After a night of perhaps too much drinking, humans will often experience a nauseous state the following day, more commonly called the “hangover.” While most know the feeling and what causes it, many are not aware of specifically why this occurs.
Simply put, a hangover occurs when the body consumes too much alcohol. In more detail, the body digests more ethanol than your body can process. Ethanol is the active ingredient found in alcoholic beverages. So, the more you drink, the more ethanol your body has to attempt to process. According to the New York Post, drinking on an empty stomach is very dangerous and it is always advised to eat something before consuming alcohol. This is because food in your stomach can slow down the absorption of ethanol and reduce the hangover the following morning.
The hangover often causes people to feel exhausted, dizzy, sleepy, uncomfortable, and thirsty. While those symptoms are the obvious ones, there are also some symptoms that are not so medically apparent. According to Medical News Today, “A hungover person may also experience elevated levels of anxiety, regret, shame, embarrassment, as well as depression.” Often times these symptoms are caused by an unbalance in the body system. For example, when drinking, one may urinate more which causes the body to be dehydrated. Often times an individual may also vomit, causing the body to lose nutrients and leave them with an empty stomach.
So, what should one do when experiencing a nasty hangover? One recommendation is to drink alka seltzer. The drink contains sodium bicarbonate which can help ease and settle acid in the stomach. Some also say to drink lots of water or sports drinks. Keeping the body hydrated is key and water especially will keep the body this way. Of course, no matter the remedy, a hangover is not fun. To prevent one more right off the bat, the only true trick is to drink less over a longer period of time. It is important to space out drinks throughout the night and again, never drink on an empty stomach. Hopefully with these easy tips and insight, hangovers will be more manageable and not as severe.
Work Cited:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/5089.php
http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20452426_7,00.html
http://nypost.com/2014/08/28/the-science-behind-your-hangover/
I was just reading the comments to this article I did and I found the comment about Johns Hopkins very interesting. I had no idea hangovers could last for 72 hours! That sounds absolutely miserable. Hopefully people who experience a hangover that severe will take some of the tips from this article and it will help a little bit! If a hangover is lasting for 72 hours, I wonder how that person did not get seriously injured from alcohol poisoning? Or perhaps, maybe they did. That is quite terrifying. We all need to make sure to be careful because as talked about earlier, the hangover has many deadly side effects.
I found this topic in general to be very helpful because so many college students experience this on a daily basis, especially the weekends. I never really thought about what actually happens when you get a hangover in the body. It was also very interesting to me to consume alka-seltzer to reduce the severity of a hangover because usually all I hear is to eat good the next day and drink plenty of water and juices. I was interested in reading that hangovers also cause physiological affects such as irritability and depression like you mentioned. There are so many affects of drinking, and I think everyone just needs to be careful as to how much they drink. I didn’t know ethanol played such a prominent role in hangovers either, but I learn something new every day. Hangovers also involve third variables such as how many food you had in your stomach, how much you had to drink in what period of time, and what types of drinks you actually consumed, but overall, hangovers are not a fun thing to experience. The link below talks about the full process of hangovers. Take a look if you want to learn about how it all works!
http://health.howstuffworks.com/wellness/drugs-alcohol/hangover8.htm
I find this post to be very helpful and current since many college students deal with this! I was aware that being hydrated and with a full stomach before drinking is a way to prevent a hangover, but I never knew why that was or the chemistry and science behind it! I looked into more on some things you can do when you are hungover to either ease the pain or potentially make it end faster. Since alcohol dehydrates you, H2O or any sort of sports drink is a must for the day after to make sure you hydrate yourself once more. Also your electrolyte levels significantly decrease when you consume alcohol so replenishing them with a sports drink is recommended! Also toast and crackers can help ease stomach pain, and increase energy. The carbohydrates will help to raise the lowered blood sugar levels and give some extra energy. But as you said in your blog, the only remedy for a hangover is to space out the drinking over a long period of time! http://www.menshealth.com/mhlists/hangover-cures/printer.php
Sorry, it seems as if the link in my comment did not properly post and I’m unsure of how to edit that so, http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/neurology_neurosurgery/centers_clinics/headache/conditions/hangover_headache.html here is the article from Johns Hopkins!
Honestly, I never really questioned as to why hangovers actually happened. I mean, I understood that if you drank too much, you would get a hangover, but other than that, why they happened…I had no idea. I find it very interesting that ethanol plays such a big part in hangovers, (I’m also just terribly uneducated about alcohol, and most things that come with it). I looked into it a little more, and I was shocked to find that once you drink enough, the alcohol is able to go from your bloodstream and straight to your brain. It seemingly slows down the process of really important things like the movement of blood sugar and how it is process, which honestly sounds rather terrifying if you ask me. Johns Hopkins even went so far as to say that hangovers can last up to 72 hours. I really appreciate you deciding to talk about this because after reading your article and doing some research on the topic, I feel more educated and a little more understanding of the matter itself!