Author: James Anderson
Hangovers National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism NIAAA
These stem from physiological responses to the presence of alcohol in your digestive and urinary systems, like your stomach, kidneys, and bloodstream. Congeners are chemical by-products of the fermentation process that gives alcoholic drinks their distinctive flavor. These symptoms vary from person to person and can range in intensity from mild to severe.
If you’re in the throes of a monster hangover, relief can’t come soon enough.
A hangover is a group of unpleasant symptoms that can happen after drinking too much alcohol. As if feeling awful weren’t bad enough, frequent hangovers also are linked with poor performance and conflict at home, school and work. Mixing different types of alcoholic beverages will increase your risk of severe hangovers. If you’re not feeling any better after 24 hours, it’s best to check in with your healthcare provider. Still, 24 hours can feel like an eternity when you’re dealing with a mishmash of physical and mental symptoms.
- Drink water and eat food to dispel your hangover blues.
- In most people, the body will quickly restore electrolyte balance once the effects of alcohol subside.
- Drinking too much too quickly can affect breathing, heart rate, body temperature and gag reflex.
- Some people have a headache a few hours after drinking wine — especially red wine.
This “rebound effect” interrupts deep, rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep, which can make you feel much more tired the next day. At first, this can be beneficial, making you feel relaxed as your blood pressure is lowered. For some people, as little as one drink can trigger a hangover. The darker the alcohol, the more congeners there are. And the more congeners there are, the more likely you are to develop a hangover.
They include body weight, sex, alcohol type, and a person’s drinking speed. Some people take over-the-counter pain relievers (often acetaminophen) before going to bed to minimize hangovers. It is important to recognize that the combination of alcohol and acetaminophen can be toxic to the liver. Like alcohol, certain over-the-counter pain relievers, including aspirin and ibuprofen, can increase acid release and irritate the lining of the stomach. Proceed with caution when using these medications before or after consuming alcohol. For people living with heart disease, hangover symptoms such as rapid heart rate and high blood pressure can be dangerous.
Since liver function slows down as we age, acetaldehyde tends to last longer in the system of older people. Drinking on an empty stomach may cause nausea or vomiting, so stop immediately and inform the person you’re with how you’re feeling. Alcohol is absorbed more slowly when food is in the stomach before you start drinking. Without food in your stomach, most of the alcohol finds its way into your blood quickly. Some medications interfere with your body’s ability to properly metabolize alcohol.
How common are hangovers?
Healthcare professionals caution using this type of medication regularly along with alcohol as it can increase the risk of liver damage. MAT combines medication with counseling and behavioral therapies to treat alcohol addiction. Drugs such as naltrexone, acamprosate, and disulfiram can help reduce cravings and prevent relapse. Inpatient treatment programs provide intensive therapy and medical care in a residential setting.
Also, the ability to perform important tasks, such as driving, operating machinery, or caring for others can be negatively affected. Because individuals are so different, it is difficult to predict how many drinks will cause a hangover. Any time people drink to intoxication, there is a chance they could have a hangover the next day. While there is no cure for a hangover other than time, it may be possible to reduce the severity of some symptoms. There is no particular way to increase the speed at which a person detoxes from alcohol and recovers from a hangover.
Although many remedies for alleviating hangovers are mentioned on the web and in social media, none have been scientifically proven to be effective. There is no magic potion for beating hangovers—and only time can help. More-serious symptoms from heavy drinking may be a sign of alcohol poisoning — a life-threatening emergency. Alcohol poisoning is a serious and sometimes deadly result of drinking large amounts of alcohol in a short period of time.
In the study, participants using red ginseng had lower concentrations of ethanol and increased acetaldehyde levels compared with placebo. This suggests that the red ginseng increased the speed of ethanol’s conversion to acetaldehyde. This means it is difficult to predict the number of drinks or the amount of alcohol that will cause a hangover.
What are the symptoms of a hangover?
And depending on various factors, some symptoms can be worse than others in terms of severity and duration. This affects many of your body’s normal functions, such as breathing, temperature regulation, and heart rate. Alcohol poisoning can be deadly or have serious long-term consequences. And the more you drink the night before, the more severe your hangover symptoms might feel the morning after. Other people seem to be able to get away with several drinks, or even a night of heavy drinking, without experiencing much in the way of next-day effects. A 2020 study found evidence to suggest that red ginseng may reduce hangover symptom severity by reducing the ethanol concentration in the blood.
A hangover is unpleasant, but symptoms tend to go away within a day or so. If you drank too much alcohol and feel sick, try at-home hangover remedies like drinking plenty of water, eating some carbs and sleeping. You need to let your body rid itself of the alcohol and heal.
How do you get over a hangover fast?
The more dehydrated you are, the worse you’ll feel, and longer. Believe it or not, how many drinks you have doesn’t appear have a significant impact on how long a hangover lasts, according to a 2017 study. There are several factors that influence how long a hangover lasts and how bad you feel. Drink water and eat food to dispel your hangover blues.
Other Substances That Contribute to Hangover Symptoms
If excessive drinking and hangover symptoms are interfering with your life, talk to your healthcare provider. In most people, the body will quickly restore electrolyte balance once the effects of alcohol subside. A hangover is the feeling of illness that follows alcohol consumption. It begins as a person’s blood alcohol levels decrease after they stop drinking, and it can last for 24 hours or more.