Hangover cures
Congratulations you’ve got a hangover! You’ll be pleased to know that the best cure for a hangover is time…
But maybe that isn’t the advice that you were hoping for, in which case, you might want to try one of the cures below:
Drink fluids
But not alcohol, though. Start gently with a little water. If that feels fine, move onto a lemon and lime drink. Sprite is often claimed to be the best option, but a more healthy alternative might be to have some fizzy water with a squeeze of fresh lemon. You could also try pear juice, if you have any lying around. Coconut water or clear soup are also popular options, as they help replace the salt and potassium you’ve lost.
Tea is better than coffee
It can be tempting to reach for a coffee, but caffeine will only make your head feel worse. If you can’t do without a coffee, go for the option with the least caffeine, or try a cup of tea which naturally contains less caffeine than coffee.
Eat crackers
Once you’ve mastered drinking fluids try moving on to eating crackers or breadsticks, and then try bananas or kiwis. This combination should help to settle your stomach and help to restore your salt and potassium levels. Some people swear by burnt toast – the charred carbon on the toast is supposed to help your body filter out impurities.
Eat a fry up
If all is going well, a greasy fry-up could be just the thing to sort you out. Cheese is also said to help calm the stomach the morning after.
Ginger
If you can’t stomach a fry up, ginger calms the stomach, reduces feelings of nausea and helps reduce the inflammation in your body. Try adding some lemon and ginger to a cup of warm water – adding half a teaspoon of baking powder will produce your own homemade Alka Seltzer effect.
Choose a painkiller
If you want to take a painkiller, ibuprofen is the best choice, as it is anti-inflammatory.
Do some exercise
If you can face it, fresh air and exercise can clear your head like nothing else. But, if you can’t face the great Outdoors, a restorative shower can help do the trick.
Sleep
A lack of sleep can make a hangover feel worse, so if you really can’t face the day, head back to the duvet.
Dioralyte
An over-the-counter remedy that my friends swear by is dioralyte. It’s actually a rehydration treatment to be used after diarrhoea, but it seems to help with the symptoms of a hangover too.
Or if you fancy something a little crazier…
Try rubbing a lemon into your armpit whilst drinking (a Puerto Rican hangover remedy).
The morning after, drink a Prairie Oyster: add Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper to an egg yolk, and swallow the egg yolk whole.
Or drink pickle juice from a jar of pickles (a traditional Polish hangover cure).
And for next time…
Drink plenty of water to pace yourself throughout the evening to avoid feeling too bad the next day. If nothing else, it will slow down the amount of alcohol that you can drink. Some studies have suggested that sugar can help speed up the rate that your body metabolises alcohol, so fruit juice and cocktails may be a good idea too.
Try to choose alcohol that is clear coloured, like vodka and gin. Clear coloured alcoholic drinks tend to be low in congeners (a by-product of fermentation) that are thought to make hangovers worse.
Also, make sure you drink on a full stomach – if you eat fatty food before drinking, it may help slow the rate at which the alcohol is absorbed by your body.
If you’re particularly organised, try stocking up on prickly pear extract, which is claimed to reduce inflammation in the liver. For best results, you need to take the extract at least 5 hours before you start drinking. Stock up at Amazon to get you through the party season. Some studies have suggested that a combination of prickly pear and borage oil is the most effective.
Eating more asparagus could also help reduce the symptoms of a hangover, as it is can help to protect liver cells.
Alternatively, a traditional Chinese remedy is to add ginger, brown sugar and tangerine pith to water. Drink this before alcohol to reduce the severity of a hangover.