A definition of a hangover – ‘A hangover is the experience of various unpleasant physiological and psychological effects following the consumption of ethanol. Hangovers can last for several hours or for more than 24 hours. Typical symptoms of a hangover may include headache, drowsiness, concentration problems, dry mouth, fatigue, gastrointestinal distress (e.g., vomiting), absence of hunger, depression, sweating, nausea and anxiety.’

My question is, after reading this, why would we intentionally do this to ourselves?! If you read these symptoms on a medicine, would you take it?!!

Isn’t it funny (or not), how we laugh about hangovers? After a good night out, the first thing we gauge the next day is the level of hangover. What type is it? Is it a wam bam, in your face, crippling one? Or is it a slow burner? Is it a headache? Or has it paralysed you on the bathroom floor? Can it be cured by a glass of water and an Alka Seltzer, or does it need serious medication like a Big Mac & fries? Will it completely ruin your day or just the majority of it?

Apparently, the most effective way to avoid a hangover is to ‘avoid alcohol or drinking in moderation’. No shit! I wish I’d been paid to write that!! How else would you get a hangover without it?!! But still we succumb. 

Isn’t it quite sad that we deliberately sabotage our bodies to such an extent that we literally make ourselves ill? If you woke up with half the symptoms of a hangover on a Monday morning without drinking, you wouldn’t go to work for sure. You’d believe you were dying. Yet our culture determines that it is totally acceptable to make ourselves feel this way, week after week, at a severe cost to our health and our bank balance. 

Isn’t it also strange that we never think of the long term effects that constant hangovers are doing to our bodies? Not only are we damaging our livers every time we drink (with the excuse that it can repair itself) but we are killing brain cells, destroying stomach lining and sucking the life out of our skin. 

I don’t miss hangovers in the slightest. I get a buzz knowing I’m nurturing myself both inside and out, rather than self inflicting illness and pain. I’ve never felt or looked better. There is nothing more satisfying than waking up sober at the weekend and enjoying feeling good. Give it a go! Be kind to yourself, you deserve it.

#day162