Introduction

A killer hangover the morning after is enough to make anyone vow they will never drink again. The most you can do is hope it’s the weekend and you’ve got time to indulge in the best hangover cure – sleep. But if you find yourself facing the working day hung over and with very little sleep, following our tips for a speedy recovery may help. Getting your head together Regardless of whether you are due in work, there are a few essential ways to help get rid of your hangover;

• Have a hot power shower – many headaches are often the result of constricted blood vessels or tense neck muscles. Standing with the water hitting the back of your head and massaging your neck will help relax the tension and relieve your headache.

• Get some fresh air – this will do wonders for you head. If you’re heading out to work in the morning, make sure you walk at least one stop before getting public transport and you will feel much better when you arrive.

• Avoid fatty foods – a hangover can often make you crave fatty foods and you might feel like a full English will cure your hangover, but you’re best to stay away. Try having a substantial breakfast cereal with a slow releasing energy fruit such as a banana to help you get through the day.

• Avoid having a hair of the dog – many believe another alcoholic drink will put your hangover off course, but in reality all it will do is delay the inevitable. Swap having an early morning beer or an Irish coffee in favour of drinking lots of water to rehydrate yourself. If your stomach can’t handle large amounts of water, try having a sip of water every 10 minutes.

Sticking to this advice will really help you feel a lot better by the latter part of the day. Make sure you give you body time to recover by taking time off from alcohol if you’ve had a heavy session and don’t be tempted back in to the pub the next day. For information on how to prevent the hangover from hell after your next big night out, read our, How to avoid a painful morning after feature.

One of the worst parts about a hangover is the nausea. It’s sometimes impossible to take any remedy, even an aspirin, and hold it down until it can start to work. You probably already know some of the things that help you when you’re facing the nausea of a hangover – or nausea for any other reason, for that matter. But take a look at some advice you may not have thought of.

The nausea pros – moms to be – have a hatful of tricks they use to get their days started when nausea is threatening to put their lives on hold. One of those is to eat something very dry and drink something very light. Even our grandmothers said that plain crackers or dry toast was a good thing to eat when nausea was a problem. And they were right!

Start with only a small amount of either, then wash it down with something very light. A weak tea is usually a good idea for a drink – hot if you’re feeling chilled or cold if you’re feeling flushed and overheated.

Some people can tolerate something heavier, and there are some good rules to follow when deciding what you should and shouldn’t eat.

Avoid acids and grease until the nausea has subsided. Both acids and grease tend to churn around in your stomach, making the nausea worse for as long at it remains there – usually until you throw up. If you’re expecting the nausea of a hangover, avoid those rich foods in the hours leading up to the drinking as well because grease tends to take longer to digest – it’ll still be hanging around the next morning, just waiting to aggravate the problem.

Trust your nose and your thoughts. If the smell of something makes your nausea worse, you’re probably not going to tolerate it well on your stomach. By the same token, if simply thinking about a particular food makes your stomach churn, that’s not likely to be a good idea either. After all, controlling your stomach starts in your mind and if the thought of some particular food causes a reaction, the food itself is probably going to be worse.

Remember that dizziness and nausea go hand in hand. That means that you’re more likely to be seriously nauseated if you stand or move around quickly. If possible, lay still for a while to let the nausea pass. Do whatever it takes to avoid dizziness.

Eat a little. Rack your brain until you can come up with something that you think you can eat. Then eat only a little of it. It’s important to get something on your stomach or the natural acids will simply continue to wreak havoc. Throughout the day, continue to eat only small amounts until you’re well past the nausea.

Natural remedies are simple, easy to try and have no harmful effects. Problems like hangover, hay fever and jet lag can be easily treated using natural remedies. This article discusses how aromatherapy can be helpful in treating hangover, hay fever and jet lag. Just read this article and you will find a list of essential oils helpful in these conditions.

