With the festive season in full swing there are likely to be more opportunities to drink alcohol and sometimes suffer the effects of overdoing it. As we journey through Christmas and the New Year, with the higher-than-usual quota of parties and nights out, is there anything we can do to make the morning after less painful?
What is a hangover?
Researchers define a hangover as the mental and physical symptoms experienced after heavy drinking, when blood alcohol concentration drops to zero.
The most common hangover symptoms include headache, tiredness, nausea, red eyes, dehydration and trembling. These are due to the direct effect of alcohol, the body’s processing of it, alcohol withdrawal, or other substances within alcoholic drinks.
Overdoing the booze can also leave us with psychological symptoms such as anxiety and impaired cognition, colloquially referred to as hangxiety. This is largely due to changes in levels of our stress hormone cortisol and pleasure hormone dopamine, along with attention and memory being affected by fatigue.
