The Reason Behind Your Hangover

Whether your go-to hangover cure is lots of water, lots of drinks like Lucozade, or something like a takeout meal for dinner, you might be doing it wrong. Hangovers can feel like a challenge to escape; not just worries about what you did last night, but worries about how you feel the rest of the day. 

If you are someone who deals with hangovers regularly, you are probably drinking too often and too much. Sadly, around two-thirds of humans have the gene that is associated with major hangovers. You know the type: every piece of food makes you feel ill, your sentences turn into nonsense, and you can do nothing other than lying on the couch and groan.

The simplest reason that you have a hangover is that your body does not have enough blood sugar. When our blood sugar hits zero, we will have a hangover. This is because our livers deal with the ethanol and then methanol, the toxic part, around 10 hours after we cease drinking. That is when our bodies begin to kick into ‘hangover mode’ and you start to feel dreadful.

One of the easiest ways to manage a hangover is to make sure you eat something in the morning. This gives our bodies a blood sugar level again, and you will more or less instantly begin to feel a bit better. You should also try and drink as much water as you can to help refill your body with electrolytes. These are drained when you urinate, especially when hungover, which can lead to the headaches and fatigue that come from drinking.

Sadly, the only way to avoid having a hangover is to simply drink less. If you want to avoid hangovers entirely, you need to stop drinking. If you want less significant hangovers, then make sure you drink less alcohol, have some water before you go to bed, and try to eat something at a decent time before you go to bed. This can avoid the blood sugar crash that leads to your hangover.