Hangover Cures!

With a birthday coming up this week, I’ve decided that I should take a look at Hangover cures because yes, I will be getting hooned on my birthday.

Now let’s get to the basics:

Alcohol helps to speed up the loss of water in the body, aka a diuretic, which causes us to have hangovers and to break the seal, aka to go to toilet really early on and then having to pee all the time after that. But also from our bodies trying to get rid of the alcohol, it uses up a lot of energy leaving us with a horrible night’s sleep (or passed out night’s sleep).

Add this, and the fact that we’re really dehydrated already and we have the makings of a hangover.

Women have been advised not to drink more than 2-3 units a day and men 3-4 units a day according to NHS Livewell. They also say that to avoid a hangover you shouldn’t go over this limit and that you should know how much your body can handle alcohol before drinking it.

However, if a single 25ml on a spirit is 1 unit then on average a student, male or female, would go over their recommended unit by at least four times (if they wanted a good night out anyway).

When you wake up in the morning you have:

1.    A spinning room – or wherever you’ve woken up, this could be a spinning person, floor, pool of sick etc.

2.    A banging headache,

3.    Churning stomach,

4.    Horrible taste in our mouths,

5.    Tired,

6.    Weak

7.    And a definite lack of concentration – if you’re in a seminar or lecture anyway

As much as this is a biology lesson it’s also a lesson in saying that, yes, there are some ways of treating this so when you do go out before a lecture or an important seminar there are steps you can take to stop this being like ‘the time where you couldn’t even move’ hangover.

Step one.

Have a big meal like a McDonalds or a takeaway or pasta. Drinking on an empty stomach is a no-no (even though we’ve all done it more than twice). Eat something heavy as it will help fill and line your stomach making you want to drink less.

Have a glass of milk too, if you can. This will help line your stomach and throat.

Step Two.

Take your time drinking. You don’t have to down a drink as soon as you get it.

Common sense people, we all have it (somewhere).

From a BBC article on hangovers, it says not to drink fizzy drinks but let’s face it, we’re at university that’s a given you’re going to have your vodka with cokes or archers and lemonade. However, fizzy drinks let the alcohol seep into your bloodstream quicker so I’ll leave you with that to ponder on next time you order that Jack Daniels and coke.

Step Three.

You've danced, you've jived, you've broken the seal and you've possibly snogged some random person that you'll never see again but you've had a good night!

It's time to snack into that kebab and go to sleep... Think again! Put down that kebab it only makes things worse.

Get some fresh air - this will help clear your head. So maybe walking home will both save you money and sober you up. Brilliant!

Next, you need to soak up the alcohol already in your system and by eating anything from pizza to bread/toast (anything starchy) will help do this.

Plus, don’t forget the pint or two of water. Drink as much as you can but at least a pint before you go to bed. This will help eliminate the horrible taste in your mouth in the morning and hopefully the headache.

Another good idea is to have some vitamin C - it will help speed up your metabolism so the alcohol will leave your system quicker.

Had some water? Orange juice? Right, collapse on your bed in a heap and sleep, probably try to get changed into your PJ’s too if you can.

Step Four.

Now the step four is a mixture of all types of hangover cures.

this has been given by random people and if you are a Twitter fan then you're in luck because I'll be looking at each of these different cures and trying them out over the next couple of weeks.

You've woken up, still not feeling the best but you've felt worse... you've checked your alarm and you've got university in an hour. How do you make sure that you'll feel and look even better than you do now?

Drink more water. You're still dehydrated so it's best if you have some water by you all day (not caffeine, it dehydrates you even more because it’s a diuretic too).

You have a couple of choices. Since you've lost a lot of water in your system you've also lost quite a bit of vitamins and minerals your body needs to feel better so, you could have:

·         Some Berrocca - to replenish all you've lost, obviously not all of it but it will help you feel better - just try not to puke everywhere because it tastes bad.

·         Fizzy drink or a sports drink to give you that 'kick' that you need to actually get up and shower

·         Bananas will help put some potassium in your system

·         A milkshake - but make it a super healthy one.

·         Some more vitamin C, remember it takes 11 hours for alcohol to fully leave your system and if you've only had five-eight hours sleep, you've still got a while to go

·         A classic - fry up. It just works.

·         But here's the worst one - salty water. Apparently your 'poisoned' system will rehydrate if you take a glass of this horrible water since its isotonic. But it's definitely up to you on how brave you’re feeling.

Step Five.

Shower, get ready, get out.

Head off to uni still feeling ill but better than you did before.

And there you have it!

Five steps to the cures of having a hangover from a great night.

Now, if you want to see me tweet all the horrible cures, like the salty water, be sure to check out my tweets :)

I'll '#' it: #hangovercures.

Survival of a University Student =) Tweet

The Pre-Lash!

Want a good night out without spending too much?

Good. So does everyone and it's called the 'Pre-lash.'

At university, it’s essential that you have a 'pre-lash' before you head on out.
It's like having a party before you actually go out and party. I bet you do it already when you're getting ready – having a couple of beers/ vodka and cokes just to put you in the mood – but, you might be missing out on how good pre-drinking can actually be...

