Your body clears alcohol at a relatively fixed rate of about one standard drink per hour, and there’s no way to speed that up. What you can do is support your body through the process: hydrate strategically, eat the right foods, protect your sleep, and avoid a few common mistakes that make everything worse. Here’s what actually helps.
Hydrate With More Than Just Water
Alcohol is a diuretic, meaning it increases urine output and pulls fluid from your body. Drinking water is a good start, but plain water lacks the sodium and potassium your body loses along with that fluid. Rehydrating after even one alcoholic drink can require up to twice as much water as you’d normally need, and that ratio climbs the more you’ve had.
Sports drinks or oral rehydration solutions that contain electrolytes, particularly sodium, do a better job of helping your body hold onto fluid rather than just passing it through. Interestingly, skim or low-fat milk is one of the most effective rehydrating beverages available because it naturally contains a balanced mix of sodium, potassium, protein, and carbohydrates. Coconut water is high in potassium but relatively low in sodium, so it’s not a perfect substitute on its own. Whatever you choose, aim to drink roughly 1.25 to 1.5 times the fluid volume you estimate you’ve lost. If you were drinking for several hours and didn’t have water in between, that’s a significant deficit.
Eat Before You Sleep
Food slows the absorption of any remaining alcohol in your stomach and gives your body fuel for the metabolic work ahead. Your liver is doing heavy lifting to process alcohol, and it needs glucose to do it. A meal or snack that includes both carbohydrates and protein is ideal. Think toast with eggs, a bowl of rice, or a banana with peanut butter. Greasy or very heavy food won’t help any more than a simpler meal, despite the popular belief.
If you’re already feeling nauseous, even something small like crackers or bread can help stabilize your blood sugar and settle your stomach. Eating nothing and going straight to bed on an empty stomach generally makes the next morning worse.
Why Your Sleep Will Suffer
Alcohol might make you fall asleep faster, but the quality of that sleep is significantly worse. In the first half of the night, alcohol suppresses REM sleep, the stage most important for mental restoration and memory. In the second half, as your body finishes processing the alcohol, a rebound effect kicks in: you’re more likely to wake up repeatedly, sleep lightly, and feel restless. Higher doses push this REM suppression further into the night, meaning more drinks equals more disrupted sleep overall.
You can’t fully prevent this, but you can reduce the damage. Stop drinking at least a few hours before bed to give your body a head start on metabolism. Keep your room cool and dark. Set a glass of water on your nightstand, because you’ll likely wake up thirsty. If you can sleep in a bit the next morning, do. Your body needs extra time to compensate for the poor sleep quality it got.
Be Careful With Painkillers
Reaching for a painkiller before bed or the next morning is instinctive, but the most common options all carry risks when alcohol is still in your system. Acetaminophen (Tylenol) is processed by your liver, the same organ working overtime to clear alcohol. Combining the two increases the risk of liver damage, especially for regular drinkers. Most people know this one.
What’s less well known is that ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin) also poses risks. Research has shown that ibuprofen and alcohol together produce synergistic liver toxicity, meaning the combined damage is greater than either substance would cause alone. The mechanism involves a surge in oxidative stress to liver cells. Aspirin carries similar gastrointestinal risks, increasing the chance of stomach bleeding when combined with alcohol.
If you need something for a headache, the safest approach is to wait until your body has had time to clear most of the alcohol. For most people, that means several hours after your last drink. In the meantime, hydration and food often do more for a headache than a pill would.
Don’t Try to Sweat It Out
Exercising the morning after drinking is one of the most counterproductive things you can do. Your body is already dehydrated, and exercise deepens that deficit. Alcohol also suppresses testosterone and growth hormone, both of which normally rise after a workout, and it blocks the protein production your muscles need to recover. The result is a workout that’s harder on your body and less effective than it would be sober.
A light walk or gentle stretching is fine and may even help you feel better by getting your circulation moving. But an intense gym session, a run, or any activity that produces heavy sweating will compound dehydration and delay recovery. If you do any physical activity, increase your fluid intake well beyond what you’d normally drink.
Replenish B Vitamins
Alcohol depletes several B vitamins, particularly B1 (thiamine), B6, and folate. For an occasional night out, this isn’t a serious concern, as a normal diet will replenish them within a day or two. But if you drink regularly, these deficiencies accumulate and can contribute to problems ranging from fatigue and brain fog to peripheral nerve pain, skin issues, and even heart problems over time.
A B-complex vitamin the morning after can help, though eating B-vitamin-rich foods is equally effective. Eggs, whole grains, leafy greens, and legumes are all good sources. If you’re a frequent drinker noticing numbness or tingling in your hands or feet, persistent fatigue, or unexplained skin rashes, B vitamin deficiency is worth investigating.
Dark Liquor Tends to Make Hangovers Worse
Not all drinks are created equal when it comes to next-day misery. Darker spirits like bourbon, whiskey, and red wine contain higher levels of congeners, chemical byproducts of fermentation that your body has to process alongside the alcohol itself. In controlled studies, bourbon produced notably more severe hangover ratings than vodka, which contains almost no congeners. That said, the amount of alcohol consumed still matters far more than the type. Switching to vodka won’t save you if you drink twice as much of it.
Know the Signs of Alcohol Poisoning
Most of the time, the aftermath of drinking is uncomfortable but not dangerous. Alcohol poisoning is the exception. If someone around you (or you yourself) shows any of the following after heavy drinking, it’s a medical emergency:
- Breathing slows to fewer than 8 breaths per minute, or there are gaps of 10 seconds or more between breaths
- Skin turns bluish, pale, or feels cold and clammy
- Heart rate drops noticeably
- The person is unconscious or semi-conscious and cannot be woken up
- Vomiting while unconscious, which creates a choking risk
Do not assume someone will “sleep it off.” Blood alcohol levels can continue to rise even after a person stops drinking, because alcohol in the stomach is still being absorbed. If you see these signs, call emergency services. Turn the person on their side to prevent choking and stay with them.
The Timeline of Recovery
Your liver clears alcohol at roughly 7 grams per hour, which works out to about one standard drink per hour. There’s a 3 to 4 fold variation between individuals based on genetics, body size, sex, and liver health. Women typically reach higher blood alcohol levels than men given the same amount of alcohol per kilogram of body weight, largely because of differences in body composition and how the stomach processes alcohol.
For a practical estimate: if you had four drinks and stopped at midnight, your body won’t finish clearing the alcohol until around 4 a.m. at the earliest. Hangover symptoms peak as blood alcohol drops to zero, not while you’re still intoxicated. This is why you often feel worst several hours after your last drink. The full recovery timeline, including fatigue from disrupted sleep and residual dehydration, typically runs 12 to 24 hours after moderate drinking.
The most effective recovery strategy is also the simplest: hydrate, eat, rest, and give your body time. There’s no shortcut past the waiting.