For those poor souls, Irish and otherwise, who may have had a dram too much Guinness or did not expect that extra wee bit of Tullamore Dew to cause any problems, here are your morning after hangover cures.
There are few self-inflicted illnesses worse than being massively hung over after overdoing it the night before. Sure, at the time you told yourself getting up in three hours at 6 a.m. would be no trouble at all, but now your alarm clock is screaming along with your head and for some reason the slice of cold pizza you ate when you got home is not sitting well in your stomach.
Luckily the Internet is available to help you through this troubling time so if you can grab a smartphone or laptop and focus long enough here are some tips that might help.
Here is the bad news first. The unfortunate fact is nothing except time truly cures a hangover. Your body simply has to work the alcohol out of your system and that takes place only at a certain rate. However, you can alleviate the pain.
Here are a few tips from Health.com.
The first is a totally nasty trick that only convinces your body that you feel better, the old hair of the dog. Yes, it works, but all you are doing is delaying the inevitable by basically staying drunk.
Is anything better than a greasy breakfast or better yet finding a place that sells cheeseburgers at 7 a.m.? Not really, but actual doctors say this is a bad cure, you are better off eating light and staying hydrated. Damn!
The old "plop-plop, fizz-fizz" of Alka Seltzer has been on the homemade hangover cure list for decades. To some extent there is a good reason as the baking soda will help a queezy belly and the aspirin will help your head. Unfortunately both will also further irritate your stomach so at best this is a 50-50 idea.
Much advertised hangover pills are a waste of time and money.
Coffee is another mainstay hangover remedy, but again its curative affects actually make your situation worse. By constricting the flow of blood and boosting your blood pressure you are compounding the impact of the alcohol. Still, it tastes darn good so maybe a little won't hurt.
Drinking water is also another well known fix. Since alcohol dehydrates the body it only makes sense that adding water should help. However, there is no medical evidence to prove this, but drinking a few glasses of water certainly will not make you any worse.
Over the counter non-steroidal anti-inflammatory pain relievers can provide some relief along with those meds designed for relieving PMS pain like Midol and Pamprin. These work because nothing else could make a burly Irish fellow feel worse than popping pills designed to fix cramps.
Finally, the one act that actually helps is usually the hardest to accomplish. That is sleep. While tossing and turning trying to find the cold side of the pillow to bring some relief to your pounding head may seem impossible it is the best method of getting through the period that your body needs to metabolize the alcohol.
So with all that said good luck on March 18.
