What Is A Hangover?
Not this sexy, that’s what a hangover is
Sure, we’ve (almost) all been there; you’re dizzy and nauseous and thirsty and hungry and oh god, why would I even do this to myself?!? But… what is it actually? What’s going on inside your body to make you feel that way?
What Is A Hangover?
In practical terms, we use the word “hangover” to describe a series of symptoms. Thirst, nausea, headaches, body aches, dizziness, sensitivity to loud noises and bright lights… If you have one or more of these after a night of drinking, that’s a hangover. It can be light (and solved by a few aspirin) or it can be severe and take hours to recover.
According to Adam Rogers: Proof, The Science of Booze, the best scientific explanation we have right now is essentially your body is responding to the alcohol (which is, may I remind you, actual literal poison, even if it is delicious) the same way it would an infection, so your immune system becomes inflamed. In his own, rather more technical words:
“Hangovers are accompanied by elevated levels of molecules called cytokines, molecules used as communications signals by the immune system. One research team in Korea found elevated levels of interleukin-10, interleukin-12, and interferon gamma in their hungover subjects. If you inject those into a healthy subject, that person will start to have all kinds of familiar sounding symptoms, including nausea, gastrointestinal distress, headache, chills, and fatigue.”
Proof: The Science of Booze by Adam Rogers, p.194
Common Myths
There are a lot of people that will tell you with confidence that any of the following items causes hangovers, and by addressing or avoiding them, you can avoid the hangover. Some of them, like not getting dehydrated, will definitely help lessen the worst of the hangover. But they won’t fix it entirely. Here’s why:
Dehydration
Basically, drinking water is always going to make you feel good so you should definitely still stay hydrated, but if it was just dehydration then drinking a glass of water or getting an IV drip would make it magically disappear. Since you can be incredibly hydrated and still hungover, we know it can’t be just that.
Acetaldehyde
Acetaldehyde is the chemical alcohol leftovers after your liver has done its job. Apparently we feel the hangover the worst as the Acetaldehyde starts to break down and leave the body, not when it’s at its peak. If this were the culprit, we would feel the worst when it was at it’s greatest concentration in the body.
Blood Sugar
While there might be some correlation between sugary drinks and feeling more hungover the next day, unfortunately if hangovers were caused by just low blood sugar, we would be able to eat some sugar and call it good. In spite of substantial efforts, that hasn’t magically fixed a hangover before.
Congeners
Congeners are essentially the ‘impurities’ that remain in your spirits after distillation. In addition to being what gives the whiskey and rum and all the other spirits their distinct flavors, they are vodka’s favorite punching bag. Vodka drinkers (and companies) will often tout how vodka doesn’t give you a hangover because it’s so “pure” and doesn’t have congeners.
While some (not very scientific) studies have been done to try to prove or disprove this, my personal opinion is that people have an idea already of what gets them drunk more or faster. They expect to behave differently when drinking tequila versus whiskey, etc. etc. I think people just perceive their hangover to be worse after a night of drinking whiskey because they expect it to be worse than vodka drinking. Plus, it’s not like they can do side by side comparisons of their hangovers (or would want to) so the myth continues to get solidified in their mind every time they experience it again.
How to Avoid a Hangover
It’s easy to avoid a hangover, you just don’t drink. But that’s not realistic. If you were gonna do that, you wouldn’t be here right now. Instead, check out this post below about sobering up. By using those techniques, you can lessen the hangover and take better care of your body.
Hangover
“Cures”
Too Late to get ahead of the hangover? Well, here are some strategies and practical advice for getting yourself through the worst of it. Do better next time, okay? You owe it to yourself.
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