Like drinking? Trying to be healthy? Not sure how to manage these two contrasting forces? You aren’t alone. I’ll break down how to cure a hangover and how to prepare for a hangover in the article below. Why should you trust me? I’ve done a LOT of hangover management in my years.

Social vs. Healthy

How many people try to straddle the overlapping lines of “Healthy” and “Social”? “Healthy” requires a “Social” component. Our relationships with other people are a MASSIVE part of what makes us happy and healthy.

So if “Social” is a big part of “Healthy” then we have to figure out how alcohol fits into this whole equation, because it certainly does. Alcohol consumption is a pre-requisite for joining many social circles. The proverbial “watering hole” IS the bar, brewery, winery, and restaurant in today’s day and age.

So what to do? How do we manage the conflicting forces of healthy and social? How do we manage that overlap that occurs at the bar on Friday and Saturday?

How to Manage a Hangover

• fresh, cold water
• movement and dance
• sunlight
• magnesium
• eat intentionally
• manage your booze type
• manage your mixers

It boils down to some pretty simple considerations. Hydrate, exercise, get sunlight and make sure you eat a few good meals before getting into the alcohol. Premeditated hangover prevention is your best friend in curing a hangover. Eat eggs, high quality cuts of grass-fed beef, greens, and then get outside and enjoy the sun. Movement doesn’t have to be complicated. Run, walk, dance, skateboard, swim. Anything works. Just move! And make sure you get some greens in you. Green = Magnesium and is a huge part of your hangover prevention protocol.

More Details on How to Cure a Hangover

It starts with water and movement. You MUST hydrate with clean, cold H2O before getting into the booze. Movement helps drive circulation, pumps your lymph system, and thus helps your liver and other organs in process the back-log and get you ready for something new. Try 2 glasses of water, 10 push-ups and 50 jumping jacks when you wake up.

The sun sustains you. Vitamin D status is a crucial consideration when preparing for a bender. If you’re lucky, your booze cruise is going to occur outside during the day, anyways. If you’re going to be painting the town red after sun-down, then you better make sure you eat your eggs and get outside to sun before night comes. Cholesterol is the building block of Vitamin D, testosterone and other androgenic hormones that boost your mood, energy, and ability to socialize. Lecithin found in eggs will also support your liver’s role of fat metabolism, among the million other things your liver has on it’s to-do list. It’s good to help that liver out because it’s going to be busy with your booze later this evening.

Magnesium is necessary. Magnesium is involved in almost HALF of all enzymatic processes that occur in your body. Your liver needs magnesium stores to manage detoxification processes. So before you go out, make sure you fill your belly with magnesium-rich foods. Not sure what has magnesium in it? Easy. Look for the color green. Green = magnesium. The color green comes from the magnesium ion that lies in the center of a molecule of chlorophyll.

Dance. You’d be surprised how helpful movement, dance, and music is to your detoxification process. Run an A/B test of you boozing and sitting vs. you boozing and dancing. You WILL feel better after the exact same amount of alcohol so long as you dance.

Eat. Don’t let booze serve as an excuse to eat shitty food. Prepare for your night on the town by eating a breakfast and lunch of healthy fats, proteins and carbohydrates. I’d start with grass-fed beef, eggs, potatoes and some greens in the morning. Saturated fat and cholesterol will be critical nutrient considerations for you as you get outside and gather your sun before going out. Lunch can be lighter, and a HUGE salad with tons of greens and a dressing of olive oil and vinegar would be a good choice (try my Paleo Salad Dressing recipe).

If you get hungry easily, make sure you get a protein-and-fat rich snack around 3-4pm before you go out. Don’t put yourself in the compromising position of getting drunk-hungry tonight. Stay the course and make sure booze is the only thing that messes with your health goals.

Manage your booze. You’ve got to know how different alcohol types affect you. Observe and adjust. Tequila, vodka, bourbon, beer, red and white wine… I’ve noticed that every single one of these substances affects me in a slightly different way. Same for you? Each has a different alcohol content but also has different ingredients, production processes, fermentation metabolites, etc. Different types of booze tastes different for a reason. There’s a different chemical soup in each type of booze that can affect each of us in a different way.

Manage your mixers. This is as critical as knowing what booze treats you right. Know what is going in your drink. Go for clean sugars like cane sugar, honey, and maple syrup. Agave even (although I prefer to avoid fructose). Don’t order something complicated with artificial, bright-colored mixers. That’s going to fuck you up. Herbs like thyme, rosemary, and ginger do more than affect the taste of your drink. They help your body metabolize alcohol. Ginger ESPECIALLY is a powerful mixer that can improve your liver’s ability to function, and in this case “functioning” means processing alcohol.

Questions?

Questions on how to cure a hangover? Ask me in the comments below! Cheers and happy socializing.