What Is A Hangover?

What Are Hangovers?

When you drink too much alcohol, you may experience a hangover, a set of uncomfortable symptoms that may occur within several hours of your last drink.

When your body processes the alcohol out of its system, you feel the effects of a hangover. These effects can negatively impact your physical and mental health, interfering with how you function.

Consuming any alcohol, such as beer, wine, and liquor, can lead to a hangover.

What Are The Symptoms Of A Hangover?

The hangover symptoms you experience may not be the same as others, as many factors can affect their severity. The most reported hangover symptoms include:

Symptoms usually appear when your body metabolizes alcohol, and there is little left in your system. Symptoms ease with time. If symptoms ever become severe, you may be experiencing alcohol poisoning instead of a hangover. If so, you must seek medical treatment.

In addition to the symptoms of a hangover, alcohol poisoning may also include:

• Confusion
• Seizures
• Irregular breathing
• Low body temperature
• Fading in and out of consciousness

When experienced frequently, hangovers and alcohol toxicity can adversely impact all aspects of your life. For example, your performance at work and school weakens, and it becomes hard to fulfill the responsibilities at home.

How Long Does A Hangover Last?

Hangover symptoms can last 24 hours or longer after a night of drinking alcohol. How long your symptoms last can also depend on your body’s ability to metabolize alcohol, considering factors like weight, gender, medications, and the amount of food in your stomach.

What Causes A Hangover?

Every person may have a different level of sensitivity to alcohol’s withdrawal effects. However, one or all of the below can cause a hangover.

Dehydration

Consuming alcohol leads to several bodily actions that lead to dehydration, including an increase in urination, sweating, vomiting, and diarrhea. When dehydrated, the hormone vasopressin tells your kidneys to retain fluids. However, alcohol suppresses this hormone from reaching the kidneys and, therefore, does not retain fluids that could prevent dehydration.

Gastrointestinal Problems

Alcohol inflames the intestines and stomach, leading to an increase in acids. You may experience nausea, vomiting, stomach pain, and a delay in how the body moves food through the digestive tract.

Headaches

When blood vessels widen, you may feel a headache. Also, because alcohol is a diuretic, it triggers your kidneys to get rid of fluids and salt necessary for your body to function. As a result, headaches occur. Some who consume alcohol get a headache because they have a sensitivity to the added chemicals or preservatives.

Sleep Disturbances

You may think you fall asleep and stay asleep longer after consuming alcohol, but the type of sleep you get does more harm than good. The sleep you get while hungover is not quality sleep. Instead, it is shorter, disrupts body temperature, and prevents hormone and cortisol release. These are some of the reasons you feel more fatigued when you wake up after a night of drinking alcohol.

Inflammation

Alcohol inflames multiple parts of the body, making you feel sick, tired, and weak. As the liver metabolizes alcohol, it produces acetaldehyde, a chemical that causes inflammation in the liver, pancreas, brain, and gastrointestinal tract. Being over-inflamed weakens the immune system and can prolong recovery.

How Much Alcohol Does It Take To Get A Hangover?

The amount of alcohol it takes to get a hangover varies for everyone. Some people do not experience hangovers after consuming alcohol. On the other hand, some people may feel hangover effects, like a headache, after a few sips.

Factors like the following contribute to how much alcohol it takes to get a hangover:

• Gender
• Weight
• Amount of alcohol
• Tolerance
• Medication interactions
• Type of alcohol
• Sensitivities to alcohol ingredients

Each person consuming alcohol can have risk factors that make them more susceptible to getting a hangover. It is best to know your risk factors before you drink so you can do what you can to avoid the adverse effects.

Are Some Types Of Alcohols Worse For Hangovers Than Others?

Ethanol is the leading cause of a hangover. Some lesser-known causes are substances produced naturally during fermentation, such as congeners.

Congeners include acids, alcohols, esters, ketones, and aldehydes. Any of these may contribute to a hangover, which often occurs in alcohols that are less distilled than others. So, drinking a higher distilled product makes you less likely to experience a hangover. Higher distilled alcohols are usually more expensive. Buying cheap liquor may have the right price, but it may cost you the next day, depending on your hangover symptoms.

One reason is that congeners are more challenging for the body to metabolize than ethanol. The more congeners you consume, the harder it is for metabolism to function.

