Unless you are a lifelong tea-totaler, you have probably experienced a hangover or two in your lifetime, and despite the awful hangover symptoms, it probably wasn’t enough to keep you from drinking alcohol again. After all, alcohol serves many useful purposes, helping you unwind from a tough day or a long workweek, and serving as a social lubricant to get the party started.
Despite your good intentions to limit your alcohol consumption to one or two drinks, alcohol is notorious for impairing your judgement, and by the time you’ve finished your second drink, having a third sounds like the best idea ever.
So lets just assume that you are going to drink, and you may indulge a little too much. Is there any way to avoid a hangover? Science says yes!
Here are seven science-based strategies to dodge or at least diminish the severity of a hangover:
- Pace yourself: If you sip slowly and limit yourself to one alcoholic drink per hour, your metabolism will burn up the alcohol and it won’t build up in your bloodstream. A good trick is to order a glass of water with every drink, and alternate sips between the two.
- Avoid Congeners: Alcohol produced with sugar-fermenting yeasts contain toxic byproducts called congeners. Congeners are formed in small amounts during alcohol production, and include methanol, isopentanol and acetone. High levels of congeners have been shown to increase the frequency and severity of hangovers. Whiskey, cognac and tequila all have a high congener content, while clear distilled liquors like gin, white rum and vodka contain very few congeners, or none at all.
- Eat prior to and along with drinking: Food slows the rate of alcohol absorption and also the rate of consumption, since you are not just drinking. Even mixing your alcohol with a sugary soda as opposed to the diet version will slow the rate of absorption and reduce your risk of a hangover.
- Drink plenty of water: When you drink alcohol, an anti-diuretic hormone that controls your water balance is suppressed, causing you to urinate more frequently. As you become more dehydrated, the percentage of alcohol circulating in your bloodstream goes up, increasing your risk of a hangover. To avoid dehydration, hyper-hydrate before your first drink, and ask for a glass of water with every serving of alcohol.
- Get plenty sleep after drinking: Alcohol interferes with sleep quality, so sleeping longer as the alcohol wears off can help reduce your hangover symptoms. If you party until 3 am and get up for work at 7, you can pretty much plan on being hung over all day.
- Eat a big breakfast to restore blood sugar levels: Low blood sugar is associated with more severe hangovers, so eating a large meal after a night on the town can help diminish your hangover symptoms.
- Have a drink the next morning: The old remedy of having a hair of the dog that bit you is frequently debated, but evidence suggests that drinking a bit more alcohol inhibits the metabolism of methanol, a well-known congener. After drinking, methanol is converted to formaldehyde, which is highly toxic. Drinking alcohol the morning after inhibits methanol conversion and prevents the formation of formaldehyde, which thought to be the cause of hangover symptoms.
When You Still Get Hungover
Trying to dodge a hangover doesn’t always work, but there is good news when it comes to treating your hangover symptoms. An IV hangover cocktail is designed to eliminate or reduce hangover symptoms like headache, nausea, fatigue and dehydration.
Since IV therapy bypasses your digestive tract, it won’t upset your stomach. Instead, a potent cocktail of micronutrients, fluids and medicines are delivered directly to your bloodstream so they can go to work quickly to ease your hangover symptoms.
Hangover IV Therapy in NYC
If you are hung over, or expect to be, contact Advanced Cryo NYC and schedule an IV hangover therapy session. As you relax in our spa-like clinic, potent ingredients are dripped into your bloodstream and quickly transported to cells throughout your body. By the time you leave your session, you should already be feeing better, and ready to face the day after drinking.
