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A hangover comes after consuming excessive amounts of alcohol. The result of this overload of alcohol is that your body becomes depleted of essential nutrients and water and your body becomes dehydrated. Your body makes up for this dehydration by taking water from where it can, which basically is your brain. The brain then shrinks and the result is a really bad headache. Dehydration also gives you what is referred to as “cotton mouth”. Many individuals experience nausea and vomiting as a result of all the alcohol and sugar that has now upset the stomach.

Symptoms of a hangover:

Signs of dehydration
Dry mouth
Fatique
Headache
Nausea
Weakness
Anxiety
Irritability
Negativity
Difficulty concentrating
Light and sound sensitivity
Difficulty sleeping

Alcohol does not affect everyone the same way. What causes one to have a hangover and not the other?

There are a number of factors that play a role in why one person experiences a hangover after drinking alcohol and another individual won’t. Other than the amount of alcohol consumed and the type of alcohol ingested, how fast you drink it and how many you have in what time frame can also have a role in whether or not you become drunk. There is also the factor of how well your body metabolizes alcohol. Our bodies metabolize the things we drink and eat in different ways. Metabolism depends on what is being consumed and if it being consumed with other things like are we eating at the same time we are drinking alcohol? The body absorbs alcohol faster when we eat food at the same time.

Water has an effect on the impact of alcohol on our bodies too. When we drink lots of water before we start drinking alcohol, during the time we are drinking and after we are finished with our drinking event then the water that we drink can lessen the effect that alcohol has on our system and we become less dehydrated than what we would have become had we not had the water. Alcohol contains ethanol, which is what causes the dehydration.

Alcohol consumption causes chemical reactions within the body including the way the liver has to work to break down the ethanol contained in the alcohol. The reaction in the cells of the liver when it is trying to breakdown the ethanol impairs the liver’s ability to supply glucose to the tissues within the body such as the brain tissue. Glucose in the brain is how the brain gets energy. When the brain does not receive the glucose, we experience fatigue, weakness, moodiness and sometimes it can affect our ability to concentrate.

Congeners are the chemical by-products of the process of alcohol fermentation. These congeners can exaggerate (make worse) the symptoms of a hangover. Dark alcoholic drinks contain more congeners, which is why those who drink dark alcoholic beverages have more intense hangovers than those who drink clear colored alcoholic beverages.

Cheaper alcoholic beverages have more impurities and are thus more likely to cause greater hangover symptoms.

Those who smoke while they drink exacerbate their symptoms because of the nicotine.

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Scott Meyers is a staff writer for It’s Entirely Natural, a resource for helping you achieve a naturally healthy body, mind, and spirit. You may contact our writers through the web site. Follow this link for more information on Hangover Cures.

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Tags: dehydration, fatigue, Hangover Cures, headache, irritability, metabolism, nicotine

If you want to totally prevent a hangover then don’t drink. However, if alcohol is going to be part of your good time, there are some scientifically proven methods that you can use before, during, and after drinking to help prevent the morning after misery.

Planning your night out before you start drinking can help you feel better the next day. Start by eating a good meal. Focus on eating foods that are high in fat and carbohydrates. A full stomach does not absorb alcohol as easily as an empty one, allowing your body to process the alcohol more easily. Fatty foods and high carbohydrate foods take
longer to digest, so the effect lasts longer. By eating first, you can also decrease stomach irritation.

It is important to stay hydrated so drink water before consuming alcohol. Taking a multivitamin can also help combat the vitamin and mineral loss that the diuretic affects of alcohol can cause.

When drinking, there are some things that you can do to help prevent alcohol absorption. You should drink slowly, preferably no more than one drink an hour. This gives your body enough time to process the alcohol. Having a drink of water or a sports drink with your drink will help to keep you hydrated and allow your body more time to process the toxins.