1. Hangover - The prime cause of a hangover (headache, upset stomach, lethargy, nausea) is dehydration, so try to drink plenty of water or fruit juice on waking and last thing the night before, if possible. Then try the following aromatherapy treatment.

First, make a cold compress to which you add one drop of juniper oil and one drop of fennel oil. Apply to your forehead and temples. Next, blend three drops of rose oil in 1 fl oz (25 ml) of a carrier oil and massage it into the liver area – the lower right side of your ribs and just below them.

Rose oil helps to detoxify the liver. Drinking plenty of water throughout the day is important as well as it will flush the toxins out of your system more efficiently.

2. Hay fever - This is actually an allergic reaction caused by the pollens of various shrubs, trees and grasses. Symptoms include sneezing, running nose and sore red eyes. Aromatherapy can ease hay fever, but won’t cure it.

Add six drops of hyssop oil to a bowl of hot water and inhale the steam. Alternatively, mix six drops of hyssop oil in 2 fl oz (50 ml) of carrier oil and massage it into your cheeks and under your nose regularly. People prone to epilepsy should avoid hyssop.

3. Jet lag - This affects you when your internal body clock becomes disorientated. It can cause changes in your normal eating and sleep patterns and is generally debilitating.

During you flight, drink plenty of water and soft drinks, avoid alcohol and eat little. Sleep if you can, and before traveling make up this aromatherapy blend. Add four drops of rosemary, four drops of ylang-ylang and four drops of lemon oil to 4 fl oz (100 ml) of carrier oil. During your flight, massage it into your neck, face and the back of your neck up to the base of your skull. On arrival, pour some of the blend into a warm bath and soak in it for at least 15 minutes.

Disclaimer: This article is not meant to provide health advice and is for general information only. Always seek the insights of a qualified health professional before embarking on any health program.

Read useful articles on Hair loss remedy to control your hair fall. Know how Herbal remedies are helpful in promoting good health. Also read about Natural weight loss to shed your extra body fat.

Keeping alcohol intake moderate is critical to proper liver and kidney function. Alcoholic beverages have been part of human culture for thousand of years. Alcohol is used for all kinds of social gatherings, celebrations, and rituals. Millions of people drink moderately several times a week and experience no ill effects. But others are more vulnerable to the problems alcohol can cause. Your response to alcohol is in part a matter of biochemical individuality. Alcohol is a drug. As is true of other drugs, the impact of alcohol depends to a significant degree on the dose. Its main ingredient, ethanol, acts as a stimulant at low doses, but at higher doses it acts as a depressant even as an anesthetic. Continued drinking of alcohol creates tolerance. The more you drink, the more you need to consume to achieve the same effect.

Alcohol passes quickly from the stomach into the bloodstream, where it travels to the brain. As a depressant, it decreases the activity in the central nervous system, reducing anxiety, tension, and inhibitions. That is why alcohol is so often used as a “social lubricant,” and why many events begin with a cocktail party. Drinking makes many people feel more relaxed and confident, more at ease in social settings. However, with continued drinking or drinking at high levels, alcohol slows reactions, impairs concentration, and interferes with judgement. At low doses alcohol causes the blood vessels to widen, causing increased blood flow and sensations of warmth. As a blood thinner, alcohol may help reduce the risk of clotting and heart attacks. However, with high doses, you can actually lose body heat. Having a drink can trigger the flow of gastric juices. This stimulates appetite and can improve digestion, which again is one reason people have a drink before a meal. But continued drinking at high levels can cause inflammation and weakening of the stomach lining, increasing the risk of gastric ulcers.