Darker liquors tend to have more congeners. Therefore, the following list ranks types of alcohols from highest to lowest number of congeners:

• Red wine
• Brandy
• Cognac
• Bourbon
• Scotch
• Beer
• White wine
• Gin
• Vodka

Sulfites may also contribute to hangover symptoms. They can occur naturally or be added as preservatives in alcohol. Red and white wines typically have the most sulfites. Drinks with high congeners and sulfites can make you feel worse after a night of drinking.

What you mix alcohol with can also worsen hangovers, including:

• Sodas
• Powder mixers
• Liquid mixers
• Fruit juices
• Syrups
• Coffee
• Bitters

For example, vodka (low number of congeners) mixed with water (only one ingredient) will produce fewer hangover symptoms than brandy (high number of congeners) mixed with cola or syrup (numerous ingredients). Redbull (caffeine plus 14 other ingredients) mixed with rum (high number of cogeners) will cause hangover symptoms much more than a light beer (low number of congeners).

If you experience frequent hangovers, it may be time to evaluate your drinking habits. Take our alcohol assessment today to learn more.

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How Are Hangovers Diagnosed?

It is usually easy to connect hangover symptoms to alcohol consumption since they occur soon after you stop drinking. Also, when you avoid drinking, the symptoms do not appear, giving you a clear answer to the cause of your symptoms.

Unless symptoms are severe, seeing a medical professional for a diagnosis is unnecessary. You can self-diagnose your symptoms simply by knowing what to expect after consuming alcohol.

What Is The Best Hangover Cure?

There is no magic cure for hangovers except time. Many myths exist that coffee, water, food, and warm showers aid in sobering you up or eliminating alcohol from your system, but these are false.

How Can I Prevent A Hangover (Or Reduce Its Severity)?

The best cure is time, which depends on how well your body metabolizes the substance and expels it from your system. However, you can take steps to ease hangover symptoms, such as:

• Avoid drinking more alcohol
• Drink fluids to rehydrate your body
• Have a healthy snack to balance your blood sugar and ease stomach aches
• Take an over-the-counter pain reliever to ease aches and pains
• Create a space where you can relax and sleep, like in a dark, cool room

The only way to avoid a hangover is not to consume alcohol in the first place. If you do choose to drink, knowing when to stop drinking can help prevent a hangover.

Hangovers Vs. Alcohol Withdrawal

Hangovers and alcohol withdrawal are not the same. Hangovers occur after a night of consuming alcohol. Alcohol withdrawal occurs when someone misuses alcohol and tries to cut back or stop their drinking habits. They also occur when someone cannot obtain more alcohol before their symptoms appear.

While hangovers and alcohol withdrawal may have overlapping symptoms, alcohol withdrawal symptoms are much more severe and indicate a more serious problem.

Alcohol withdrawal symptoms may occur between 8 and 72 hours after your last drink and may include:

For many people, alcohol withdrawal can be dangerous and requires assistance from licensed medical practitioners to ensure safety. Depending on the severity of the withdrawals, you may benefit from medication-assisted treatment.

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Why Do I Keep Getting Hangovers?

Your physical health may be one reason you get frequent hangovers. Alcohol causes inflammation in the body, but if your body is already inflamed, it may worsen your symptoms. If you have any of the following common conditions, you may already be battling chronic inflammation:

Hundreds of other conditions cause inflammation in the body, whether they originate from bacteria, parasites, or other pathogens. Other reasons you continue to get headaches may be due to allergies to alcohol or its ingredients, medications you are taking for different conditions, or your metabolism.

How Common Are Hangovers?

According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, 75% of the general population that drink moderately have frequent hangovers.

The statistics vary among groups of drinkers. For example, college students tend to drink at higher rates than post-college drinkers. According to the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, nearly half of all college students reported drinking alcohol in the previous month, and almost 30% admitted to binge drinking.

When To Seek Help

If your hangover symptoms do not get better within 24 hours, or if they worsen after you stop drinking alcohol, seek emergency treatment.

If you feel you must continue drinking alcohol to avoid adverse hangover symptoms or that your drinking habits are a sign of alcohol misuse, contact a treatment provider today. They can answer your rehab-related questions and help you get started on your journey to a healthier, happier you.