The Best Supplements to Help Cure a Hangover
When you drink, your body loses essential vitamins and minerals which means your liver works harder than normal to process the alcohol. This usually leaves you feeling dehydrated, nauseous, and lethargic.
Fortunately, taking supplements can help your liver detoxify alcohol and reduce inflammation.
The most important tip though, is to stay hydrated. So we suggest chugging down some water while you read through our list of supplements to help with a hangover
How a hangover works
Before we head into the supplements let’s just take a quick look at why we get hungover.
Hangovers a largely due to your body being overly dehydrated. As alcohol is a diuretic it helps flush the body of fluids.
Ensuring you drink lots of water and replenish those lost liquids during and after consuming alcohol is always important.
Which supplements will help my hangover?
Electrolyte Plus
While our Electrolyte Plus is usually marketed at those losing fluid as sweat after an intense workout or training session, it can also help you to replenish fluids lost from drinking alcohol. The key electrolytes magnesium, potassium, sodium and calcium have been proven to be faster acting at re-hydrating the body than plain water.
As well as this they taste amazing, so you’ll be wanting to knock back a couple of litres of this orange or lime drink.
Have some before, during and after drinking to ensure your body is prepared for the big night ahead.
Acetyl L-Carnitine (Alcar)
Acetyl L-Carnitine has been shown in clinical studies to benefit cognitive ability, memory and mood. It helps supply the brain with energy and can help prevent early cognitive decline from ongoing abuse of alcohol.
In this way, studies have shown that Acetyl L-Carnitine can help to protect the brain from the damaging consequences of excessive alcohol consumption by lessening the effects of free radicals and thus helping to prevent damage to nerve transmitters.
It can also help to prevent certain neurons in the brain from becoming damaged by alcohol. When these particular neurons became damaged we experience cravings and addiction.
Supplementing with Acetyl L-Carnitine before drinking, therefore, can help to strengthen the nerves and make them maintain their good health despite alcohol consumption.
Vital Pre Mix
When we drink the nutrients we get from food aren’t properly absorbed. This is because alcohol is a diuretic so any nutrients consumed are lost. So if you drink regularly you may be lacking vital vitamins and minerals that your body needs to function at 100 per cent.
There is some evidence to suggest that supplementing with Vitamin B and C can help lessen the effects of a hangover by helping to restore certain roles required in the functioning of the brain and nervous system.
Our Vital Pre Mix can help you replenish any vitamins and minerals lost the night before and also contains a range of B Vitamins and Vitamin C for recovery.
BCAA Recovery
BCAAs are known to lessen muscle soreness and let’s be honest if you had a few drinks last night you most likely pulled out some of those killer dance moves that require more flexibility than you usually have… So you may be feeling a bit tight and sore.
But more to the point, our BCAA Recovery also contains electrolytes to help you re-hydrate and quite frankly is extremely thirst-quenching, which is always a bonus for a parched mouth.
So essentially our BCAA Recovery is your best friend if you’re in need of muscle repair and re-hydration.
Wrapping up
If you're feeling rough after a night of partying, hopefully these tips and supplements will get you back to feeling like yourself in no time.
Of course, the best way to avoid a hangover is to drink less or not at all, but if you do overdo it, we're here to help you recover as quickly as possible!
References:
- Richards, B., 2010. Acetyl-L-Carnitine Protects Blood-Brain Barrier From Alcohol Damage. [online] Wellnessresources.com. Available at: Acetyl-L-Carnitine Protects Blood-Brain Barrier From Alcohol Damage.
- Webbey, K., 2010. Top 10 Hangover Cures - TIME. [online] TIME.com. Available at: Top 10 Hangover Cures.
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