Hangovers may be how the body reminds people strongly of the risks of overindulgence in alcohol. However, it’s a physiological group effort: the classic hangover symptoms are diarrhea, fatigue, nausea, headache, and shaking.
Sometimes the heart beats faster than normal, the blood pressure shoots up, and the sweat glands are overdriving. As a result, many individuals are even sensitive to sound or light, while others suffer vertigo (spinning sensation).
People rush to the kitchen for that inevitable cup of black coffee in movies and television shows when someone has a massive hangover. Although they may be too dramatic and overplayed, they make a lot of sense because coffee contains caffeine (I know, shocking revelation). So not only does this strong element lag off exhaustion, but it also helps you become more aware after the day before too much booze.
Can caffeine remove my hangover… tell me… I’m hungover now
Sure, when paired with water, Gatorade, electrolytes, bananas, and aspirin, coffee may help fight hangovers. A black cup of coffee alone won’t reduce your head’s powerful pulses.
What causes a hangover?
But it’s good to identify what triggers hangovers before we dive into whether coffee is good for hangovers. A hangover is simply the result of excessive consumption of alcoholic beverages. This induces fatigue, vomiting, dizziness, nausea, rapid heartbeat, muscle aches, discomfort in the abdomen, noise and light resistance, and dry throat.
Often recognized as veisalgia, it may be attributed to a hangover:
Alcohol and dehydration
Alcohol is a diuretic, so that fatigue can be easily identified as a major source of hangovers.
Chemical Imbalance when drinking alcohol
Alcohol causes unnecessary Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH), a chemical compound that sends the metabolic process actually into chaos. It also influences the grades of your electrolyte. As a person starts drinking alcohol, up to 5% of the ingested ethanol is directly absorbed and metabolized by some of the cells of the gastrointestinal tract (the mouth, tongue, esophagus, and stomach). As a result, ethanol consumption leads to an accumulation of NADH.
Toxic Acetaldehyde
The poisonous substance is a by-product of the manufacture of alcohol in your blood. All these ways of metabolizing ethanol result in acetaldehyde, a primary metabolic product of alcohol. Some amounts of acetaldehyde can cause vomiting, nausea, and body flushing.
A moderate amount of caffeine tends to relieve some of the symptoms associated with a hangover. Still, downing cup after cup of coffee could only add a drop of caffeine to the list of your hangover miseries. Caffeine helps to widen the blood vessels and dramatically raises blood pressure, which is terrible for your haunting hangover.
The Coffee hangover myths and legends
It’s necessary first to dissipate other people’s misconceptions of what coffee can do to a hangover— coffee doesn’t render you sober immediately. The caffeine in your coffee may help wake you up for a short time, but the effects of alcohol may tend to remain.
And drinking cup after cup of coffee isn’t comparable to drinking plenty of water to rehydrate your body when you’ve got a hangover. The truth is that if you consume excessive amounts of the stuff, coffee is a diuretic that could even worsen your already dehydrated state.
Coffee only helps a hangover by preventing your body from experiencing caffeine withdrawal that would otherwise worsen the situation. While coffee does not cure hangover symptoms, it simply prevents the creation of other symptoms.
So, how do you deal with a hangover?
A hangover presents a catch-22 scenario to the coffee drinker, sometimes contradictory. Here are several ways to cope with a hangover.
Give it some time
Note, although it may seem like the best option is coffee, it may make you feel worse and longer. It depends, of course, on your unique situation. Taking time is the best way to deal with a nasty hangover. Reflect on the signs to figure out what you can do to relieve them.
Call in sick and get more sleep.
If you are in a position to do this, the best solution is to go back to sleep. Try to drink a small amount of coffee with lots of water if that’s not an option. Remember that you’re likely to be dehydrated when you wake up, especially if you didn’t drink water before going to bed last night. So, first, check the sensitivity of your digestive system with some water to decide how much or how much food you can keep down.
Why not drink some coffee
Try half a cup of coffee with a light snack, maybe a piece of toast, if your tolerance levels seem all right. Forget sweetened creamers or sugar in your coffee to stop a sugar crash. This is because the sugar is metabolized rapidly on an empty stomach.
It is important to note that while caffeine may not necessarily come with any special magical anti-hangover powers as a stimulant for the body and brain, it helps with grogginess. However, if you are still reading this and are still looking to find a solution, I will write it once more, coffee is a diuretic, so it may cause dehydration to worsen.
Get some sugar and carbohydrates.
Drinking lots of alcoholic drinks will reduce blood sugar levels. Furthermore, potentially, theoretically, some of the headaches and exhaustion linked to the hangover stems from a brain working with less than adequate amounts of its key source of fuel.
In addition, it is a fact that, when drinking, many people usually forget to eat, lowering blood sugar levels. Juice and some toast (carbohydrates) are a nice way to get back to normal levels of your blood sugars.
Stop being dehydrated
Dehydration is one of the major causes of hangovers. Dizziness, dry mouth, fatigue, and dark urine are the signs of dehydration. When drinking lots of water and reducing caffeine consumption, the blood vessels will be well dilated, and the blood pressure will be reduced.
Adding salt and sugar to your water helps absorb the sodium and glycogen you missed when you drank alcohol last night. Other recommended fluids include electrolyte-rich ones like glucose, potassium, and sodium. With plenty of liquids in your system, you can start to feel healthy again after a little while and even restart your coffee habit.
Always have bananas and Gatorade on hand. 😉
Better yet, drink a lot of water before you start drinking.
Conclusion
Caffeine acts fast. You want the fastest relief when you wake up with a massive hangover. In fact, in as little as half an hour, you can start experiencing the effects of caffeine.
While you shouldn’t consume too much coffee after a heavy night of alcohol, there’s no valid reason why you shouldn’t look forward to your morning cup of coffee. One study found that a strategically paired cup of coffee with aspirin is also an excellent cure for a hangover.
So, the next time you wake up with a nasty hangover, don’t go for some weird raw egg concoction or look for a greasy breakfast that often leaves you feeling worse. Instead, take plenty of water/juices, a little cup of coffee, and some aspirin. Don’t just overdo the brew. A little caffeine works wonders!
Editorial Staff
The editorial staff at Crazy Coffee Crave is a team of coffee enthusiasts & Baristas who enjoy the one thing we all think about as soon as we get up in the morning. Trusted by thousands of readers worldwide.
