The best things you can do with a hangover are hydrate, eat something, take the right pain reliever, and rest. There’s no instant cure, but a few targeted steps can shorten your misery and help your body recover faster. Most hangovers last about 12 hours from the time you wake up, though they can stretch to 23 hours in more severe cases.
Why You Feel This Bad
Your liver breaks alcohol down into a toxic compound called acetaldehyde before converting it into harmless byproducts your body can flush out. When you drink more than your liver can process, acetaldehyde builds up, triggering nausea, headache, and that general feeling of being poisoned. Because that’s essentially what’s happening.
Alcohol also suppresses the hormone that tells your kidneys to hold onto water. The result is that you urinate far more than you normally would, losing fluid faster than you’re replacing it. This dehydration accounts for much of the headache, dry mouth, and dizziness. On top of that, alcohol disrupts your sleep architecture, reducing the deep, restorative sleep stages your brain needs. Even if you slept for eight hours, the quality was poor, which is why you feel foggy and exhausted.
Drink Fluids, but Be Strategic
Water is the obvious starting point, but don’t just chug a glass and call it done. Sip steadily over the course of the morning. If you’ve been vomiting, plain water alone won’t replace what you’ve lost. Sports drinks, coconut water, or an oral rehydration solution can help restore sodium and potassium. Broth is another good option because it provides both fluid and salt, and it’s easy on a sensitive stomach.
Coffee is fine in small amounts if you’re a regular caffeine drinker and skipping it would give you a withdrawal headache on top of everything else. Just know that caffeine is also a mild diuretic, so match each cup with extra water.
Choose Your Pain Reliever Carefully
A standard dose of ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin) can take the edge off a hangover headache by reducing inflammation. Aspirin works similarly. Both can irritate your stomach, though, so take them with food rather than on an empty, already-churning gut.
Avoid acetaminophen (Tylenol). Combining it with alcohol stresses your liver, and the more you drank, the more dangerous that combination becomes. If you’re a heavy or regular drinker, the risk of liver toxicity is real. Some cold medicines and multi-symptom products already contain acetaminophen, so check labels before taking anything.
Eat Something, Even If You Don’t Want To
Food helps stabilize your blood sugar, which drops after heavy drinking and contributes to shakiness, weakness, and mood changes. You don’t need a greasy diner breakfast specifically. What matters more is that you eat something you can keep down. Toast, crackers, bananas, eggs, or oatmeal all work. Bland, carbohydrate-rich foods are easiest on your stomach. Bananas in particular are a decent source of potassium, which your body may be low on.
If nausea is severe, start with small bites and wait 15 to 20 minutes before eating more. Ginger tea or a small piece of crystallized ginger can help settle your stomach enough to get food in.
Rest and Let Time Do Its Work
Hangover symptoms typically peak about 14 hours after your last drink, which for most people means mid-morning. From the time you wake up, expect to feel rough for around 12 hours on average, though it varies widely depending on how much you drank, your body size, and your genetics. The average total duration from last drink to feeling normal is about 18 hours.
Because alcohol robbed you of quality deep sleep overnight, a nap can genuinely help if you have the time. Even 20 to 30 minutes of sleep without alcohol in your system will be more restorative than the hours you logged the night before. Keep your room cool and dark, and don’t set an alarm if you can avoid it.
What Doesn’t Work
“Hair of the dog,” or drinking more alcohol the next morning, doesn’t cure a hangover. It masks your symptoms temporarily by putting alcohol back into your system. The hangover is still coming; you’ve just delayed it. Over time, relying on this approach can also signal a pattern worth paying attention to.
IV drip bars and expensive “hangover cure” supplements have no strong clinical evidence behind them. Some contain B vitamins or electrolytes, which are helpful on their own but don’t require a premium price tag. A sports drink and a multivitamin accomplish the same thing.
How to Have a Less Severe Hangover Next Time
The type of alcohol you drink makes a measurable difference. Darker liquors like bourbon, whiskey, and brandy contain higher levels of congeners, which are chemical byproducts of fermentation. Studies comparing bourbon and vodka drinkers found that bourbon produced notably more severe hangover symptoms. Lighter-colored drinks like vodka, gin, and white wine contain fewer congeners and tend to cause milder hangovers at the same alcohol volume.
Beyond drink choice, the most effective prevention strategies are simple. Eating a full meal before drinking slows alcohol absorption. Alternating every alcoholic drink with a glass of water reduces both total consumption and fluid loss. And pacing yourself to one drink per hour gives your liver time to keep up, since it processes roughly one standard drink in that window. None of this eliminates hangover risk entirely, but it can be the difference between a rough morning and a lost day.