Having a night on the town is one of life’s small enjoyments. You’ve spent all week in a small cubical working away either typing, filing or dealing with angry customers and their petty concerns. When Friday comes it’s finally a chance to forget all that, to let your hair down and to have some fun. It’s then that you remember what it’s like to live.

But more often than not we go too far and the next day we feel like sin. The throbbing head, the vomiting, the nausea; suddenly you remember that this isn’t living and promise to never drink again. Which lasts about a week until next Friday, the great cycle continues…

It would be much more satisfying if you didn’t have to pay for your night out the next day. Luckily there are some preventative measure you can take to minimise just how bad the symptoms are. It’s important to realise that what actually hurts the morning is mostly dehydration. As alcohol is dehydrating it will mean your brain will become dehydrated and lose the vital minerals and vitamins it needs to function well. If you try going for a day without drinking you’ll quickly find you get a headache that feels mightily like a headache. For that reason then, if you hydrate yourself throughout the night and before bed then you’re likely to find you have less of a severe headache the next day. Of course if you order a glass of water your friends will take the mickey, but you can do it subtly when it’s your round if you just ask for a glass (which is free) and drink it before you bring the drinks back. If the situation gets really desperate you can also drink water out of the fountains in the toilets. Club and pub owners don’t like puke all over their floors – which is why they make special arrangements to give you every possible opportunity to sober up and feel better.

As well as a headache though you’ll also find that you get nauseous and sick the next day. This is also a result of the alcohol as the body recognises it as unhealthy (it kills brain cells and damages your liver). For this reason it will attempt to flush it out of the system – the only way it knows how. This will happen when there are large amounts of alcohol in your system and not much else to neutralise it or that’s worth keeping for your body. For that reason, lining your stomach with good food will also help keep it settled and painless. Good options are bread and meals with lots of carbohydrates. Avoid greasy foods like the oh-so-tempting kebab however as the body will recognise that for what it is too – junk. When everyone else heads to the kebab shop then do yourself a favour and head to the Subway. That way you can still satisfy the munchies and line your stomach, but with something that will help your body and make you less sick. If you order a tuna baguette you’ll also be giving yourself omega 3 fatty acids which are good for the brain.

You can also help your stomach to have a lower percentage of alcohol by drinking water as mentioned before, as well as by drinking more slowly. Drinking more slowly will allow your body your expel a lot of the harmful stuff in your urine. At the same time it will mean that the alcohol is absorbed less quickly into the blood stream meaning you’re not hit by that sudden wave of drunkenness.

Avoiding mixing your drinks will also minimise the chance of getting a hangover, as one type of poison is far easier for the body to handle. If you must mix then make sure you mix sensibly – for example if you’re drinking wine drink red before you drink white. White before red is bad for your head, red before white makes you feel alright. Also avoid mixing beer and cider no matter how much you want a Snakebite. Of course you could always just not drink so much at all… but then that’s pretty crazy.

When the night comes to an end you can also help yourself by getting some fresh air and by giving yourself some time before you go to bed. For this reason it can be sensible to walk some of the way before you get the taxi or get it to drop you a little way from your house (this way you’ll save money too). Just don’t walk home drunk in the dark on your own if you like in a bad area or you’ll have a headache for a completely different bottle-shaped reason.

When you get home you’ll know if you’re in the potential hang over zone when you close your eyes and the world starts spinning. This is a genuinely horrible sensation and the longer you keep your eyes closed the faster it will spin. Eventually this will lead to you throwing up. If you’re standing up then support yourself against a wall with your hand which can help give your brain its baring again. If you feel like this then it’s best not to go to sleep just yet. Instead drink more water and stay awake until the spinning stops slightly – this normally only takes about an hour. If you already have a headache at this point then you can take a paracetamol right away which might also help you sleep and minimise the discomfort come morning.

Another way to stop the spinning though if you do lie down is to lie on a hard flat surface, which is why I’ve taken to sleeping on the floor after a night out. The reasons for it’s effectiveness are lost on me, but sleeping on the floor or even a table as I was known to do at University will prevent you from being sick in the night and will often prevent you from getting as bad a hangover in the morning. It seems to be a combination of the hard surface and the cool air.

Once you are awake if all that hasn’t helped you should still do the same things – drink water and eat dry meat and carbs. In particular I eat ham, it just works. You should also try and replenish the vitamins and minerals you lost during the day which you can do with a juice drink such as orange juice or with an effervescent vitamin and mineral supplement such as Berocca.

Sunlight can also really help improve a headache and counter some of the lethargy due to the vitamin D it supplies you with through the thin areas of your skull. Standing in the sun with your eyes closed (bright lights are the enemy of the hung-over) can make you feel immediately better.

Raw eggs are a popular ingredient in many hang over cures, and many people mix the two together with seasoning to create the rather foul ‘prairie oysters’ hangover cure. This is due to the fact that eggs contain lots of protein with the most amino acids of any food source as well as having antioxidant properties (meaning they combat the affects of free radicals and protect the cell walls in the body). However the distinctly foul texture of raw egg makes many people feel sicker and you can get antioxidants from orange juice recommended above and protein from the ham. A far better way to eat eggs is the classic way – as part of a big fry up, where the munchies will overrule your sickness helping you to forget all about your nausea.

Another popular cure for a hang over is known as ‘hair of the dog’. Before you start chasing the dog with those clippers however you should take a moment to find out what that means (sheesh!). Hair of the dog actually refers to the practice of drinking more alcohol to combat the affects of the alcohol from the night before. The reason this might work is that alcohol numbs pain, but also because it’s sobering up that makes you feel ill – not being drunk. While this might work for a while, you’re really only delaying the inevitable so I wouldn’t recommend it (unless you stay permanently drunk…).

Of course simple. Sometimes though it’s more fun not to do all that stuff. Who wants to be drinking water and alcohol moderately on a night out? Sometimes a hangover is well worth it and part of the fun… enjoy!

Mack LeMouse

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