Another thing to do is to watch what you are drinking. Mixing drinks will often cause you to feel worse the next day. Beer has the lowest amount of alcohol, but carbonation allows it to be absorbed faster. Wine is higher in alcohol, but is not carbonated, and white wine has fewer congeners than red. Cheap wines also tend to be higher in congeners than the more expensive types. Liquor has the highest amount of alcohol, and clear liquors have fewer congeners than dark ones, and again, the cheaper the liquor, the more likelihood of a hangover.

When you get home from your night out, there are some things that you can do before going bed. Take two aspirins with a full glass of water to help hydrate you and decrease hangover severity in the morning. Make sure that to take actual aspirin, not acetaminophen, which can cause more problems for your liver.

When you wake up in the morning, you should take two more aspirins with another glass of water to help stave off a headache caused by inflammation. Taking another vitamin can help you replenish the vitamins and minerals that you loss the night before and set you on the road to recovery.

A healthy breakfast can also help. Eggs have cysteine that can break down toxins; bananas include potassium crucial to hydration, and fruit juices or sports drinks can help by replenishing sugar, salt, and electrolytes that you may have lost. Start out slowly, to avoid nausea, and avoid caffeinated beverages that will prolong your misery.

The best thing to do to prevent a hangover is not to drink at all, but if you are going to anyway then the above steps should help lessen the painful affects.

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Scott Meyers is a staff writer for It’s Entirely Natural, a resource for helping you achieve a naturally healthy body, mind, and spirit. You may contact our writers through the web site. Follow this link for more information on Hangover Cures.

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Tags: electrolyte, Hangover Cures, headache, toxins, vitamin C

Alcohol is a staple at most adult party’s. While the responsible drinker won’t drink themselves into a stupor, everyone is entitled to a little irresponsibility now and then (just do not drink and drive). If you do end up going overboard then you are probably going to face the inevitable hangover the next day.

The scenarios behind a hangover tend to be pretty similar – too much to drink, mixing drinks, etc. The symptoms are often the same: migraines, nausea, dry mouth, dizziness, and a general feeling of discomfort. Here is a look at how you can prevent yourself from feeling this way should there be a next time.
Never drink on an empty stomach. Eat something with greasy, fatty foods loaded with oil or butter. Others will swear by having a couple of tablespoons of olive oil before leaving the house. Remember to wash it down before going to bed with a couple of glasses of water.

Drinking water, in general, before bedtime will help with dehydration along with something to dull the pain.
If you need help waking up in the morning, you can try a red eye. Take some whiskey, fresh coffee, Tabasco sauce, a raw egg, pepper, and orange juice and blend it together in a blender. If you are able to choke it down, fans say that you will start feeling better within 15 minutes. If you need a faster cure, try a Black Mary. Mix coffee with tonic water, honey, and orange juice. Again, it might be a little rough to get down, but there are those that swear by its effectiveness.

Some other preventatives have to do with when you are actually out drinking. Following these rules can help keep you feeling good the next day.

First of all, avoid mixed drinks. If you prefer the harder drinks, take them straight or over ice. Avoid drinks that have colas or juices mixed in, since these will often get you drunk faster and without realizing it. This leads to more toxins needing to be flushed from your system, and a higher likelihood of a hangover the next day.
Do not mix low alcoholic drinks with highly alcoholic ones. For example, drinking both beer and hard liquor is a thing to avoid. Choose one or the other, otherwise, your body gets confused and you end up taking in more alcohol. And, the more alcohol that gets absorbed, the more likely you are to have a hangover.

Avoid dairy when you are drinking. Milk, cheeses, ice cream, and cream sauces can really upset your stomach when you mix them with alcohol. So unless you enjoy the view of your toilet bowl, stay away from them until afterwards.
Always keep in mind that while hangover “cures” can help to alleviate the symptoms of your hangover, only time and your metabolism will officially end it. So keep that in mind when you are out drinking, particularly if there is somewhere that you want to be the next day.