As any beer drinker can tell you, drinking increases urine flow. Obviously, drinking large amounts of fluid means your body must increase the output of urine to maintain its balance. But alcohol also acts to inhibit production of antidiuretic hormone (ADH). Without instructions from this hormone, your kidneys speed up the process of filtering water out of the blood. For this reason, alcohol causes you to lose more fluid than you take in, increasing the risk of dehydration. The hangover from excessive drinking is largely the result of lack of body water. Molecules of alcohol are broken down by liver enzymes. However, if you drink too much, you can overwhelm this detoxification system. Damage to liver cells can cause the development of a kind of scar tissue, resulting in cirrhosis, which severely even fatally impairs liver function. Also, some people have bodies that simply do not produce adequate levels of enzymes needed to break down alcohol. These people are particularly vulnerable to alcoholism.

There are many other psychological problems associated with excess alcohol intake. Just a few examples: Alcohol doubles the risk of cancer of the mouth and throat. Smoking and drinking combined increases the risk fifteenfold. Alcohol kills brain cells, leading to nerve, muscle, and cognitive impairment. Immune system cells decline in number and activity with alcohol intake, increasing the risks of infection.

I do not tell my friends that they must never drink. In fact, I will often point out that population studies are showing that moderate alcohol consumption, particularly red wine, is associated with some protection against heart disease. I myself enjoy a glass of good red wine with meals. However, to gain the benefits from alcohol you must drink only in moderation. Limit alcoholic drinks to one a day – two at most. Keep in mind that 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine, and 1.5 ounces of distilled beverages all contain the same dose of alcohol. If you drink, it is recommended to select fermented beverages (beer and wine), whose alcohol is produced by the natural fermentation of fruits and grains, rather than distilled beverages such as vodka, gin, and whiskey.

if you take one too many tequila shots with your college buddies last night and are seriously regretting it this morning? All that booze has swiftly traveled up to your head through the night and now you can’t think straight because of a constant pounding in your head, you are bending over to reach a bag to throw up in and you feel like you might never be able to get out of bed? Welcome to the world of hangovers.

The best cure to one is not to drink too much in the first place but if you have over-indulged yourself, don’t worry. There are ways to alleviate the symptoms of a hangover.

Firstly, lets look at how you can save yourself the agony. To prevent the effects of a hangover which are mostly due to dehydration, drink as much water as possible before going to sleep. This will also assist the body in getting purged of the alcohol in your system. Taking water every once in a while during your drinking marathon can also stop hangover from occurring the next day.

Another way is to munch on something before or during drinking.

If none of these tips work or if you didn’t pay heed to them then here are ways to beat the nausea, dizziness and exhaustion:

You must have seen people in movies waking up with hangovers and reaching for a pot of strong black coffee. Bad idea! The caffeine in coffee will serve to dehydrate your body even more. Plus, it has diuretic properties so of course it will leave your stomach feeling worse than ever.

Bland water too much for you to face? Substitute it with ginger ale. This will help you calm your stomach. Make sure it is flat and not fizzy.

Fresh fruit juice is another good option. The vitamin C found in it will provide you with quick energy that your body so craves.

Do not ignore your thirst. Even some energy drinks can be helpful to some people.

To ease the dry feeling in your mouth, take a few tablespoons of honey or stir it in with a glass of water.

When you have had enough water try swallowing a few slices of plain toast and keeping it down. Do not apply any topping like marmalade or peanut butter.

For a little freshening up and getting energy into your exhausted body, try eat a little fruit.

In case it’s impossible for you to look at any solid food or even juices resort to multivitamins.

Take some aspirin to get rid of the headache. Tylenol and Panadol are common choices. Use them in the morning and not at night when your body is still loaded with the alcohol.

Sleep it off. Use all the remedies given above and hit the pillow again.

Wrap your head in a cool wash cloth or compress. Try relax.

When you wake up from a night of drinking with a pounding headache and your head in the toilet, the last thing you are thinking about is what’s for breakfast. Chances are, you would rather stay in bed with the covers pulled over you rather than risk putting something on your stomach only to have it make a return visit. However, since many of the side effects of a hangover are due to dehydration, lack of essential vitamins and nutrients, and low blood sugar, having something to eat may be a vital part of your hangover cure that you are missing out on.

