Best Ways to Prevent a Hangover

After suffering from a painful hangover, most people will do just about anything to prevent one from happening in the future. Compared to a headache, nausea, and sometimes vomiting, any precaution will seem like a piece of cake, if it ensures you won't be hugging the toilet after a fun night out.

Nothing ruins a great weekend like a hangover. That's why we have created a list of the best ways to prevent a hangover at all costs.

If you follow each of these steps, and simply monitor yourself and your drinking, we can guarantee you'll wake up feeling completely fine.

Prepare with a stomach full of nutrients.

One of the best preparations to make before a night of drinking is to eat a hearty dinner. This doesn't mean putting a cup of ramen in the microwave while you're pregaming at 10:45. Eating a meal with carbs and protein is one of the ways to prevent a hangover because it changes the way your body will metabolize alcohol.

Yes, this might mean that you schedule dinner at 5:30 instead of 6 if you want to avoid wearing Spanx, but it will be well worth the trouble when you wake up with a clear head.

It is also suggested to load up on multivitamins, for obvious reasons. This can be as simple as drinking a bottle of Vitamin Water.

The last thing you want to do is be on your way to a bar and realize you have an empty stomach. This is the surefire way to ensure you will get drunk too fast, and likely wake up with at least a pounding headache. Let's avoid that!

One Drink = One Glass of Water

As one of the most classic ways to prevent a hangover, this trick is surprisingly helpful, even if you're used to hearing it in the form of your mother's nagging. Order a drink at the bar along with a glass of water each time, and you'll be hangover free.

When you're drinking alcohol, you're dehydrating your body and brain. Alcohol slows the production of anti-diuretic hormones, which are in charge of reabsorbing water. Simply drinking one glass per mixed drink will forgive this, and set you on the right track for a headache-less morning.

Avoid carbonation.

Carbonated drinks do two things that will likely lead to a painful hangover: get you drunk faster and dehydrate your body. Carbonated mixers, champagne, or sparkling wines all work the same. The carbonation puts pressure on the stomach lining and aids the alcohol into the bloodstream faster than a normal drink.

Plus, sodas and other carbonated drinks will dehydrate your system because they increase the urge to urinate more and because they are not replacing fluids in your system as water or other non-carbonated drinks would.

Also, if you mix your drinks with fruit juice or even vegetable juice, this is a win-win situation. Add in your multi-vitamins while enjoying a tasty drink.

Stick to one type of alcohol.

Mixing tequila, beer, and rum is never a great choice to make on a night out. This kind of goes without saying, and is one of the most obvious ways to prevent a hangover. But when your night is all over the place, and drinks are being offered, it's easy to slip up.

Forget the rhyme: liquor before beer, you're in the clear; beer before liquor, never sicker. Just stick to one drink, we all know you have a favorite. Or if you're favorite happens to be LITs, or other drinks with a combination of different liquors, maybe just limit yourself to three, over the hours of the night.

Avoid mixing weed and alcohol.

This might not be a tip that everyone needs to worry about, of course, but avoiding smoking while you're drunk is the best way to prevent getting those horrible spins.

All you want to do is sleep, yet the entire room is spinning once you shut your eyes, but you're too tired to plaster them open. Yeah, we've all been there, after smoking or not. However, it's more probable that this will happen if you mix the two drugs.

Drink high-quality liquor.

Maybe not something that most think about when considering some of the best ways to prevent a hangover, but definitely a well-worth upgrade. By choosing alcohol that is a bit more expensive, but is a lot higher quality, the chances of a hangover are much less than taking shots of Vlad.

Try not to sit down and drink the entire night.

Literally sitting down the entirety of the night while you drink with friends, especially in your own home, is one of the worst ways to get way more drunk than you want to be.

When you're sitting on the couch, or just on a bar stool, it's a lot easier to overestimate how tipsy you're getting. That regretful first time you stand up can definitely be a shock. But unfortunately, there's not much you can do at that point.

If you plan to be hanging out for the night or host your own party, don't break the first party foul and be the drunkest at your own house. Instead, be aware of the comfort you have by being at home, and make your drinks with a little less alcohol, just to be safe.

Don't drink 10 cups of water before bed to try and compensate.

Say you're well aware that you've been overserved, many people think that drinking a ton of water is one of the best ways to prevent a hangover, but they're wrong.

This will only confuse your body, and you may wake up feeling more thirsty and hurting than if you had just gone to bed. Drink a glass before bed, and bring another to your bedside table for the morning instead.

Take Advil before bed.

Yes, it's okay to take Advil after a particularly rough night; but this shouldn't be a habit every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Taking ibuprofen can affect your stomach's lining as well as your liver; and if you're a heavy drinker, the last thing you want to do is damage your liver more.

Eat some eggs in the morning with a glass of seltzer.

Eggs have been a natural remedy for a hangover for decades. This is because eggs have cysteine, which helps with headaches and breaking down toxins. If you still have somewhat of an appetite, an omelet with veggies would also be a great help.

Also, a glass of seltzer might not go with a breakfast like this, but trying to sip on the beverage will aid your body's alcohol metabolism. As one of the best ways to prevent a hangover from worsening, these two additions to your morning after a rough night out can be your saving grace.