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Scott Meyers is a staff writer for It’s Entirely Natural, a resource for helping you achieve a naturally healthy body, mind, and spirit. You may contact our writers through the web site. Follow this link for more information on Hangover Cures.

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Tags: coffee, dehydration, Hangover Cures, honey, olive oil, toxins

For those of you who have ever had a little too much to drink and have paid the price the next morning, you know there is no magic pill that can miraculously cure your hangover. There are some things, however, that may get you back on the road to a quick recovery.

There are several things that have been shown to help ease the pain of a hangover. Some are more effective than others, of course. Here is a look at some of the things that have proven most successful.

You can actually start by popping some pills. Taking a dose of aspirin is the most effective cure for any pains that you are feeling; provided that your stomach is not in too bad of shape (aspirin can irritate sensitive stomachs). Also take 200 mg of cysteine, which you can get at specialty food stores and supplement stores. Cysteine has been shown to counteract the effects of acetaldehyde on the body. 600 mg of Vitamin C and a Vitamin B-complex supplement can help to replenish the nutrients that were flushed out of your body with the frequent visits to the bathroom. If you do not have these as separate pills, try taking a multivitamin.

Next, a smoothie can help hydrate you and get vitamins and minerals back into your system while still being pretty easy on your queasy stomach. Blend together a banana, a can of V-8 juice, six strawberries, a couple tablespoons of honey, 1-2 cups of milk, a pinch of salt and a dash of nutmeg until it reaches your desired consistency. This will help coat your stomach and get some nutrition in you. If you know that operating a blender will be beyond your capabilities with a hangover, prepare the night before so that it is ready in the morning.

If you are still feeling bad later on in the day, then you can round it out with some Maalox, Gatorade, and bouillon soup. These should all sit easily on your stomach, help hydrate you, and replenish the vitamins and minerals that you lost. If you are still nauseous, add food back slowly into your diet so that you do not end up throwing everything back up.

If your head is still pounding after the aspirin, take an icepack, wrap it in a towel, and put it on your head. Alternate twenty minutes on with ten minutes off until the pain subsides.

Of course, your friends and family will have their own remedies for the morning after pain. You are welcome to try these as well if you think you can tolerate them. However, avoid any “remedies” that involve drinking more alcohol, vast quantities of caffeine, or taking painkillers like acetaminophen. In the long run, these will actually end up harming your body more and causing you to feel worse once their effects have worn off.

All in all, the best cure for a hangover is time - your body needs time to process the alcohol and the toxins so that you can start to feel better, and there is no real way to speed that up.

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Scott Meyers is a staff writer for It’s Entirely Natural, a resource for helping you achieve a naturally healthy body, mind, and spirit. You may contact our writers through the web site. Follow this link for more informaton on Hangover Cures.

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Tags: hangover, Hangover Cures, vitamins, vitamins minerals

There are two tired and true ways to avoid a hangover. The first is don’t drink and the second is know your limits if you are going to drink. Your limit being the amount of alcohol that you know you can safely drink and be in control of yourself (meaning not getting drunk).

Since are generally not the same age, height and weight, alcohol affects them differently and what one person should not do in order to avoid hangovers, another person might be able to do and be fine. Knowing the “what not to do’s” then becomes a personal list. One person’s list of what not to do in order to avoid hangovers will be different than another person’s list.

A hangover is really a lesson in physiology. You have to understand the physics of what makes up the essence of a “hangover” and then apply that to each individual to discover what each individual “not to do list to avoid hangover” will look like.

The physiology of alcohol looks something like this:

Dehydration - alcohol evaporates a certain portion of the water contained in your body.

Nervous shock - Alcohol is a depressant drug, and because it is, it has an affect on your nerves; basically sending them into a state of relative hypersensitivity.

Malnutrition - All that alcohol and other liquid (cola, juice, water etc.) that you consumed has effectively flushed your system of any stored vitamins and nutrients that would have been your body’s natural defense system; a defense system that is in the dangerously low range right now.

