Sex, drugs and bacon rolls

You wake up, the morning light hits you like a train. You’re a feeble, pathetic wreck of your former self and you wonder whether you’ll achieve anything today. But don’t worry, help is at hand; read on to find out how to ease the hangover pain.

The technical term for the way you’re feeling is ‘Vesalgia’, from the Norwegian for “uneasiness following debauchery”, which is usually an appropriate description.
But why must we endure such “uneasiness”? The answer, of course, is that we’ve drunk too much alcohol. When you delve a little deeper into the science involved, the consequences of this aren’t exactly surprising.
The active ingredient of alcohol (the bit that gets you drunk) is ethanol. This small molecule is essentially a mild sedative, although it is extremely toxic to humans. To put it into perspective, ethanol is seven times more toxic than morphine and 1000 times more toxic than cannabis. In fact, it is the most toxic drug available in the UK, and yet on average we each drink a gallon of the stuff every year.

The first thing you need to do to combat your hangover is to drink water. Dehydration is the most prolific symptom you will be experiencing, causing headaches and a dry mouth. It happens because alcohol is what’s called a diuretic; it messes with the kidneys, causing them to stop reabsorbing fluids and instead sending everything to the bladder. This effect is so severe that for each unit of alcohol consumed you will expel four times as much liquid in urine, leaving you feeling like you’ve spent the night chewing sand. So get some water down you, preferably with an effervescent vitamin tablet in because you will also have lost many important nutrients as a result of your kidney’s night off.

Next, take no more than 400mg of ibuprofen with a regular coke. This will offer some temporary relief to your pounding headache, and the coke contains sugars which need to be replenished, and phosphoric acid, which will quell feelings of nausea. Resist the temptation to take lots of painkillers, it may seem like an easy way out, but excess consumption while alcohol is still in the body can have some nasty effects.

Moving on, make yourself a nice and greasy toasted bacon and egg sandwich. In its attempts to detoxify the body, the first thing the liver does is to break down ethanol into ethanal, which unfortunately is ever more toxic than ethanol. Eating eggs can help with this as they contain the amino acid cystiene, which is used by the liver to break down the ethanal. Bacon is good for replacing lost salts, and the toast contains carbohydrates which will raise blood sugar levels back to normal, which should improve your mood.

Now, brace yourself, because this step is not for the faint hearted; go and do some exercise. A good half hour should do the trick. When you get home have a long hot shower or a bath, as hot as you can stand. Both of these will cause you to sweat out many of the toxins your liver is struggling to deal with, and exercise speeds up your metabolism, reducing the duration of your hangover. If you’re really not feeling up to exercise, at least get some fresh air; oxygen is proven to speed up your body’s recovery.

If you are still feeling hungover at this point then we’re down to last resort tactics. If you had a really good night, you may not be waking up alone. A bit of morning after nookie can work wonders on your hangover, releasing endorphins that work as natural painkillers, and let’s face it, it will probably take your mind of things.

So hopefully having completed the above steps to the best of your ability, you are no longer hungover! If you are, go back to bed and have a think about how much you actually drunk.