Many of us enjoy wine, champagne, beer, and spirits, with friends, family, loved ones, in business, to celebrate, with a good meal, by ourselves, on holiday… Whatever the reason is, there’s that wonderful ceremonial feel to enjoying a good glass of wine or other beverage.
And the hangover – how about spending your entire next day feeling crap, nauseous, thinking about vomit, foggy, sluggish, and wishing you weren’t at work or wasting a whole day of your weekend? After all, the way you spend every day, is the way you spend your life. And even the evening previous, you may not even remember.
In my opinion, there isn’t much point in getting sloshed or smashed, especially to the point of not remembering a thing and wasting your whole next day regretting everything – It is still about that ceremonial feel and true enjoyment of your beverage at hand. Getting drunk, but not smashed, is even more fun when you can still actually “be” there with friends or whoever, in the present moment and know what’s going on. But anyway this is about some pointers to minimize hangovers… So, with a little common sense and awareness, you can live every day and night to your full if you decide to drink on…
1) WATER ! :
A GLASS FOR A GLASS - For every glass of alcohol, drink a glass of water in between – Also may help if you also want to stay away from the temptation of overindulging in more drinks by pacing yourself. Water is single most important thing to prevent or get over the wine hangover, so drink plenty. Alcohol also dehydrates the body. Wine is a great source of water, but the presence of water tends to produce adverse effects on the body. Hence, it is necessary to keep hydrating your body with water.
2) EAT ! :
Sounds great! And it really works. Eat your favorite meal or some snacks an hour before a drink, to line your stomach with sustenance and nutrients, and Also you will be less likely to Binge late at night on a Kebab. The meal or snack that includes bread or pasta can help.
2) REDUCE SALT:
Salt will prove dangerous as it tends to maximize the process of dehydration, eg eating salty food with drinking, or margaritas w salt rim.
A GLASS FOR A GLASS - For every glass of alcohol, drink a glass of water in between – Also may help if you also want to stay away from the temptation of overindulging in more drinks by pacing yourself. Water is single most important thing to prevent or get over the wine hangover, so drink plenty. Alcohol also dehydrates the body. Wine is a great source of water, but the presence of water tends to produce adverse effects on the body. Hence, it is necessary to keep hydrating your body with water.
2) EAT ! :
Sounds great! And it really works. Eat your favorite meal or some snacks an hour before a drink, to line your stomach with sustenance and nutrients, and Also you will be less likely to Binge late at night on a Kebab. The meal or snack that includes bread or pasta can help.
2) REDUCE SALT:
Salt will prove dangerous as it tends to maximize the process of dehydration, eg eating salty food with drinking, or margaritas w salt rim.
3) MILK:
Another useful food. If you’re concerned about getting too drunk, drink a glass of cow’s or goat’s milk prior to consuming wine. This will provide a protection coat to your stomach and helps you absorb the alcohol in the wine at a more steady rate.
4) DECLINE MIXING:
Another useful food. If you’re concerned about getting too drunk, drink a glass of cow’s or goat’s milk prior to consuming wine. This will provide a protection coat to your stomach and helps you absorb the alcohol in the wine at a more steady rate.
4) DECLINE MIXING:
This is by far one of the worst hangover givers in the history of drinking. Stick to one type of alcohol in a night/day.
5) Be aware of Darker Drinks:
For example combining red wine with whiskey, creates the Worst Splitting headaches. Mixing whiskey with soda or water is better than with cola and tonic. Also if you personally noticed being more knocked around by certain drinks, stay away from it.
6) ASPIRIN, next day or at end of drinking:
An aspirin with a full glass of water or more (to also help the aspirin move through the body) will help remove a headache/hangover. Avoid taking ibuprofen or paracetamol. These medicines usually have adverse effects on the body especially after the consumption of wine.
For example combining red wine with whiskey, creates the Worst Splitting headaches. Mixing whiskey with soda or water is better than with cola and tonic. Also if you personally noticed being more knocked around by certain drinks, stay away from it.
6) ASPIRIN, next day or at end of drinking:
An aspirin with a full glass of water or more (to also help the aspirin move through the body) will help remove a headache/hangover. Avoid taking ibuprofen or paracetamol. These medicines usually have adverse effects on the body especially after the consumption of wine.
7) Now, my little secret, ORS !:
ORAL REHYDRATION SALTS – these can come in little sachets to mix with 200mL water or in already prepared form – you can also prepare it yourself but you have to be exact. There’s a very fine equilibrium to rehydrate the cells of your body. This mixture of water, potassium, sodium, glucose etc achieves maximum hydration of water into cells. Okay so you may see on the pharmacy’s box of Rehydration Salts the word “Diarrhea”, but don’t let that deter you – these are as good as gold. Anyway on that point they do save millions of children in developing countries from death due to diarrhea and thus severe dehydration. There’s one thing I don’t like about most ORS preparations that are commercially available – the Artificial Sweeteners. I strongly dislike phenylalanine, aspartame, and sucralose (eg. in Gastrolyte) which are the most common sweeteners used (also you’ll see in fine print phenylalanine ingredient as a Caution, as it’s known to impair kidney funtion in certain people). The only commercial ORS I use does have a sweetener (as all commercial ones do), in the form of Sodium Saccharin, which I don’t find as bad as the others (to explain the detrimental effects of artificial sweeteners that would be a whole another topic). It only comes in Orange flavour (sodium saccharin is the same sweetener used in Vit C tablets) and it’s name just as “O.R.S.” on the front.
8) B VITAMINS – These are the B-bomb! If you’re going to deplete the body of certain things by doing drugs or drinking, a supplement can really be useful. Take a B-Complex supplement with food, during the day after drinking. Berocca is also helpful, but a B-complex has much higher levels of each B vitamin derivative, and with no artificial sweeteners. Blackmores or Thompson’s are the best commercially available brands, especially Blackmore’s B Executive. The range of B vitamins assist basically every function in the body, such as energy metabolism (carbs, fats and proteins), nerve health, cellular energy production, metabolising stored fat in the body, and importantly, Liver Health. Alcohol consumption depletes B vitamin stores in the body at a massive cellular rate.
9) Also, SLEEP, after drinking plenty of water after alcohol:
Your liver works most effectively whilst you’re sleeping, and if you drank wisely you can wake up feeling great!
10) Do not take Prescription Drugs with alcohol:
Whether you’re doing it because you’re ignorant and want to save money on drinking but still want to get smashed, or whether you have a headache while you’re drinking alcohol. Don’t do it, it only harms your body. If you have a headache, just stop drinking and start drinking water, and go to sleep, Then take a paracetamol after the alcohol has been metabolised..
Anyway, HAPPY DRINKING!
It is still wise to keep your eyes open in research and clinical trials, but many of these are not being funded (like the huge pharmaceutical industry that’s been busted for funding research to benefit them in results – you can manipulate any scientific trial to get the results you want) by wine companies, so I find a lot of them are unbiased.
