Your body processes roughly one standard drink per hour, and nothing speeds that up. But what you do in the hours after drinking can significantly affect how you feel the next day, how well you sleep, and whether you avoid making a bad situation worse. Here’s what actually helps and what to skip.
Start With Water, Not Sports Drinks
Alcohol triggers your kidneys to flush out extra water, especially while your blood alcohol level is still rising. This initial wave of fluid loss is what leaves you with a dry mouth and headache. The simplest fix is plain water. Drink a full glass before bed and keep more nearby for when you wake up during the night.
You don’t need a sports drink or electrolyte packet after a normal night of drinking. The early diuretic effect of alcohol mostly flushes free water while preserving electrolytes. Electrolyte imbalances become a real concern with heavy, prolonged drinking or when vomiting and diarrhea are involved. In those cases, an oral rehydration solution or broth with salt is worth reaching for. For most people, water does the job.
Eat Something With Carbs and Protein
Alcohol interferes with your liver’s ability to release stored glucose, which can leave your blood sugar lower than normal. That contributes to the shaky, foggy feeling you get the morning after. Eating before bed or first thing in the morning helps stabilize your blood sugar and gives your body fuel for recovery.
Good options include a sandwich, yogurt, cereal with milk, cheese and crackers, or an apple with peanut butter. The goal is a combination of carbohydrates for quick energy and protein or fat to slow digestion. Greasy, high-protein foods also slow the rate at which any remaining alcohol reaches your small intestine, where most absorption happens. If your stomach is too unsettled for solid food, start with toast or a banana and work up from there.
Expect Poor Sleep
Even though alcohol makes you fall asleep faster, it wrecks the quality of that sleep. Alcohol suppresses REM sleep, the phase most closely tied to mental restoration. It also reduces slow-wave (deep) sleep, the kind your body relies on for physical recovery. The result is that you wake up feeling unrested no matter how many hours you spent in bed.
There’s not much you can do to fix this the same night, but a few things help. Keep your room cool and dark. Avoid screens when you wake up at 3 a.m. (a common pattern after drinking, as the sedative effect wears off and your nervous system rebounds). If you can, give yourself extra time in bed the following night. One night of disrupted sleep is easy to bounce back from. The real risk is compounding poor sleep over several nights.
Skip the Workout
The idea of “sweating it out” is a myth. Your liver clears alcohol at a fixed rate of about one drink per hour, and exercise doesn’t change that. What exercise does do is pile additional stress onto a body that’s already under strain.
Drinking increases the potential for unusual heart rhythms, and that risk stays elevated for up to two days after heavy consumption. Your heart rate is already working harder to process alcohol, so adding intense exercise creates real cardiovascular strain. On top of that, exercising while dehydrated from alcohol leads to worse performance, more muscle cramps (because your liver is busy processing alcohol instead of clearing lactic acid), and slower reaction times. Coordination and balance remain impaired even after you feel sober. A gentle walk is fine. Save the hard workout for the next day.
Choose the Right Pain Reliever
If you wake up with a headache, be careful about what you grab from the medicine cabinet. Acetaminophen (Tylenol) and alcohol are both processed by your liver, and the combination increases the risk of liver damage. The FDA specifically warns people who drink three or more alcoholic beverages a day to talk with a healthcare provider before taking acetaminophen.
Ibuprofen or aspirin are generally considered safer choices after drinking, but they can irritate an already-sensitive stomach lining. Take them with food and water rather than on an empty stomach. If your headache is mild, rehydrating and eating may resolve it without medication.
Know That the Hangover Outlasts the Buzz
Hangover symptoms begin as your blood alcohol concentration approaches zero, not while you’re still intoxicated. That means the worst of it often hits the morning after, and the effects are more than just a headache. Research has documented slower reaction times, more errors on tasks, reduced short-term memory, and impaired sustained attention during a hangover. Working memory and the ability to plan ahead are both measurably worse.
These cognitive effects can last well beyond 24 hours after your last drink. This matters for driving, operating equipment, or making important decisions. If you drank heavily the night before, treat the next morning the way you’d treat being sleep-deprived: your judgment and reflexes are not at full capacity, even if you feel mostly okay.
Helping Someone Who Drank Too Much
If someone around you is severely intoxicated, the most important thing you can do is keep them safe while their body processes the alcohol. Never leave a heavily intoxicated person alone, especially if they’re lying down. Vomiting while unconscious is a choking risk.
Place them in the recovery position:
- Raise the arm closest to you above their head, then gently roll them onto their side, guarding their head from hitting the floor.
- Tilt their head up slightly to keep the airway open.
- Tuck their nearest hand under their cheek to help maintain that head tilt and keep their face off the floor.
- Check on them frequently.
When It’s an Emergency
Alcohol poisoning is a medical emergency that kills by suppressing the brain’s ability to control basic life functions. Call emergency services immediately if someone shows any of these signs:
- Slow breathing, fewer than 8 breaths per minute
- Irregular breathing with gaps of 10 seconds or more between breaths
- Extremely low body temperature, cold or bluish skin
- Unconsciousness or inability to be woken up
- Seizures
Do not wait for all of these symptoms to appear. A single one is enough to warrant calling for help. While waiting, place the person in the recovery position and stay with them. Do not try to give them coffee, food, or a cold shower. Time and medical support are the only things that help at this point.