Now, this does not mean that you should take advantage of the all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet at your local greasy diner. Instead, you should eat something light and healthy to see how your stomach reacts. You should avoid carbohydrates and fatty foods since these are only going to make you feel worse.

To drink, you can start out with a simple cocktail of tomato juice, Tabasco sauce, lemon juice, and a shot of vodka. This works well for a variety of reasons as a hangover cure. First of all, the tomato juice is packed with vitamins and antioxidants that will help your body to cleanse your blood from any leftover alcohol and impurities that are still lurking around.

Another reason that you feel terrible the next morning is the fact that you essentially overdosed on alcohol the night before and now your body is going through withdrawal. Having the shot of vodka in your juice will help put some alcohol back into your system, and allow you to start some of your other hangover remedies before the hangover comes back. However, keep it to only a shot. Any more and you are setting yourself on the road to alcoholism.

Once you have gotten the juice down, and are hopefully starting to feel a little better, you can make yourself a protein-packed breakfast. Try 3 pieces of back bacon, 3 canned tomatoes, 2 scrambled eggs, and an orange to start out with. The eggs have protein that will help build your strength back up, as well as a chemical that is known to fight some of the toxins that are still left in your system. Canned tomatoes, like the tomato juice, also have the vitamins and antioxidants that you need to revitalize your system. The bacon has fat that helps bind to the alcohol left in your blood, and the orange has citric acid to make that fat easier to digest, not to mention vitamin C, one of the essential vitamins that you lost through dehydration.

For best results, you should have a second breakfast with more of the same foods within four hours of your first one, and try to stay awake in between them instead of going back to bed, since going to sleep slows down your metabolism. If you need help staying awake, try taking a nice hot shower, followed by a cold rinse, to help wake you up.

Time is the best cure for a hangover but since you can’t hurry that up, a good healthy meal is the perfect alternative.

The morning after a night of heavy drinking, you may be sicker than you ever could have imagined. Despite the fact that alcohol has been around for thousands of years, few real remedies have been discovered. However, it seems that since humans love to imbibe, many interesting remedies have been created.

For instance, in the middle ages, raw eel was included in concoctions. Even today, remedies are slightly strange – for instance, at 3 AM when you should be sound asleep in your bed, you may stagger home for a cold shower and black coffee – and then wonder why you feel terrible in the morning. So, what remedies actually work? Here are some of the tried and true methods that you can give a try for yourself.

Hitting the local Starbucks or all night diners for a cup of black coffee has long been a standard “cure” for hangovers. While you will no longer be falling asleep drunk, you will still be drunk – just wide awake. Caffeine does not sober you up, though it may help your headache. However, it can also dehydrate you further and irritate your stomach, making you all the more miserable once it wears off.

One of the biggest mistakes is to drink coffee before trying to go to bed. Best case scenario it will disrupt your sleep – assuming you can get to sleep at all. If you need coffee to get your engine started in the morning, have a small cup. Otherwise, you may suffer from caffeine withdrawals on top of your hangover.

Of course, every good alcoholic will tell you that having a drink in the morning will help ward off the hangover. While this may help the symptoms of alcohol withdrawal your body experiences, it is only prolonging your suffering. Your body still has to process the alcohol from the night before, plus whatever new stuff you put in, and, unless you continue drinking yourself into oblivion, you will eventually have to deal with the after effects. All in all, a drink the next day is just going to put you further on the road to a drinking problem.

Some drinkers turn to natural remedies to solve their hangover issues. However, some people find the “cure” to be worse than the sickness. Milk thistle is often used for people suffering from liver problems, and can help improve liver function. Taking it may help your liver eliminate the toxins from the alcohol better. Gingerroot tea can help settle that nauseous stomach in the morning. Fresh fruit and vegetable juices can get nutrients into your body quickly and help get you hydrated again. Soup can also help to hydrate, and soothes the stomach as well as providing much needed nutrients.

