The most effective things you can do for a hangover are rehydrate, eat something, manage pain carefully, and rest. There’s no instant cure, but the right combination of simple steps can meaningfully shorten your misery. Hangover symptoms peak when your blood alcohol level drops back to zero and can last 24 hours or longer, so the goal is to support your body while it finishes processing what you drank.
Why You Feel This Bad
When your liver breaks down alcohol, it first converts it into a compound called acetaldehyde, which is highly toxic. Your body then works to break that down further into harmless substances, but the process takes time. While acetaldehyde lingers, it triggers inflammation throughout your body. That inflammation is a major driver of the nausea, headache, and general achiness you’re feeling.
Alcohol also suppresses the deep, restorative phase of sleep called REM sleep, which is the phase responsible for feeling rested and for memory and concentration. Even if you slept for eight hours, the quality was poor. The more you drank, the stronger the sedative effect was early in the night, and the more disruptive the rebound was later. That’s why you may have woken up at 4 a.m. feeling wired, then couldn’t fall back asleep properly. A bad night of sleep compounds every other hangover symptom.
Rehydrate, but Do It Right
Alcohol is a diuretic, meaning it made you urinate far more fluid than you took in. Plain water helps, but adding electrolytes helps more, because you lost sodium, potassium, and magnesium along with all that fluid. A sports drink, coconut water, or an oral rehydration solution all work. Sip steadily rather than gulping a huge amount at once, especially if your stomach is sensitive.
Broth is another good option because it replaces both fluid and sodium while being gentle on your stomach. If you can keep food down, watermelon, bananas, and other high-water, high-potassium foods pull double duty.
Choose the Right Pain Reliever
This is one of the few hangover decisions that genuinely matters for your safety. Acetaminophen (Tylenol) and alcohol are both processed by the liver, and combining them puts extra strain on it. Over time, heavy drinking depletes a protective compound in your liver that normally keeps acetaminophen from causing damage. Acetaminophen toxicity accounts for nearly half of acute liver failure cases in North America, and alcohol makes that risk worse. If you’ve been drinking heavily, skip the Tylenol.
Anti-inflammatory pain relievers like ibuprofen (Advil) or naproxen (Aleve) are a safer choice for a hangover headache because they reduce the inflammation that’s driving your symptoms. They are harder on your stomach and kidneys, though, so take them with food and water rather than on an empty stomach.
Coffee: Helpful in Small Doses
A small cup of coffee, roughly 100 to 150 milligrams of caffeine, can help with a hangover headache. Alcohol dilates blood vessels in the brain, and caffeine does the opposite, narrowing them back down. That vasoconstricting effect is the same reason caffeine is an ingredient in some over-the-counter headache medications.
The catch is dose. Larger amounts of caffeine can actually trigger headaches and increase their frequency. Coffee is also a mild diuretic, so if you drink it, match it with extra water. And if you normally drink coffee every morning, skipping it will add caffeine withdrawal on top of your hangover, making the headache noticeably worse. In that case, your usual cup is doing more to prevent additional pain than to treat the hangover itself.
Eat Something Substantial
Your blood sugar drops after heavy drinking, contributing to shakiness, fatigue, and irritability. Eating helps restore those levels. Bland, carbohydrate-rich foods like toast, crackers, or rice are easiest if you’re nauseous. Once your stomach settles, something more substantial with protein and fat will sustain you longer.
Eggs are a popular hangover food for a reason. They’re rich in an amino acid called L-cysteine, which researchers have studied for its potential role in helping the body process acetaldehyde, the toxic byproduct your liver is working to clear. The evidence for L-cysteine supplements as a hangover cure is weak (absorption rates were similar between supplement and placebo groups in one study), but eggs also provide protein, B vitamins, and minerals your body needs for recovery. They’re a solid practical choice even if they aren’t magic.
Go Back to Sleep If You Can
Since alcohol disrupted your sleep architecture, one of the most effective recovery tools is simply more rest. REM sleep was suppressed while alcohol was in your system, so a nap or sleeping in gives your brain a chance to get the restorative sleep it missed. Even lying down with your eyes closed helps if you can’t fully fall asleep. Your body does most of its repair work during rest, and fighting through the day on broken sleep only prolongs the fog and fatigue.
What Doesn’t Work
“Hair of the dog,” or drinking more alcohol the next morning, is one of the most persistent hangover myths. There’s no scientific evidence that it cures a hangover. It temporarily masks symptoms by putting alcohol back into your system, but once that drink wears off, the hangover returns. You’re not fixing anything; you’re postponing it and adding more toxins for your liver to process.
Greasy fast food, while comforting, doesn’t speed recovery. It’s harder to digest when your stomach is already irritated, and it doesn’t address the underlying dehydration or inflammation. Eating greasy food before drinking can slow alcohol absorption, but after the fact, it offers no special benefit.
Why Some Nights Hit Harder
If you’ve noticed that bourbon or red wine gives you worse hangovers than vodka, that’s not your imagination. Darker alcoholic drinks contain higher levels of compounds called congeners, which are chemical byproducts of fermentation and aging. Cognac, brandy, dark whiskey, bourbon, and red wine all have high congener levels. Tequila is a notable exception among clear-ish spirits, also packing high congener counts.
Clear drinks like vodka, gin, white wine, light rum, sake, and light beer have significantly fewer congeners and tend to produce milder hangovers at the same alcohol volume. This won’t help you today, but it’s useful information for the next time you’re choosing what to drink. The total amount of alcohol still matters most, but what you drink does make a difference at the margins.
A Realistic Recovery Timeline
Most hangovers follow a predictable arc. Symptoms hit their worst point right around when your blood alcohol level returns to zero, which for a night of heavy drinking is typically the morning after. From that peak, gradual improvement usually takes 12 to 24 hours, though some hangovers stretch beyond that. The combination of rehydrating, eating, managing pain safely, and resting won’t eliminate the timeline, but it compresses it. By evening, most people are feeling substantially better. If symptoms like vomiting, confusion, or chest pain are severe or persist well beyond 24 hours, that’s a sign something beyond a standard hangover may be going on.