C'mon, feel the pain
Party time
Office parties, Christmas parties, New Year’s parties, parties, parties, parties. All good fun, but it’s more than likely that you’ll find yourself the worse for wear at some point during the next few weeks. Not only does this mean that you run the risk of shaming yourself in one of a thousand drunken ways – anyone else ever pulled their boss? – it’s also likely you’ll spend at least one morning having to nurse yourself through the after-effects of last night’s excesses.
Whether they’re how our bodies take revenge on us for having a good time, or some higher power punishing us mortals for our sins, hangovers are a sobering fact of life. So how do we deal with the dilemma we face every time we say, ‘OK guys, this round’s on me!’? There are some who say that the only way to avoid a hangover is not to drink in the first place. People like that, though, tend to knit their own jumpers and will probably be safely tucked up in bed by the time tuck into your second cocktail.
Morning glory
There is another option. Accepting that the odd morning-after headache is inevitable doesn’t mean there’s nothing we can do when we wake up feeling like we slept under a pile of bricks.
The search for an effective hangover cure is a tradition that is thousands of years old. Ever since cavemen found that leaving apple juice out in the sun for too long made it much more fun to drink, humankind has been looking for a way to deal with the mysterious pains that seems to afflict it after drinking heavily.
World of pain
Throughout the ages, people have tried all sorts of cures. Rabbit-poo tea, soot and human milk have all been heralded as the way to banish the evil, with mixed results. Even nowadays, when we’re all experts in the subject of drinking and its effects, opinions are divided on the best way to feel better after a heavy night.
But there are a few tried and trusted favourites that many would agree work more than other methods. After hours of painstaking and painful research, the Itchy team have put their aching headstogether and come up with their top cures:
Pints and pints of water
Most of the symptoms associated with a hangover come from being dehydrated, caused by the fact that alcohol makes you pee a lot and made worse by the fact that you drink more alcohol when you’re thirsty. You can avoid the really bad hangovers by drinking water, before, during and after your big night. At the very least, have a pint of water before you go to sleep, and there’s a good chance that you’ll feel a lot less worse for wear when the alarm goes off.
Popping pills
If you haven’t managed to keep your body’s water levels anywhere near where they ought to be, the first place you’ll feel the pain is in your head. Your headache will only really go away once you're properly re-hydrated again, but in the meantime, you can stave off the worst of the throbbing by taking painkillers. Aspirin and Ibuprofen can irritate the lining of your stomach, especially after what you’ve already put it through, so Paracetamol is the connoisseur’s painkiller of choice. Choosing pills that are water-soluble has the added bonus of getting water back in your system at the same time.
The full fry
There are many theories as to why nothing beats a full English breakfast in the event of a stinking hangover. Some say the grease soaks up the booze, others maintain that it’s something in the eggs that help clear out the poisons in your body. While both these claims probably have some truth about them, it’s more likely that the fat and carbohydrate help get your blood sugar levels to rise. In turn, your energy levels should also get back up to where they should be, taking the edge off your pain.
More booze
Now why on earth would you put more of the stuff inside you when it’s what caused all the pain in the first place? It’s not like someone who’s been hit by a car would heal their broken bones by running across a motorway during rush hour. And yet, some people swear that the best thing for a hangover is to start drinking again. Now while we wouldn’t claim that this tactic is based on any sort of sound medical knowledge, we at Itchy must confess that there have been days when a Bloody Mary really has changed things for the better. Perhaps the new booze simply dulls the pain, perhaps it’s the vitamins in the tomato juice, perhaps it’s magic. Who knows? Who cares if it makes you feel better?
Running man
There are some people in this world whose idea of a good time is to get up at seven o’clock on a Saturday morning and go for a long run around some freezing field. One of these athletic types told us that the best way to deal with a hangover was to do just that; get the machine up to full-steam, so to speak, and literally burn off the toxins in your system. Itchy suspects that keep-fit fanatics are probably the least-qualified people to know what it’s like to stay up until you’ve finished the second bottle of single malt, but you never know. If we’re ever up early enough to try, we’ll tell you what happened.
Black magic
If all the above fail, then Itchy only has one other remedy to suggest: voodoo. Don’t take this one lightly. If you’re willing to risk the wrath of the gods, what you’ll need to do is stick 13 black pins in the cork of the wine bottle that sent you over the edge. It won’t make a single bit of difference of course, but it might take your mind off the pain for a few minutes.
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