Go buy some Sainsburys vodka (joking! – don’t buy it unless you are that cheap…)
Snake bites! It’s a must in our house, it consists of beer, any type of cider (the stronger the better though) and blackcurrant juice/cordial. It gets you drunk quicker and once you had two the horrible after taste goes and leaves you with a weird tasting blackcurrant juice.

The best way to use Snakebites is to have a certain ‘surprise’ thought up by our own Snakebite expert, Bradley,* the only housemate who can make a proper Snakebite and ends up making them for all seven of us. The surprise can be any shot of anything alcoholic you have in your house.

Another favourite is the music drinking game, for the fact that there are so many you can choose from, here’s a few:

Roxanne – The Police - Girls drink for every ‘red light’ that is said, boys for ‘Roxanne’ and if you want to take it a step further, listen to the live version of 6 minutes.

Rollin’ – Limp Bizkit - Drink for every ‘Rollin’’ and swear word.

Boom Boom Boom – Vega Boys - An oldie but it has to be done, drink on every ‘Boom’.

Jammin’ – Bob Marley - For every ‘Jammin’’ drink.

Build me up Buttercup – The Foundations - For every ‘you,’ ‘buttercup,’ ‘build’ drink.

Bird is the word – Family Guy - Drink for every ‘Bird’. This gets very hard.

Now, put this in a play-list and try and do it all in one night for a brilliant drunk night in - My house-mates have tried to do it and it's ended in a certain someone (myself) putting one of them to bed. 

The said house-mates did six songs and apparently are not going to attempt it for a while because of said livers needing time to heal and actually get said alcohol out of their system.

I did try to conquer the play-list myself but only succeeded in doing three... Shame on me really.

There’s always the odd card game or four; ‘Ring of fire’ gets you horribly drunk and the ‘Jenga card game’, where you have to place a card with two corners hanging off the edge of a ‘dirty’ pint glass. The person who fails has to down three fingers of the ‘dirty’ pint and whoever makes the pile collapse has to drink the contents.

‘I Have Never’ is great way to get to know new people if you’re at a house party or if you want to learn some secrets about your housemates.

‘Fuzzy Duck’ is brilliant, it sounds really silly but don’t knock it until you’ve tried it! Someone starts off by saying “Fuzzy Duck” round a circle until someone says “Ducky Fuzz” and reverses the circle. It gets harder if you introduce ‘does he’ into the game and you’ll all end up saying “F**k he does,” or “does he F**k” a lot!

So plug in your iPod, turn the music up and get those snakebite surprises going but just remember this is just a pre-drinking session, and you still have to go out after.

Take a look at this website for more drinking games:

http://www.thesite.org/travelandfreetime/goingout/drinking/fiveclassicdrinkinggames

*I told Bradley that if he helped me with the Snakebite section I would put his name in this post... Charming, ain’t he?!

P.S. My house-mates who were mentioned in this post were jealous that Bradley got a special mention so Ethan & Henry - You've now been mentioned as the very drunk house-mates that had to put to bed.

Survival of a University Student =) Tweet

Food Top Tips

Pre drink!

You’re going to have to – if you don’t already. Basically, get drunk enough to still be able to walk in a straight line.

Pasta!

Believe me, after my four years of University I’m going to be fed up of pasta but it’s just so easy to make and there’s so much you can do with it: pasta bakes, bolognaise, carbonara, tagliatelle, ravioli, macaroni etc…

Cookbook!

You will need one – but that’s a given. Your cookbook should contain meals in less than 30 minutes and have different sections.

Learn to make big dinners you can have again and again and again and again until you want to be sick (I’ve already done it with macaroni and cheese).

It’s okay to get ready made meals and to have Pizza Hut BOGOF (buy one get one free) deals once in a while but make it a treat to save money.

OR

Group meals. But only if you and your housemates have all run out of food otherise it can get tricky. It’s definitely you should look into if you can, go out and buy large bulk of food (rice, mince etc) and make it together. A great way of getting to know your housemates better and also it can equal out to something like 50p for a main meal!

No Kebabs at the end of the night!

Make a meal before you go out so when you get in your less likely to grab that kebab that will ultimately make you feel worse in the morning. It could be anything from a snack to a sandwich that's waiting for you when you get back or a pizza nice and cold (I love cold pizza) or in the oven waiting for you to turn it on... (However, I've used a oven when I was drunk and I have the scar to prove it: BE CAREFUL)

Shopping Hungry: A No Go!

Don’t go shopping hungry. I did it and came back with loads of chocolate goodies for myself that I loved at the time but I didn’t really need them.

Plus!

Always be on the lookout for deals in local supermarkets and of course, shopping… 30% off plus your student discount = BARGIN!

I’ve found this website (the little yellow star on certain sauces) that gives you recipes that are good and quite quick.

http://www.greatlittleideas.com/theme/140/student-grub/

Add your own little comments if you have any more suggestions J

Survival of a University Student =) Tweet