EXCLUSIVE: The Hangover Survival Guide
Congratulations!
You played yourself, yet again.
It’s the morning after. You’re pretty sure you had an amazing time last night but you don’t really remember. Let’s hope it was an epic evening because your body is paying full retail price for it today…
That’s right: you’re hungover!
Hangovers happen to the best (and the worst) of us. If your party career has only just begun, perhaps you don’t yet have a go-to remedy for the pain, nausea and irritability you’ll be living with for the next several hours. We’ve been doing this for a while, so hang out for a minute and let us drop some knowledge on you.
#1 Hangover Prevention Pills
The single most effective cure for hangovers is never having one in the first place!
These pills are manufactured using ingredients that have been scientifically shown to help prevent hangover symptoms, like prickly pear extract and a bunch of other stuff. The only catch is that you have to remember to take three pills the night of the party – one right before you start drinking, another after you’ve been drinking for a while and the last one after you’ve finished drinking for the night.
Got it?
#2 Fruit Infuser Water Bottle
But since we all know you’re never going to remember to take those pills 100% of the time, we’ll go ahead and finish up the rest of the list with the things you and your body need to get back to feeling like life is worth living. Things like water.
Besides the fact that you spent all night drinking poison, the main reason your body is so pissed off at you right now is, well, because you pissed so much the night before. Alcohol dehydrates you and the human system needs water to operate correctly. The first thing you should do when you wake up is drink water.
If you’d like a healthy way to make that water more interesting, these bottles allow you to make your own fruit infusions by filling an inner container with whatever you prefer. (Vomit prone patients may be interested to know that drinking lemon in water cures bad breath, for instance.) Prepare your water before going out and it’ll be waiting for you in the fridge when you need it the most.
#3 Self-Stirring Coffee Mug
This one’s a bit more of a gamble: caffeine.
While not as severe as alcohol, caffeine is also a diuretic. (That means it makes you pee, which, again, contributes to dehydration.) However, caffeine has other effects and you could be in desperate need of those depending on what your day is like. You’ll have to weight the pros and cons for yourself.
Whether you’re having a cup of coffee, tea or caffeinated hot chocolate, you won’t be drinking it quickly because your stomach will be full of all that water you NEED to have chugged before having any caffeine. Your sweeteners or whatever will settle to the bottom of the mug and, let’s face it, any major movement is tempting the headache demons to revolt, so that’s why it’s useful to have a mug that stirs its own contents at the simple press of a button.
#4 Pajama Pants That Look Like Jeans
Hopefully you’re smart enough to not destroy yourself in the middle of the work week. Assuming so, you should be able to get away with getting right back into bed.
The sleep you get when you’re drunk doesn’t really count as sleep. Your body doesn’t get to do all of the things it usually does when you’re asleep, which is why you can still feel tired after being passed out for over 12 hours. We have the expression “sleep it off” for a reason and that might be exactly what you need to do.
But if someone comes knocking on your door (maybe because you made an excellent executive decision to have other people create and deliver a pizza for you) or, heaven help you, if you do have to leave home for essentials, then you might not want to look like a total slob, right?
That’s where these pajama pants come into play! They’re super comfortable pajamas with an elastic waistband but they look exactly like a pair of jeans. Genius!
#5 Comfortable Headphones
Trying to sleep during the daytime can be pretty difficult. The rest of the world is engaged in normal operations, as usual, which means thousands and thousands of humans are all around you, making all sorts of racket doing who even knows what…
Headphones.
Headphones are a blessing. But headphones are also a curse when you’re trying to use them while laying down, let alone sleeping. Earbuds will fall out, big studio headphones can also fall off or even break while you try to find a comfortable position to lay while wearing them.
Forget all that.
The SleepPhones system is as comfortable as any headband but it has earphones tucked into either side. There’s even a wireless bluetooth version so you can rest easy knowing your soothing sounds won’t come unplugged if you move too much.
#6 Nutella with Pretzel Sticks
You’ll eventually be ready to eat some food. Carbs are recommended to help bring the blood sugar back up to where it needs to be. Carbs are also usually found in dense foods that may seem unappealing to those of you who get nauseous with your hangovers.
It’s pretty hard to turn down an opportunity to eat some Nutella, though. These packs of Nutella & Go each contain 12 little pretzel sticks and enough Nutella to give you an incentive to chomp on those carbs. Hell, we love these things so much, we recommend buying a whole display unit with 144 packs per case!
[Okay, okay – here’s a link to place a normal order: LINK]
#7 Spicy Chinese Noodles Kit
Now, if you’re ready to put away some real food then we have got the perfect hangover meal for you: spicy Asian noodles. Ideally, you’re gonna want a good spot for pho. That’s a giant bowl of noodles from Vietnamese cuisine. The reason you want that is because of those spices they bring you with the order…
See, if you eat something hot enough, your brain interprets that activity as pain and floods itself with endorphins, your very own pain medication. So a bowl of super spicy noodles is the perfect hangover food because you’re carb loading and giving yourself a natural high with every bite!
If you don’t have a good pho spot, fear not. This kit contains the ingredients you need to make ten bowls of spicy Chinese noodles with ease and simplicity. Cooking something could help take your mind off that embarrassing thing you did last night, too.
#8 Ridiculously Hot Capsaicin Drops
Some of you won’t even be able to think about food because of how nasty you feel.
Don’t worry, you can still get all the natural relief benefits of spicy food without taking a single bite. Capsaicin is what gives hot peppers their heat and you can buy it buy the bottle. We’re talking over one million Scoville units here, so be prepared for a lot of hot to take over your whole world for fifteen minutes or so…
But after the heat starts to die down, you’ll get to the place you want to be. It could be just the thing that sets you back on track to feeling like a normal person again.
#9 Hidden TV for Bed-Ridden Binge Watching
Streaming services are a hangover victim’s best friend.
You’re in no shape to be a productive member of society today. Accept that and feel no remorse over spending the entire day plowing through season after season of your favorite shows. (Lately we’d recommend The Larry Sanders Show and Deadwood, if you’ve got an HBO Go password and an Amazon Fire Stick.)
The posture of a person watching TV in bed with a standard setup can actually contribute to headaches and neck/back pain. That’s not the life you’re trying to be about right now. If you’ve got the dough, a setup like the one pictured here is exactly what you need: when not in use the TV looks like a framed painting but it pulls out to be angled down perfectly for relaxed viewing.
#10 Crap Taxidermy Picture Book
They say laughter is the best medicine.
If you forgot to pay the utilities or something, it’s always a good idea to have analog entertainment laying around. We like this book of taxidermy gone wrong because no matter how shitty your hangover is you’ve got to remember that it’s just a temporary situation.
Unlike these poor creatures who’ve been permanently set to rest in horribly undignified poses…