The fastest way to help a hangover is to rehydrate, eat something easy on your stomach, rest, and let time do the heavy lifting. Most hangovers peak about six to eight hours after your last drink and ease up within 24 hours. There’s no instant cure, but several strategies can meaningfully shorten the misery.
Why You Feel So Bad
Two things are happening inside your body during a hangover. First, alcohol is a diuretic. It makes your kidneys release more water than usual, which pulls fluid and electrolytes out of your system. That dehydration drives the headache, dizziness, and fatigue you’re feeling. Second, alcohol triggers your immune system to release inflammatory compounds, the same ones your body produces when you’re fighting off an illness. That’s why a hangover can feel like a mild flu, complete with brain fog, poor appetite, and general achiness.
Your liver also plays a central role. It breaks alcohol down into a toxic byproduct with properties similar to formaldehyde, and it takes roughly one hour to process a single drink. After a night of heavy drinking, your liver is still churning through that backlog well into the next day, which is why symptoms linger.
Start With Fluids, but Choose Wisely
Water is the simplest and most effective place to start. Sip it steadily rather than gulping large amounts at once. Your body absorbs smaller volumes more efficiently, and drinking too fast on a queasy stomach can make nausea worse.
Beverages with electrolytes, like sports drinks or broth, can help restore sodium and potassium lost through all that extra urination. Broth has the added benefit of being warm and gentle on an irritated stomach. Be cautious with very salty drinks, though. High-sodium options like vegetable juice or salt water can actually pull water out of your cells and trigger even more fluid loss through your kidneys, making dehydration worse.
What to Eat (and When)
Your appetite will probably be low, but eating helps. Bland, easy-to-digest foods like toast, crackers, rice, or bananas give your body fuel without further irritating your stomach. Bananas are especially useful because they’re rich in potassium, one of the electrolytes alcohol depletes most.
If nausea is your main problem, ginger is worth trying. Clinical trials have consistently shown that 250 mg to 1 gram of ginger can reduce nausea. You don’t need capsules. Ginger tea, ginger chews, or flat ginger ale (let the carbonation settle first) all work. Small, frequent bites of food tend to stay down better than a full meal.
Choose the Right Pain Reliever
This is one area where the wrong choice can cause real harm. Many people reach for acetaminophen (Tylenol), but your liver is already working overtime to process alcohol. Acetaminophen adds to that burden, and the combination increases your risk of liver damage. This doesn’t mean acetaminophen is always dangerous, but after a night of heavy drinking, it’s not the safest option.
An anti-inflammatory like ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin) or naproxen (Aleve) is generally a better fit for hangover headaches and body aches because these medications also help with the inflammation driving many of your symptoms. Take them with food, since they can irritate an already-sensitive stomach lining. If you have kidney problems or a history of stomach ulcers, skip these too and stick to hydration and rest.
Why You Slept Terribly
Even if you passed out quickly, alcohol wrecks sleep quality. It acts as a sedative that pushes you into deep sleep too fast, skipping the lighter stages your brain needs to cycle through normally. It also delays or blocks REM sleep, the restorative phase tied to memory and mental clarity. As alcohol wears off during the night, your body tries to compensate by spending more time in light sleep, which is why you likely woke up multiple times in the second half of the night.
On top of that, alcohol suppresses melatonin production and increases your need to urinate, both of which interrupt sleep further. People who drink before bed have a 25% higher risk of obstructive sleep apnea, meaning your breathing may have been disrupted as well.
All of this means that more sleep is one of the most productive things you can do for a hangover. If you can, go back to bed. Keep your room cool and dark, put your phone away (blue light from screens disrupts the circadian rhythm your body is already struggling to restore), and let your brain catch up on the quality sleep it missed overnight.
Vitamins That Alcohol Depletes
Alcohol drains several B vitamins from your system. Thiamine (B1) is one of the hardest hit because alcohol directly interferes with its absorption in the gut and reduces the amount your liver can store. Low thiamine contributes to weakness, fatigue, and foggy thinking. Folate (B9) also takes a hit through reduced absorption and increased loss through your kidneys, which can add to feelings of exhaustion.
A B-complex vitamin or a multivitamin with your first meal of the day can help replenish what was lost. This won’t produce an instant effect, but it supports the metabolic processes your body needs to clear the remaining alcohol byproducts and get back to normal.
Supplements That May Speed Things Up
Dihydromyricetin (DHM) is one of the few supplements with real evidence behind it for hangover recovery. Derived from the Japanese raisin tree, it’s been used in traditional Chinese medicine for liver ailments for centuries. Research from USC found that DHM boosts the production and efficiency of the enzymes your liver uses to break down alcohol and its toxic byproducts. It also reduces fat accumulation in liver tissue and lowers inflammatory compounds. DHM is available over the counter, typically sold in capsule form at health food stores and online. It works best when taken around the time you stop drinking or before bed, though the optimal dose for humans hasn’t been firmly established in clinical trials.
What Doesn’t Work
“Hair of the dog,” or drinking more alcohol, delays a hangover rather than curing it. You’re simply pushing your blood alcohol level back up and resetting the clock. Coffee won’t cure a hangover either. Caffeine may temporarily reduce the feeling of grogginess, but it’s also a mild diuretic, which can worsen dehydration. If you do have coffee, drink extra water alongside it.
How to Have a Milder Hangover Next Time
The type of alcohol you choose makes a measurable difference. Dark liquors like bourbon, brandy, cognac, and red wine contain high levels of congeners, chemical byproducts of fermentation that intensify hangover symptoms. Tequila is another high-congener drink despite being lighter in color. Clear drinks like vodka, gin, white wine, light rum, and light beer contain far fewer congeners and tend to produce less severe hangovers at the same amount of alcohol consumed.
Drinking water between alcoholic drinks slows your overall intake and keeps dehydration from building up. Eating before and during drinking also helps, because food slows alcohol absorption and gives your liver more time to keep up. None of this prevents a hangover entirely if you overdo it, but these habits can be the difference between a rough morning and a completely lost day.