Most hangovers last about 18 hours from your last drink, peaking in severity around 14 hours after you stopped drinking. That means if you finished your last drink at midnight, you’ll likely feel worst around 2 p.m. the next day, with symptoms lingering into the evening. There’s no instant cure, but several strategies can shorten your misery and help your body recover faster.
Why You Feel So Terrible
A hangover isn’t just dehydration, though that’s part of it. When your liver breaks down alcohol, it produces a toxic byproduct that triggers inflammation throughout your body. Your immune system responds by ramping up production of signaling molecules called cytokines, the same ones activated when you’re fighting off a cold or the flu. That’s why a hangover feels so much like being sick: the nausea, headache, fatigue, and even diarrhea are driven by your immune system reacting to what alcohol did to your body.
On top of that, your liver prioritizes processing alcohol over its other jobs, including releasing stored glucose into your blood. This means your blood sugar can drop and stay low for up to 12 hours after drinking. That shaky, foggy, weak feeling the morning after? Low blood sugar is a major contributor.
Rehydrate, but Do It Right
Water helps, but it’s not the whole picture. Alcohol is a diuretic, so you’ve lost fluids along with sodium, potassium, and other electrolytes. Drinks that contain both electrolytes and a small amount of carbohydrate tend to be retained better than plain water. Research on rehydration shows that beverages with around 4 to 6% carbohydrate and electrolytes produce less urine output than water alone, meaning your body actually holds onto more of the fluid you take in.
Practical options include sports drinks, coconut water, or pediatric electrolyte solutions (like Pedialyte). Broth works well too, since it delivers sodium and fluid in a form that’s easy on a nauseous stomach. Aim to drink steadily rather than chugging a liter at once, which can make nausea worse.
Eat Something, Even If You Don’t Want To
Your blood sugar needs help. Because your liver spent the night processing alcohol instead of releasing glucose, your energy stores are depleted. Eating brings your blood sugar back up and gives your body fuel to recover. The best choices combine simple carbohydrates for a quick glucose boost with some protein or fat to keep levels stable: toast with eggs, a banana with peanut butter, oatmeal, or crackers with cheese.
If nausea makes solid food impossible, start with something bland and starchy. Plain crackers, white rice, or applesauce are easy to tolerate. Even a piece of toast can make a noticeable difference in how you feel within 20 to 30 minutes. Avoid greasy, heavy meals, which can worsen nausea even though the “greasy breakfast” cure is a popular myth.
Sleep More If You Can
Alcohol wrecks your sleep quality even when you feel like you slept a full night. It suppresses deep, restorative slow-wave sleep and fragments your sleep cycles, leaving you with more time in light sleep stages. This is why you can sleep eight hours after drinking and still wake up feeling like you barely slept at all. Your brain simply didn’t get the deep rest it needed.
If your schedule allows it, going back to sleep (or at least resting in a dark, quiet room) is one of the most effective things you can do. A 90-minute nap gives your brain a chance to cycle through the deep sleep it missed overnight. Even lying down with your eyes closed helps reduce the sensory overload that makes headaches and nausea worse.
Choose the Right Pain Reliever
For a pounding headache, ibuprofen or aspirin are generally safer choices than acetaminophen (Tylenol). The FDA warns that people who drink three or more alcoholic beverages regularly should talk to a doctor before using acetaminophen, because alcohol and acetaminophen are both processed by the liver. When combined, they increase the risk of liver damage. Ibuprofen can irritate your stomach, so take it with food rather than on an empty, already-irritated stomach.
Skip the “Hair of the Dog”
Drinking more alcohol the next morning is one of the oldest hangover “cures,” and it doesn’t work. As researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center have explained, having a morning drink temporarily masks symptoms by putting alcohol back into your system, but the hangover isn’t gone. It’s just delayed. Once that drink wears off, the same symptoms return, often worse because you’ve added more alcohol for your liver to process. You’re essentially extending the cycle rather than breaking it.
What Actually Speeds Recovery
Beyond the basics of fluids, food, and rest, a few other strategies can help you feel functional sooner:
- Fresh air and gentle movement. A short walk outside won’t “sweat out” alcohol (that’s not how metabolism works), but light activity boosts circulation and can ease that sluggish, heavy feeling. Don’t push through an intense workout, which will dehydrate you further.
- Caffeine, carefully. A small cup of coffee can help with grogginess and headache since caffeine constricts blood vessels that alcohol dilated. But coffee is also a diuretic, so match every cup with extra water and don’t overdo it.
- Ginger for nausea. Ginger tea, ginger chews, or even flat ginger ale can settle your stomach. Ginger has well-established anti-nausea properties and is easy to keep down.
- Time. This is the least satisfying answer but the most honest one. For most people, hangover symptoms last roughly 12 hours from the time they wake up. The range runs from about 14 to 23 hours total from your last drink, with an average of 18.4 hours.
Preventing the Next One
The severity of a hangover is closely tied to how much you drank, how fast you drank it, and whether you ate beforehand. Food in your stomach slows alcohol absorption significantly, which reduces the peak blood alcohol level your body has to deal with. Alternating alcoholic drinks with water throughout the night cuts your total intake and keeps you more hydrated. Darker liquors like bourbon, red wine, and brandy contain higher levels of compounds called congeners, byproducts of fermentation that intensify hangover symptoms. Lighter options like vodka, gin, and white wine tend to produce milder hangovers at the same alcohol volume.
Setting a firm drink limit before you go out is more effective than trying to moderate in the moment. Your judgment about “one more” deteriorates with every drink, which is precisely why hangovers catch people off guard despite good intentions.