The “what not to do” list are the things that put your body into that dangerously low range.

What not to do should include:

Not eating fatty or greasy food

Not eating dairy products

An obvious one - don’t continue drinking

Do not have sex, especially if you are so drunk you have no idea who you are having sex with

Do not mix your types of alcoholic drinks (liquor, wine, beer). Do not do the: drinks before dinner…. wine with dinner…. after-dinner drinks.

Do not drink dark colored alcoholic beverages; they are notorious for giving you the wicked hangovers

Do not overdo it with the sweet blended type of alcoholic beverages. Sugar and alcohol is a very bad mixture. Sugary, trendy drinks that are floating colored blends of syrups and liquors all have the same result when you have too many of them…they end up going back up the way they came down…. yuck!

Since we are all different out lists will not be exactly the same. To avoid a hangover, know what is on your “what not to do list” that will help you to have fun if you choose to drink without regretting all that fun the next morning.

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Scott Meyers is a staff writer for It’s Entirely Natural, a resource for helping you achieve a naturally healthy body, mind, and spirit. You may contact our writers through the web site. Follow this link for more informaton on Hangover Cures.

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Tags: Hangover Cures

Just as almost everyone has their favorite alcoholic drink, many people also have their favorite hangover cure. Here are some easy remedies that you can try to before or after drinking to prevent a hangover.

One idea is to eat a medium bag or two small bags of potato chips before going out drinking. Another option is to make a sandwich out of salami and butter on a baguette or ciabatta bread. The idea is that the fat and carbohydrates will help to absorb some of the alcohol.

Other people swear by not mixing drinks. If you start with beer, finish with beer. Do not mix different liquors. Mixing different alcohols can cause you to feel the effects sooner, increase your likelihood of a hangover, and, if you throw up, even decrease the effectiveness of your oral contraceptives.

The Native Americans ate raw almonds before drinking to reduce hangovers. Other people swear by a few spoonfuls of peanut butter. Again, the fat content may help prevent some of the alcohol from getting absorbed.

Drinking sports drinks can help hydrate you and replenish lost vitamins and minerals. If you drank so much that you are throwing up, this can be especially helpful. There is some thought that the taurine found in energy drinks can also help with hangovers and liver damage.

Going to bed dehydrated is a surefire recipe for a hangover the next day. Drink a couple of glasses of water before going to bed to help hydrate you and dilute the alcohol. This can help lessen the severity of the hangover in the morning.

Be wary of using any painkillers while there is still alcohol in your system. Some can cause kidney or liver problems when mixed with alcohol, and others can irritate your already tormented stomach further.

For the morning after, try pouring the juice of one lemon into a cup of black coffee. Drink straight up, without sugar or cream.

Chicken soup is thought to work on hangovers as well as it does on colds, so a bowl or two may help get you going in the morning.

Some people swear by honey. Take two tablespoons every half hour until you feel better.

Fruit is also popular. An apple a day may keep the hangover away, as well as the doctor. Or, try blending together three bananas with some milk and honey until smooth. It should settle your stomach and help you replenish nutrients.

All in all, the best home remedy for a hangover is don’t drink. But, if you must, drink responsibly, and avoid drinking to excess. Try to time your drinks so that you are not having more than one alcoholic drink per hour. And remember when it is time to call it a night - sometimes, the decisions you make when drunk are harder to live with the next morning than the hangover itself.

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Scott Meyers is a staff writer for It’s Entirely Natural, a resource for helping you achieve a naturally healthy body, mind, and spirit. You may contact our writers through the web site. Follow this link for more informaton on Hangover Cures.

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Tags: almonds, chicken soup, coffee, dehydration, fruit, Hangover Cures, honey, potato chips, sports drinks

The morning after a night of heavy drinking, you may be sicker than you ever could have imagined. Despite the fact that alcohol has been around for thousands of years, few real remedies have been discovered. However, it seems that since humans love to imbibe, many interesting remedies have been created.