Of course, there are always the hangover recipes that you can try out. Many of these are a mixture of alcohol, juice, and flavorings. Again, keep in mind that in most cases, drinking more alcohol will only prolong your pain and can lead to big problems down the road. At best, these recipes provide temporary relief.

Time is the only real cure for a hangover. So, if you are going to drink, make sure you schedule time to recover.

Alcohol is a staple at most adult party’s. While the responsible drinker won’t drink themselves into a stupor, everyone is entitled to a little irresponsibility now and then (just do not drink and drive). If you do end up going overboard then you are probably going to face the inevitable hangover the next day.

The scenarios behind a hangover tend to be pretty similar – too much to drink, mixing drinks, etc. The symptoms are often the same: migraines, nausea, dry mouth, dizziness, and a general feeling of discomfort. Here is a look at how you can prevent yourself from feeling this way should there be a next time.

Never drink on an empty stomach. Eat something with greasy, fatty foods loaded with oil or butter. Others will swear by having a couple of tablespoons of olive oil before leaving the house. Remember to wash it down before going to bed with a couple of glasses of water.

Drinking water in general before bedtime will help with dehydration along with something to dull the pain.

If you need help waking up in the morning, you can try a red eye. Take some whiskey, fresh coffee, Tabasco sauce, a raw egg, pepper, and orange juice and blend it together in a blender. If you are able to choke it down, fans say that you will start feeling better within 15 minutes. If you need a faster cure, try a Black Mary. Mix coffee with tonic water, honey, and orange juice. Again, it might be a little rough to get down, but there are those that swear by its effectiveness.

Some other preventatives have to do with when you are actually out drinking. Following these rules can help keep you feeling good the next day.

First of all, avoid mixed drinks. If you prefer the harder drinks, take them straight or over ice. Avoid drinks that have colas or juices mixed in, since these will often get you drunk faster and without realizing it. This leads to more toxins needing to be flushed from your system, and a higher likelihood of a hangover the next day.

Do not mix low alcoholic drinks with highly alcoholic ones. For example, drinking both beer and hard liquor is a thing to avoid. Choose one or the other, otherwise, your body gets confused and you end up taking in more alcohol. And, the more alcohol that gets absorbed, the more likely you are to have a hangover.

Avoid dairy when you are drinking. Milk, cheeses, ice cream, and cream sauces can really upset your stomach when you mix them with alcohol. So unless you enjoy the view of your toilet bowl, stay away from them until afterwards.

Always keep in mind that while hangover “cures” can help to alleviate the symptoms of your hangover, only time and your metabolism will officially end it. So keep that in mind when you are out drinking, particularly if there is somewhere that you want to be the next day.

Hangovers are a hateful ill caused by over-drinking, great times the night before are often replaced by a range of needling symptoms. These may include a severe headache, sensitivity to loud noise and bright light, diarrhoea, loss of appetite, shaking, nausea, fatigue, dehydration, inability to concentrate and anxiety. A number of factors contribute to how severe a hangover may be, of course these include how much the person has to drink and the tolerance of the individual. Other contributing factors include drinking on an empty stomach, lack of sleep, dehydration before drinking or being physically active while drinking (e.g. dancing). When alcohol enters the bloodstream, the kidneys begin sending water directly to the bladder instead of re-circulating it around the body, hence the frequent visits to the bathroom that the drinker makes. These are made all the more frequent and necessary because the body begins to expel four times as much as it digests, this rate decreases as the amount of alcohol in the bloodstream increases but it still has a detrimental effect on the hangover the following morning. This dehydration causes headaches as the body’s organs steal water from the brain to replenish their own supply, causing the brain to decrease in size, pulling on membranes that connect the brain with the skull and thus causing strain and ache. Frequent urination also expels an excess of sodium and potassium that is not good for the nerves and can cause nausea and fatigue. And we lose too much glucose during many trips to the bathroom – loss of glucose, our key energy source causes fatigue and messy co-ordination. It also matters what type of alcoholic beverage you consume as some have a higher concentration of congeners which are by-products of fermentation.

