Hangover Effects
People suffer all kinds of hangover effects, when they've been drinking. No two human bodies are exactly the same, because everyone has a different metabolism, level of health, tolerance to alcohol and genetic makeup. That means you might not suffer through hangovers as bad as your friend that drank the same amount, or you might suffer much worse hangover problems than your friend. It also means the two of you can suffer bad hangover side effects, but the consequences are completely different.
For that reason, I'm going to go over the major physiological and psychological issues that might arise when you have too much to drink. Let's start with the most common side effect of being hung over: headaches.
Hangover Headache Effect
The hangover headache comes from blood rushing to your head, as the blood vessels in your brain start to dilate. When alcohol is in contact with blood vessels, it causes those blood vessels to expand. So imagine the blood vessels in your brain expanding, which naturally causes more blood to rush to your head.
Veins pump blood back to our hearts from our arms and especially legs, since they have to pump up. But blood gets back to the heart from the brain through the force of gravity, for the most part. When you fall asleep after drinking, your blood vessels are still wide open, so blood rushes throughout your body.
Because you're lying down, gravity can't pump blood back to your heart as fast as it would normally. Instead, the blood pools up in your head. So when you wake up the next morning, you have a pounding headache. What's worse, once you have a headache, it's hard to get rid of. But headaches aren't the only effects of a bad hangover.
Hangover Physiological Effects
Drinking affects nearly every part of your body in one way or another. When you drink too much, you may have up to 24 hours of the hell we call a "hangover". Here are just a few of the physiological effects associated with hangovers, along with the parts of the body affected by hangovers.
- Stomach
- Throat & Mouth
- Muscles
- Liver
The effects of binge drinking on the liver are the scariest effects of a hangover, but often the least-noticed. I'll get to those in a minute; but, for now, let's discuss what excess alcohol does to your stomach.
Hangover Effects on the Stomach
When you drink too much alcohol, the lining of your stomach becomes inflamed. This means that digestion is delayed, as excess gastric acids build up. These gastric acids cause a sense of nausea.
Combat the nausea by putting something (and hopefully keeping something) on your stomach. Eat a piece of dry toast or a cracker to get something into your stomach, while drinking a carbonated drink. The fizz helps soothe a nauseated stomach.
Hangover Effects on the Mouth & Throat
When you get dehydrated, your throat and mouth become dry and scratchy. This is your body telling you that it needs water, and plenty of it. Rehydrate and replenish your body by drinking plenty of water.
One reason people get a puffy face when they drink too much alcohol is because of water retention. When your body doesn't have enough water, it retains what little water it has, filling the cells of your skin. Cells in the skin of your face fill with water, which causes puffy skin.
There are more important parts of your physiology that water regulates. If you don't have enough water, every body system doesn't function properly. Drink plenty of water.
Symptoms of Hangovers on Muscles
Due to symptoms of hangovers, the muscles of your body before weak and sore. Muscle weakness comes from a combination of dehydration and low blood sugar levels. Your body isn't getting enough water to its muscles, so they start to cramp, and don't work at peak efficiency.
Meanwhile, your blood sugar levels are too low, so you aren't getting enough energy to the parts of the body that need to function. We'll discuss more about blood sugars levels in our next topic: the human liver.
Hangover Effects on the Liver
When your ingest a great deal of alcohol, the lactic acids and fatty acids build up in your liver. This makes it hard for the liver to metabolize sugar. This causes hypoglycemia or low blood sugar, which wreaks havoc on your body.
Low blood sugar not only causes you to feel weak and tired, but it also causes violent mood swings. Moodiness and depression are sometimes symptoms of a hangover.
Hangover Psychological Effects
This brings us to the psychological effects of alcohol consumption. Let's talk about symptoms similar to the moodiness and depression just touched on. Alcohol acts as a depressant. Some doctors even believe that hangovers might be tied to minor withdrawal effects, when we're coming off an alcoholic binge.
I'm not sure if that's right or not. But since alcohol is a known depressant, and because alcohol does negatively affect our blood sugar stability, people can suffer definite psychological effects during a hangover.
Reducing Hangover Effects
When trying to reduce the effects of a hangover, consider using the following hangover tips before, after and during the period you're drinking.
- Drink Slower - Don't drink as fast as you normally do. This gives your body's enzymes time to break down alcohol, reducing hangover effects.
- Don't Drink without Eating - Drinking on an empty stomach is one of the best ways to induce a hangover. When you have food in your digestive system, this food tends to absorb a certain amount of alcohol. You digest the alcohol, but more slowly.
- Don't Drink Caffeine Beforehand - Caffeine dehydrates your body. Combining caffeine with alcohol means you are taking two substances that work towards dehydration, increasing the effects of each. Avoid drinking energy drinks, coffee and tea before binging on alcohol, or these drinks are going to bring on hangovers.
- Avoid Dehydration - Drink water and fruit drinks before, during and after drinking liquor and wine. Drinking water before you sleep also helps alleviate the effects of hangovers. Dehydration isn't the only cause, but it is the #1 cause, of hangovers. Combat hangover effects by staying hydrated.
Some people drink a water between drinks on a night out. Others don't consider this masculine enough. It's a good idea, but may not fit into the kind of alcohol drinking you have in mind. If not, then hydrate before drinking alcohol, then start drinking water as soon as your drinking session is over.
Hangover Side Effects
As you can see, anyone can suffer slightly different hangover effects. Once you learn why you've having hangover problems, the side effects aren't quite so scary - especially if you're having extreme physical problems or psychological conditions. If either persists beyond 24 hours, consider talking to a trained medical professional.