For instance, in the middle ages, raw eel was included in concoctions. Even today, remedies are slightly strange - for instance, at 3 AM when you should be sound asleep in your bed, you may stagger home for a cold shower and black coffee - and then wonder why you feel terrible in the morning. So, what remedies actually work? Here are some of the tried and true methods that you can give a try for yourself.

Hitting the local Starbucks or all night diners for a cup of black coffee has long been a standard “cure” for hangovers. While you will no longer be falling asleep drunk, you will still be drunk - just wide awake. Caffeine does not sober you up, though it may help your headache. However, it can also dehydrate you further and irritate your stomach, making you all the more miserable once it wears off.

One of the biggest mistakes is to drink coffee before trying to go to bed. Best case scenario it will disrupt your sleep - assuming you can get to sleep at all. If you need coffee to get your engine started in the morning, have a small cup. Otherwise, you may suffer from caffeine withdrawals on top of your hangover.

Of course, every good alcoholic will tell you that having a drink in the morning will help ward off the hangover. While this may help the symptoms of alcohol withdrawal your body experiences, it is only prolonging your suffering. Your body still has to process the alcohol from the night before, plus whatever new stuff you put in, and, unless you continue drinking yourself into oblivion, you will eventually have to deal with the after effects. All in all, a drink the next day is just going to put you further on the road to a drinking problem.

Some drinkers turn to natural remedies to solve their hangover issues. However, some people find the “cure” to be worse than the sickness. Milk thistle is often used for people suffering from liver problems, and can help improve liver function. Taking it may help your liver eliminate the toxins from the alcohol better. Gingerroot tea can help settle that nauseous stomach in the morning. Fresh fruit and vegetable juices can get nutrients into your body quickly and help get you hydrated again. Soup can also help to hydrate, and soothes the stomach as well as providing much needed nutrients.

Of course, there are always the hangover recipes that you can try out. Many of these are a mixture of alcohol, juice, and flavorings. Again, keep in mind that in most cases, drinking more alcohol will only prolong your pain and can lead to big problems down the road. At best, these recipes provide temporary relief.

Time is the only real cure for a hangover. So, if you are going to drink, make sure you schedule time to recover.

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Scott Meyers is a staff writer for It’s Entirely Natural, a resource for helping you achieve a naturally healthy body, mind, and spirit. You may contact our writers through the web site. Follow this link for more informaton on Hangover Cures.

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Tags: caffeine, coffee, Hangover Cures, headache, natural remedies, sleep, starbucks

There are many cures that have been tried in order to ease the pain of the common hangover that many of us suffer from after a New Year’s Eve party or an evening out with our friends.

Maybe your thought is to pig out on greasy bar food while you drink. Maybe you have the latest and greatest over the counter miracle cure pill to try. Or maybe you have a cooler made up with some “hair of the dog” chilling in the back of your fridge for the morning after. However, if you are looking for a healthy alternative to your traditional hangover cures, you might take a look at what your local Chinese herbalist has to offer.

If you are familiar with traditional Chinese foods, you may have noticed that many of the recipes include ginger and garlic, which are known for their medicinal affects on a variety of discomforts. This is because many of the recipes evolved as part of traditional Chinese medicine, which traditionally uses these and other herbs and foods to help keep the body in top shape.

So, while you are out shopping for beer, wine coolers, and tequila, you might consider a stop into your local Chinese herbalist. Here are a couple of recipes that might perk you up after your night of overindulgence.

For hangovers, you can consider some herbal tea. You will need 20 grams of Hovenia dulcis, known as zhi ju, 10 grams of Pueraria/kudzu root, known as ge gen, and 10 grams of Peuraria flowers, known as ge hua as well as four cups of spring water. Take a glass or ceramic pot, and bring the herbs to a boil in the water. Once boiling, reduce the heat and simmer until you only have two cups of liquid. Strain the mixture, discarding the herbs, and divide into two cups. Drink one cup on an empty stomach immediately, and then drink the second cup about two hours later.

