Popular myths or truly effective solutions, here are 10 remedies from around the globe to treat hangovers.
The sun’s rays pierce through the blinds as you start to detect that life has resumed its course around you. You wiggle your fingers and toes and slowly open one eye followed by the other as you regain your senses and then you remember last night. The music, your friends, the laughs, the booze. Your head throbs as you slowly try to pull yourself out of bed. Each part of your body–the slightest muscle, the slightest nerve–screams that today will be painful until the hangover has run its course.
In addition to marking the start of the new year, January 1 is also National Hangover Day. So, in honor of celebrating the New Year, we have decided to share 10 more or less popular hangover cures from around the world that might help make the morning a little less painful.
1. Beer, The Netherlands
The Dutch believe in nursing a little hair of the dog with a morning beer. Well, a beer won’t exactly cure you, but it’s true that beer has analgesic properties that can be effective against pain and therefore, a headache. Give it a try, but just take care not to embark on a vicious hangover cycle.
2. Pickle juice, Poland
According to the Polish, there is nothing better than a tall glass of pickle juice to help you recover after a bender. While this won’t provide you with enough vitamin C and potassium to nurture your body, it will most certainly wake you up!
3. Katerfrühstück, Germany
The Germans not only sip pickle juice to cure a hangover, but they also nosh on sliced pickles with onions that are wrapped in marinated herring fillets.
4. Umeboshi, Japan
Keeping with the pickle juice theme, the Japanese fight hangovers by eating umeboshi, dried plums macerated in brine. Their detoxification effect eliminates toxins but will also provide you with an interesting supply of alkaline minerals, just like the brine from pickles.
5. Are the Archduchess’ socks dry? No, soaked in vodka
If you’re concerned that all the remedies so far will make you even sicker, don’t worry–there are other solutions. The Estonians don’t imbibe on a strange mixture to cure a hangover. Instead, after soaking up some alcohol, they soak their socks in a mixture of vodka and hot water before putting them on, drinking a cup of hot tea and getting under the covers to sweat out all the alcohol they drank, fighting with their demons and sobering up quickly.
6. Lemons, Puerto Rico
Another preventative solution that doesn’t require you to swallow anything at all is very simple: rub your armpits with half of a lemon, which is said to prevent dehydration, the main cause of hangovers.
7. Tiger Milk, Peru
Despite its name, this preparation does not contain any dairy products. It is actually a cocktail made from fish juice, a little ceviche macerated in lime, chili, onion, celery, coriander, salt, and pepper. It is also said to be an aphrodisiac.
8. Tomato juice in the United States
Tomato juice is rich in vitamin C and mineral salts, ideal for rehydrating and fighting hangovers as tomatoes contain lycopene which helps to relieve aching livers. This remedy is most popular in America, where some people even add a raw egg or prepare a Bloody Mary….preferably an alcohol-free version.
9. Scotch tape glued to the forehead, Vietnam
Yes, you read that correctly. The Vietnamese cure their hangover by sticking a piece of tape on their forehead to activate some acupuncture points. If you are afraid of looking ridiculous, fret not–if you’re hungover, you most likely not looking your best already.
10. Don’t get drunk
Of course, the best remedy for hangovers is not to get drunk! Because in addition to the difficult day ahead–not to mention the nonsense that can be done and said under the influence–alcohol abuse can be, as you know, detrimental to your health and well-being.