Life as a frequent traveler, with boozy business meetings or nights out with long-missed friends, means you'll suffer from hangovers on a regular basis. Here are the best tips to prevent the dreaded hangover.
How you got that hangover
That pounding feeling and those jitters are the nasty side effects of acetaldehyde, dehydration, and vitamin depletion. It's all made worse by your body recovering from an overdose of a depressant drug, alcohol, and metabolic shock. It's all caused by you imbibing too much alcohol and wearing yourself down by flitting from sight to sight the whole day before. Right now, you're regretting drinking all that alcohol.
Yesterday, you had two options:
- Drinking less, or
- Following these simple tips for preventing a hangover
Since drinking less isn't likely to happen, you better take option 2 next time.
Hangover prevention tips for travelers
- Drink more water. Especially, make sure you drink two glasses of clean water after your last alcoholic drink. This gives your body a chance to 'rinse out' the booze. Orange juice works well too, and tops up your vitamin C levels.
- Berocca tablets can top up your B vitamins.
- Drink before you drink. A glass of full fat milk will help slow down alcohol absorbtion and your hangover.
- Eat before you drink. This one can be tricky while on the road. You're still better off with scarfing a bratwurst before those beers. Fatty foods are better for hangover prevention.
- Alternate alcohol and water. That way you'll end up drinking less during the evening.
- Hydration tablets could work. A bit more radical, but one of these should help you come out slightly ahead after a drinking session.
- Stick to 'fresh' booze. No, not 'fresh' as in 'Fresh Prince' but like vegetables. An opened bottle of red wine or poorly stored lager will have ready made acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde is the stuff ethanol breaks down into and will give you a worse hangover, faster.
- Look through your glass. The clearer your alcoholic drink is, the less likely to give you a bad hangover. Congeners, or impurities in the alcohol, are concentrated in dark liquers like whisky and brandy or red wines and will turbo charge your suffering.
- Get fresh air. Shouldn't be too hard for a traveler. After all, you're out exploring, so explore your way to the next bar and breathe in some crisp night air.
- Eat a bedside snack. Even a bit of toast before bed will help eliminate the 'jitters' next morning.
- Get enough sleep. If you're exhausted, your hangover will feel much worse than otherwise. Goes double if you're jetlagged.
The 3 key tips
The 3 most important tips among these are:
- Drink water
- Eat properly
- Get enough sleep
If you do these, that hangover should be much milder once it arrives. And they're easy to do even if you live a road warrior lifestyle or are away on a stag weekend in Prague.
Share your tips
If you have any further tips on preventing a hangover, share them in the comments.
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