The Real Hangover Survival Tips
If you have ever had a full-time job in Korea, you would understand how important yet stressful an after-work get-together can be. Although a company dinner is supposed to be an occasion when you can relieve the stress from work and restore morale, it often turns out to be something even worse than an extension of work.
Since it is also true that you can’t avoid it, you’d better find ways to enjoy it in a wise and healthy way. If you haven’t found your own solution already, you may find the following tips quite useful.
How to Become the Last Man Standing
TIP 1. Before you drink, have some candy or chocolate to raise your sugar levels.
When you drink alcohol, it starts to consume glucose in your liver. Therefore, it may be a good idea to eat two to three small candies or chocolates to prepare for the loss in glucose in advance.
You may bump into some people who insist that eating greasy fast-food like pizza or hamburgers helps you to overcome a hangover the next day. But no, it’s just that alcohol lowers your sugar levels to make you feel like you want to have something fatty. In fact, the junk food only picks on your already exhausted liver and slows your recovery.
TIP 2. Do not have too much faith in those 'remedy drinks for hangover.
When you drink alcohol, it starts to consume glucose in your liver. Therefore, it may be a good idea to eat two to three small candies or chocolates to prepare for the loss in glucose in advance.
You may bump into some people who insist that eating greasy fast-food like pizza or hamburgers helps you to overcome a hangover the next day. But no, it’s just that alcohol lowers your sugar levels to make you feel like you want to have something fatty. In fact, the junk food only picks on your already exhausted liver and slows your recovery.
TIP 3. Drink as much water as you can during the get-together.
When you lack about 0.8 to 2% of water compared to your weight, you feel thirsty as you are in a state of ‘dehydration.’ If you drink too much, you are far more vulnerable to dehydration as so much water is used up to dissolve the alcohol in your body. This is why you feel thirsty in the morning after you have spent the last night drinking too much.
Therefore you should drink as much water as you can. It’s a smart way to better dissolve alcohol in your body and prevent dehydration.
Another cause of dehydration is an increase in body temperature. When alcohol generates heat in your body, the body requires more than twice as much water to deal with the heat. This leads to an increased quantity of urine and makes you thirsty after excessive drinking.
Three Hangover-killer Foods
First. Driving alcohol out of your body with diuresis: cucumber
When your liver is busy dissolving alcohol, it requires a large amount of Vitamin C. So if you supply your body with more Vitamin C after drinking, this accelerates the speed of your body discharging the alcohol.
Therefore, eating some cucumber could be one of the best choices the day after drinking; 95% of a cucumber is made up of water, and it has an abundance of Vitamin C and potassium which stimulate diuresis.
Second. Filling you up with much needed sugar and electrolytes: honey water
As we’ve mentioned above, dissolving alcohol consumes sugar and water inside your body. And excessive drinking leads to low sugar levels, symptoms of dehydration, and a lack of electrolytes as our body discharges much water and many kinds of electrolytes.
This means that it is better to have something like honey water, orange juice, and sikhye (a sweet rice drink) in the morning after a tiring get-together, as they help you to replenish your body's optimum sugar levels and the required amount of electrolytes.
Third. The best hangover-killer, bean sprouts
Bean sprouts are well-known as the best solution for hangovers in Korea. Their tails are full of 'aspartic acid', which helps our body generate coenzymes that dissolve alcohol and get rid of acetaldehyde—the culprit behind the agonizing hangover. Plus bean sprouts have plenty of Vitamin C, too!