Finding Hangover Cures That Work Can Be A Real Headache

Everybody knows about the R.I.D.E. program, of course, but when you’re indulging in some good times, it’s easy to forget about remembering your limit – legal and otherwise.

So how much alcohol is too much and how can you be sure you don’t take one drink too many? A lot depends on the individual, of course.

The Canadian Association for Mental Health suggests women are more sensitive to the effects of the drug than men, but the older you are the quicker the liquor’s effects.

Most experts suggest you nurse that drink for a while to avoid becoming intoxicated. Others say eating while you’re imbibing will lessen the overall effects of getting too drunk too fast. So will putting more ice in your drink.

Using drinks mixed with fruit juice can help you burn off alcohol more quickly. And downing a few glasses of H20 late into the evening is supposed to dilute all that booze you had in distill of the night, and make you a lot happier the next morning.

But in the end, your only real hope for avoiding that post holiday headache known as the hangover is one most of us wouldn’t even consider on New Year’s Eve – abstinence.

According to a study at the Universities of Exeter and Plymouth in England, none of the traditional folk remedies – ranging from a greasy meal the next day to the old hair of the dog that bit you – really work.

The scientists tested a number of the tried and true methods and found only one solution helps you get over your over-indulgence: time.

“No compelling evidence exists to suggest that any conventional or complementary intervention is effective for preventing or treating alcohol hangover,” the researchers wrote in the British Medical Journal.

“The most effective way to avoid the symptoms of alcohol induced hangover is thus to practice abstinence or moderation.”

Most hangover symptoms pass in 8-24 hours. But for those in the throes of the pain, it seems a lot longer.

Which generally means once you’ve made your New Year’s resolution about never doing it again, you can set yourself up to break that vow again next December 31 ^st.

For those about to ring in the new, it’s a sobering thought.

Here are some hangover cures many insist actually work. Try them at your own risk.

Eating a banana

Having a milkshake

Swallowing an egg

Having some cabbage or an artichoke

Coffee

Water

Tomatoes

Fruit juice

Greasy foods

A big breakfast

Cold showers

Hot baths

A day in a sauna

Green tea

Pickle juice

Ice packs

Aspirins, and the most famous suggestion of all,

Hair of the dog that bit you

How much is too much?

A group of Canadian health experts have come up with a menu they call ‘low risk drinking’, which suggests spacing out each drink to about an hour apart and taking in no more than two glasses of booze during what they term a drinking session.

Here’s how their math works out using 13.6 grams of alcohol as the measurement for a “standard” drink.

Zero drinks= zero problems

Two drinks=the maximum on any given day

Up to nine drinks=the maximum amount women should have a week

Up to fourteen drinks a week= the maximum amount men should have a week

Size matters

Believe it or not, a study out of Cornell University indicates the kind of glass you get served in has a lot to do with how drunk you get.

It claims bartenders tend to unwittingly pour more alcohol into glasses that are short and wide than the tall skinny kind. That means two cocktails from a squat tumbler might actually pack the punch of 2½ drinks. 

Save this page on del.icio.us

Sign up for a del.icio.us account here to save your bookmarks for free online.