Symptoms, Causes and How to Avoid Hangover

A hangover is a term used to describe the effects felt the morning after a night of excessive drinking. If you are guilty of consuming just a little too much the night before, then you will most likely wake up with a hangover. Physical symptoms such as a pounding headache, queasy stomach, dry throat, redness of the eyes, thirst and fatigue are characteristic of a hangover. In addition, you may also experience a rapid heartbeat, tremors, muscle aches and sweating. Mental symptoms such as dizziness, depression, irritability and anxiety are also common.

It makes sense that a mood-altering substance, such as alcohol, will affect mood. Although it may feel like it alters your mood in a positive way at the time of consumption, the remnants of alcohol in your bloodstream and brain the next day affect your natural ‘feel good' chemicals and cause mood disturbance.

Hangover Symptoms

If you have had a hangover, you knew it, and didn't need to read a symptom list to get a diagnosis. Alcohol hangovers are characterized by some or all of the following symptoms: dehydration, nausea, headache, fatigue, fever, vomiting, diarrhea, flatulence, sensitivity to light and sound, trouble sleeping, difficulty concentrating, and poor depth perception. Many people experience an extreme aversion to the smell, taste, sight, or the thought of alcohol. Hangovers vary, so the range and intensity of symptoms may be different between individuals and from one occasion to another. Most hangovers begin several hours after drinking. A hangover may last as long as a couple of days.

Hangover Causes

Drinking an alcoholic beverage that contains impurities or preservatives can give you a hangover, even if you only have one drink. Some of these impurities may be other alcohols besides ethanol. Other hangover-causing chemicals are congeners, which are by-products of the fermentation process. Sometimes impurities are intentionally added, such as zinc or other metals which may be added to sweeten or enhance the flavor of certain liqueurs. Otherwise, it matters what you drink and how much you drink.

Drinking to excess is more likely to cause a hangover than drinking moderately. You get a hangover because the ethanol in the drink caused increase urine production, leading to dehydration. Dehydration causes headaches, fatigue, and dry mouth. Alcohol also reacts with the stomach lining, which can lead to nausea. Ethanol is metabolized into acetaldehyde, which is actually a lot more toxic, mutagenic, and carcinogenic than the alcohol itself. It takes time to break down the acetaldehyde into acetic acid, during which you'll experience all the symptoms of acetaldehyde exposure.

How to Avoid a Hangover

Of course the best and safest way to prevent hangovers is to limit yourself to 1-2 drinks.

Drink slowly. The slower you drink, the less alcohol reaches the brain (even if you end up consuming more). The reason is simple math: Your body burns alcohol at a fixed rate—about an ounce an hour. Give it more time to burn that alcohol, and less reaches your blood and brain.

Drink on a full stomach. "This is probably the single best thing you can do besides drinking less to reduce the severity of a hangover," Dr. Mitchell says. "Food slows the absorption of alcohol, and the slower you absorb it, the less alcohol actually reaches the brain." The kind of food you eat doesn't matter much. Eating well before you go out, during alcohol consumption, and sometimes after is important. Breads and pasta particularly slow absorption of alcohol into the blood stream. So do milk and other dairy products.

Take some extra vitamin C before retiring. Some even suggest taking extra vitamin C for a few days before imbibing a lot.

Drink the right drinks. What you drink can play a major role in what your head feels like the next morning, according to Kenneth Blum, Ph.D. The chief villains are congeners. "Congeners are higher order alcohols. (ethanol is the one we commonly call ‘alcohol' but there are many others.) They are found in essentially all alcoholic beverages," Dr. Blum says. "How they work isn't known, but they're closely related to the amount of pain you experience after drinking."

The least perilous concoction is vodka. The most perilous is bourbon. Cognac and other brandies as well as single malt scotches are close behind. These are followed by blended scotch and other whiskeys and champagnes of all kinds (here it's the bubbles that are the problem). Red wine can be a problem, but for a different reason.

It contains tyramine, a histamine-like substance that can produce a killer headache. Gin and white wine are almost as benign as vodka, but in sufficient quantity, any form of alcohol can do you in. Avoid sweet tropical mixed drinks such as zombies and pina coladas, Also, avoid eating sugary foods such as cookies, cakes and chocolate. You tend to drink more than you realize, because the sugar makes it difficult to sense how much alcohol you are consuming.

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Avoid the bubbly. And that doesn't mean just champagne. Dr. Mitchell and Dr. Blum agree. Anything with bubbles in it (rum and Coke is just as bad as champagne) is a special hazard. The bubbles put the alcohol into your bloodstream much more quickly. Your liver can't keep up; the alcohol overflow pours into your bloodstream.

Be size sensitive. With few exceptions, there's no way a 110-pounder can go one-on-one with a 250-pound drinker and wake up the winner. So scale down your drinks. To come out even, the 110-pounder can handle about half the alcohol of the 250-pounder.

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Take Alka-Seltzer at bedtime. "There's no hard scientific data on this, but my own clinical experience and that of a lot of others says that water and Alka-Seltzer before going to bed can make your hangover much less of a problem," says John Brick, Ph.D. Others claim that two aspirin tablets (which is really Alka-Seltzer without the fizz) can also help. However, non-prescription pain relievers can be tough on the stomach, especially when there is alcohol in the system. Plain water is always a good idea for rehydration. Some recommend flat ginger ale.