Is Pre-Hydrating The Key To Skipping A Hangover? Here's What To Know

Many people like to cut loose with a few cocktails or beers or what have you, but absolutely no one enjoys the resulting hangover the next morning. Characterized by a lot of really annoying symptoms, like nausea, headache, fatigue, light/sound sensitivity, and so on, hangovers happen when a person drinks too much alcohol. Any kind of alcohol will cause a hangover, although some people are more sensitive to certain types, like wine. Also, there are types of alcohol that are known to give you the worst hangovers, like bourbon. Generally speaking, the more a person drinks, the worse they will feel the next day.

Since hangover symptoms can last for 24 hours or longer, many people are in constant search of ways to prevent or at least minimize the damage. One of the main problems is that alcohol is a diuretic, which means that it flushes water out of the body faster than it would otherwise through ramped-up urination. This can cause dehydration, which can result in common hangover symptoms like headache and tiredness. Because of this, many people ponder the question of whether or not extra hydration before drinking alcohol can lessen a person's hangover the next day. As it's an easy and cheap potential fix, it's a concept that's worth exploring.

The unfortunate truth is that dehydration is just one prong of hangover reality. In fact, a lot of the other aspects of hangovers are caused by different effects that alcohol has on the body. For example, people experience stomach upset because alcohol irritates the stomach lining, which is what makes people vomit and generally fill ill, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. They also say that alcohol causes the liver and other organs, not to mention the rest of the body, to become inflamed. All of this leads to general malaise. And because alcohol can mess up a person's sleep cycles big-time, this makes them more tired the next day than they would be if they'd stuck with iced tea. 

All that said, although science can't confirm that prehydrating will prevent a hangover outright, it's not likely to do any harm, either. It's entirely possible that being hydrated in advance could ease some of the related hangover symptoms. Although, if you really tie one on, all the water in the world isn't likely to help too much.

There are a ton of hangover fixes and preventatives on the market, like vitamin patches and hydration multipliers. While these aren't likely to hurt anyone, the science simply isn't there to confirm whether or not they actually work. Typically, time and regular old hydration are what's necessary to restore the body back to its preferred balance. 

There are a few tactics that can reduce the amount of alcohol a person drinks in one sitting, though, which will help lessen the next-day hangover. Some people alternative their alcoholic beverages with a glass of water. This cuts the alcohol amount roughly in half, plus it has the added effect of replacing any necessary bodily fluids. Along similar lines, liquor drinkers can order their beverages "on the rocks." This is helpful because the ice melts in the drink, which both dilutes the alcohol and helps the beverage last longer. The longer you nurse one drink, the less you're likely to consume over the course of the evening. 

Of course, the number one way to avoid a hangover is to avoid the person carrying the tray of shots. That never ends well.