If you want to detoxify your liver, you can try a Lotus Root Cooler. You will need a large fresh lotus root, raw sugar or barley malt, and four cups of spring water. Cut the root into one inch pieces, and add the pieces and the sweetener to a saucepan. Cover with boiling water. Put a lid on the pot and allow the mixture to steep for a few minutes. You can then strain it and drink throughout the day.
If you want to detoxify your whole system, you should try some Ginseng Licorice Tea. You will need a handful of the small rootlets of white ginseng roots, known as ren shen. You will also need 10 long, thin slices of licorice root, known as gan cao, and eight cups of boiling water. Add licorice and ginseng together with four cups of boiling water in a teapot or thermos, allow to steep for 20 minutes, and then pour off the liquid into another container. Repeat with another four cups of water (can be repeated up to five times) and drink throughout the day.

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Scott Meyers is a staff writer for It’s Entirely Natural, a resource for helping you achieve a naturally healthy body, mind, and spirit. You may contact our writers through the web site. Follow this link for more informaton on Hangover Cures.

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Tags: chinese medicine, Hangover Cures, Herbal Remedies, herbal tea, Traditional Chinese Medicine

When you wake up from a night of drinking with a pounding headache and your head in the toilet, the last thing you are thinking about is what’s for breakfast. Chances are, you would rather stay in bed with the covers pulled over you rather than risk putting something on your stomach only to have it make a return visit. However, since many of the side effects of a hangover are due to dehydration, lack of essential vitamins and nutrients, and low blood sugar, having something to eat may be a vital part of your hangover cure that you are missing out on.

Now, this does not mean that you should take advantage of the all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet at your local greasy diner. Instead, you should eat something light and healthy to see how your stomach reacts. You should avoid carbohydrates and fatty foods since these are only going to make you feel worse.

To drink, you can start out with a simple cocktail of tomato juice, Tabasco sauce, lemon juice, and a shot of vodka. This works well for a variety of reasons as a hangover cure. First of all, the tomato juice is packed with vitamins and antioxidants that will help your body to cleanse your blood from any leftover alcohol and impurities that are still lurking around.

Another reason that you feel terrible the next morning is the fact that you essentially overdosed on alcohol the night before - and now your body is going through withdrawal. Having the shot of vodka in your juice will help put some alcohol back into your system, and allow you to start some of your other hangover remedies before the hangover comes back. However, keep it to only a shot - any more and you are setting yourself on the road to alcoholism.

Once you have gotten the juice down, and are hopefully starting to feel a little better, you can make yourself a protein-packed breakfast. Try 3 pieces of back bacon, 3 canned tomatoes, 2 scrambled eggs, and an orange to start out with. The eggs have protein that will help build your strength back up, as well as a chemical that is known to fight some of the toxins that are still left in your system. Canned tomatoes, like the tomato juice, also have the vitamins and antioxidants that you need to revitalize your system. The bacon has fat that helps bind to the alcohol left in your blood, and the orange has citric acid to make that fat easier to digest - not to mention vitamin C, one of the essential vitamins that you lost through dehydration.

For best results, you should have a second breakfast with more of the same foods within four hours of your first one, and try to stay awake in between them instead of going back to bed, since going to sleep slows down your metabolism. If you need help staying awake, try taking a nice hot shower, followed by a cold rinse, to help wake you up.

Time is the best cure for a hangover but since you can’t hurry that up, a good healthy meal is the perfect alternative.

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Scott Meyers is a staff writer for It’s Entirely Natural, a resource for helping you achieve a naturally healthy body, mind, and spirit. You may contact our writers through the web site. Follow this link for more information on Hangover Cures.

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Tags: antioxidants, dehydration, Hangover Cures, nutrition