For a couple of years before I quit drinking I walked around with a continuous, low-grade hangover (when I didn’t have a top-of-the-line hangover). Which is weird, because I hate the feeling and a hangover is preventable. That salty taste in the back of the mouth, the shakes, the sensation that someone big is pressing a knuckle into the tender base of your neck, the waves of biliousness and for me – strange auras of light and a weird sinking sensation, as if my heart was taking too long to power up between beats…
Here are some interesting hangover facts:
- The biggest hangover culprits are: tequila, vodka and red wine
- When you are hung-over your brain is dehydrated and it shrinks
- Women suffer hangovers worse than men (pound for pound less water in the body to dilute alcohol)
- Smoking makes hangovers worse (duh…)
- Eating protein helps mitigate a hangover
- Hangovers cost the U.S. $148 billion annually in missed work and poor job performance
- The professions most likely to be hung-over on the job are: waiters, realtors, salespeople, police officers and chefs
- 51% of U.S. workers have been hung-over at work
- 19 % of workers have called in sick when they were hung-over
- The worst age for hangovers: 29
- Average hangover lasts for 9 hours and 45 minutes.
