I suffered from my first hangover in quite some time at the end of 2017. I spent the next morning moaning in bed. As I lay in bed agonizing, I decided to follow my curiosity and try to learn about the science of a hangover, what’s happening in the body, etc. Two things struck me.
The first seems obvious: when we drink, we get dehydrated. Alcohol is a diuretic. This is the overarching reason for hangovers. But the process itself that causes us to become dehydrated is pretty crazy. “Alcohol…reduces the production of a hormone called vasopressin, which tells your kidneys to reabsorb water rather than flush it out through the bladder” (1), and, “according to studies, drinking about 250 milliliters of an alcoholic beverage causes the body to expel 800 to 1,000 milliliters of water; that’s four times as much liquid lost as gained” (2). So, drinking a single beer can cause four times the amount of water in your system to just be dumped out, rather than used as it should be. This is why you pee so often while drinking. You’re jettisoning water, and along with it, lots of important vitamins and minerals.
The second, and even more horrifying fact involves the headache the next day. The cause is dehydration again of course, but the reality of what’s happening is…pretty disturbing. You’re so dehydrated that “the body’s organs try to make up for their own water loss by stealing water from the brain, causing the brain to decrease in size and pull on the membranes that connect the brain to the skull, resulting in pain.” Holy shit! You’re brain is rung like a sponge in order to feed water to the rest of your body, and it literally shrinks, resulting in that awful headache you’re stuck with. That’s gnarly.
While learning about this process, most of the search results dealt with hangover cures. There is no real, instantaneous ‘cure’. You need to re-hydrate with lots of water and replenish those minerals you lost, like potassium and magnesium. There is of course the trick we’ve all been told, but rarely follow: drink a glass of water between each drink. This way you’re not running such an extreme loss of water, compounding your own hangover the next day.
As for me, if the hangover wasn’t enough to keep me from drinking for another long stretch, the knowledge that I’m shrinking my brain each time certainly will.