The biggest offenders of this are red wine, bourbon, whiskey, brandy and tequila. Also, combining these different impurities can make the hangover all the more severe. Also, the carbonation in beer speeds up the absorption of alcohol, so following beer with liquor is not a great idea. Even getting to bed early and managing to get a long sleep still may not completely eradicate some of these symptoms. Whilst drinking, the creation of the natural stimulant glutamine is inhibited, when you stop drinking, the body makes up for this loss and beings to overproduce glutamine thus stimulating the brain while the person is attempting to sleep, therefore preventing the deepest sleep being had. The best remedy for a hangover is simply – don’t drink alcohol! But if you insist on a few sups there are a few cures that are bandied about that are rumoured to beat the dreaded hangover. One of the most common is the ‘hair of the dog that bit you’, which simply means drinking a little more alcohol the following morning -sometimes this can be a fate worse than death and all is really does is stave of the inevitable. Another proposition is to swallow down as much burnt toast as is humanly possible, the thinking being that the carbon in the toast will act like a type of filter. It’s not true, nor are several other propositions such as black coffee or fatty foods. There are some things that can help but bizarrely they are not bandied about so much. Eggs can help clear up toxins and bananas can help enhance potassium levels.

Russell Shortt is a travel consultant with Exploring Ireland, the leading specialists in customised, private escorted tours, escorted coach tours and independent self drive tours of Ireland. Article source Russell Shortt, http://www.exploringireland.net  http://www.visitscotlandtours.com

How about teaming up your favorite meal with the best of wine this weekend? It sounds a great idea but don’t you think you may overindulge? Well, you may not mind this but what about the hangover you have to face, the other morning. How about spending you entire Sunday afternoon sitting inside the bathroom, with one hand on your forehead and the other on your stomach? Scary isn’t it?

Hey, hold on! I am not trying to scare the life out of you. I am just showing you the real picture of a hangover that you may require to face the following day after you have overindulged in your favorite wine.

This sounds really bad but don’t worry, there are many tips you can follow in order to get rid of a wine hangover. All you need to do is to follow the instructions given below:

a) Water, water and water:

Water is the key to get over the wine hangover. Drink plenty of water. Alcohol has a tendency to dehydrate your body. This is the main reason that most people end up having a lot of liquids in the form of plain water, lemon water, coffee and black tea without having pee for a single time. If you want to stay away from the temptation of overindulging in wine, the best way is to have a glass of water for each glass of wine you desire to have. Wine is a great source of water, but the presence of water tends to produce adverse effects on the body. Hence, it is necessary to keep hydrating your body with water.

b) Binge in:

Sounds great! Believe me, it really works. Eat your favorite meal or some snacks an hour before a drink. This will save you from getting involved into overindulge and the hangover. The meal or snack should include bread or pasta.

c) No prescription drugs:

So you want to save money! It’s a good idea but you should not save money via mixing your glass of wine with prescription drugs for more effects. This will only damage your body. Drink less if you really want to save money.

d) Milk:

Drink a glass of milk prior to consuming wine. This will provide a protection coat to your stomach and helps you absorb the alcohol in the wine.

e) No salt:

Salt will prove dangerous as it tends to maximize the process of dehydration. You should stay away from salt when having margarita…

f) An aspirin:

An aspirin will help you to remove headache. Avoid taking ibuprofen or paracetamol. These medicines usually have adverse effects on the body especially after the consumption of wine.

g) Avoid dark drinks:

The major hangover you experience may be due to combining red wine with whiskey. You should mix whiskey with soda or water. Avoid mixing it with cola and tonic.

Hangover is due to over indulgence in wine. Try to stay away from it. Follow the instructions mentioned above you would feel better after a wine party with your friends.