So, one of your girlfriends called you up last night to say she just got a cushy promotion with nice perks and benefits, and she wanted to celebrate. She was wondering if you could come to her place, hang out with your other girlfriends and maybe have a few drinks. Since it was a Friday night and you happened to be dateless and free, you decided to put some glad rags on and headed off to your friend's apartment.
What you had expected to be a cozy night among girlfriends, however, turned out to be a night of bar hopping, dancing and heavy drinking. You told your friends that you would only drink a little, just so you would not appear to be a wet blanket. But what was supposed to be just one drink turned out to be one too many.
It is now one o'clock in the afternoon the day after, and you are still in bed. Your eyes feel gritty and your mouth feels horribly dry. You know your stomach is empty, but you have that sick feeling of wanting to throw up. Most of all, your head seems like it is spinning like a top, and you have neither any memory nor any idea of how you got home in the first place.
You have a hangover, girl. Now what are you supposed to do about it?
Hangovers happen because too much alcohol dehydrates your body and washes out the nutrients that your body is supposed to absorb. Your liver is now working overtime to get the alcohol out of your system.
There are many hangover remedies out there that many drinkers all over the world swear by. Some of them include pills that can be bought over the counter. But before you pop one in, you could try reading the labels a second time, in case you were too woozy to read it the first time. Most drugs that are supposed to cure hangovers do not have approval from the Food and Drug Authority. That pill might do you more harm than good.
To get over this hangover, the best thing you can do is to replenish the water in your body. Drink lots of water, fruit juices or sports drinks. Guzzling a can of soda helps with the hangover, too. If you think you can face food without throwing up, get something to eat to replace the nutrients the alcohol washed out from your body last night. And if you can spare the time, sleep the hangover off.
In case your girlfriend calls again tonight or the following night, since she is still in euphoria about that promotion and raise, you do not have to say no. But before you start another bout of drinking, you may try a few tricks like the ones listed below to avoid getting another episode of hangover the following morning.
1. Stick to lighter-colored drinks like vodka, white wine, or gin. The darker the drink in your hands is, the stronger the hangover that you will experience tomorrow. It means that the darker drinks have more congeners, the chemicals that cause hangover, which fermented alcohol contains naturally.
2. Drinking clear-colored drinks will enable you to alternate alcohol with water. In this way, you can do a little cheating on the drinks and avoid being accused of being a wet blanket.
3. Do not drink on an empty stomach. Eating before and during the drinking bout will help boost your body's metabolism and make it absorb and process the alcohol quickly.
The best way to cure hangover, however, remains to steer clear away from the alcohol. If your girlfriend wants to go bar hopping just to celebrate, you have two options to take: 1) be a wet blanket and stick to your non-alcoholic iced tea or fruit juice while they are all drinking martini and margaritas; and 2) tell your friend, in a very, very nice way that will not hurt her feelings, to forget it and that you will stay at home.
