning.
Spoiler: it can't.
Germany
Kater — literally a male cat or tomcat, but commonly used for a hangover.
So Germans don't wake up with a hangover.
They wake up with a cat.
The Netherlands
Kater is also associated with the miserable morning after.
Apparently the cat crossed the border.
Denmark
Expressions have compared the sensation to having carpenters working inside your head.
Honestly, whoever came up with this one had definitely experienced a hangover.
France
French expressions have included “wooden mouth” (gueule de bois), a wonderfully accurate description of waking up with a mouth that feels like somebody stored lumber in it overnight.
Spain
Resaca, the everyday Spanish word for hangover, can also refer to the undertow or backwash of the sea.
The party was the wave.
This is what washed ashore.
Slovakia
A hangover can be described with an expression meaning “to have a monkey.”
Why a monkey?
Who knows.
He's probably friends with the German cat.
And the Greatest Hangover Fact of All...
Ancient Greeks tried cabbage.
Romans tried owl eggs and fried birds.
Cowboys supposedly tried rabbit-dropping tea.
Germans tried pickled herring.
Humanity eventually invented laboratories, microscopes, modern medicine, MRIs, and mapped the human genome.
And after thousands of years of civilization, the best scientifically supported hangover cure we have is still:
Wait it out.
Maybe the cabbage deserves another look.