Hangover is a constellation of effects ranging from headache to nausea to what's sometimes called anxiety , which is anxiety that follows a day of drinking anxiety . I think we can understand physiologically if we think about that process of alcohol intake , increasing the amount of cortisol and the ratio of cortisol to some other stress hormones .
And there are great tools and resources for that . Now , the other aspects of hangover such as the stomachache or headache or feelings of malaise or fogginess , those could be related to a number of different things and probably are related to a number of different things . First of all , the sleep that one gets after , even just one .
I know many people have tried that one before , but that's a terrible idea . Now , one thing that you'll also hear out there is that deliberate cold exposure , for instance , taking a cold shower might relieve hangover . I find this one particularly interesting because we've done episodes on the benefits of deliberate cold exposure .
Again , please use caution , spike your adrenaline spike , your dopamine with deliberate cold exposure safely . Other components of hangover that could be good targets for trying to alleviate hangover . And here I hope you are getting the picture because it is accurate to say that hangover is a multifaceted phenomenon .
The gut microbiome is so important for so many different things . In terms of hangover and headache , we know that that's caused by vasoconstriction . The constriction of blood vessels that tends to occur as a rebound after a night of drinking , alcohol can act as a vasodilator .
