From greasy foods to ‘ice bowl challenge’: How to cure a hangover
LOS ANGELES - This year, St. Patrick’s Day falls on a Friday and New Year's Eve is on a Sunday, meaning there will be plenty of drunken revelry followed by an even more disastrous hangover.
While millions of Americans have been working to find the perfect cure for the carpenter in the forehead, FOX TV Stations put together some of the best tips for truly ridding yourself of your wooden mouth.
How to get back your energy
Appearing on "Fox & Friends Weekend" earlier this year, chef and nutritionist Diane Henderiks mentioned the best ways to get an energy boost following a long night of partying.
She mentioned sports drinks, apple cider vinegar — that "acts as a natural diuretic to kind of flush things out" — and green smoothies, which "you want to add a little pineapple juice or something sweet to," plus beet juice, which "has something called betaine in it, but you have to mix it with something else" too, she said, for taste.
Henderiks also noted that "Virgin Marys are good" (the nonalcoholic version of a Bloody Mary).
The key to benefiting the most from energy drinks are three smart tips, she said.
"You want the lowest amount of sugar," she explained.
"You also want [the] appropriate amount of caffeine," she added, meaning not too much.
So check the labels on the drinks carefully to make sure you know how much caffeine you might be ingesting, she suggested.
"And just look for added boosters," such as amino acids, B12 and more, she said.
She mentioned that she likes "matcha and green tea together."
Her number-one piece of advice for those struggling with a tremendous hangover right now?
"I wouldn't drink more," she said — meaning more alcohol.
Greasy food can be a god-send
It’s not uncommon for people to say that they’ve found a cure for hangovers. A recent survey of 2,000 adults in Britain revealed that people try everything from noodle soup, hot showers and even more alcohol to stop the hangover, South West News Service (SWNS) reported.
For one-in-five respondents, the only cure was staying home all day, in bed, with the curtains closed.
About half the respondents also said that staying hydrated throughout the night was the best way to prevent a hangover. About 37% said that guzzling a pint of water before going to sleep was also an effective way to prevent feeling sick the next morning.
Meals with hearty broths like ramen and pho are commonly known as perfect hangover cures. Various meats can be added to them to get all the best benefits possible.
Many respondents claimed that certain foods stopped hangovers. Some claimed that heavy sodas like Coca-Cola could help fight the hangover, while others said that noodle soup or ginger-based foods were helpful.
Other popular foods that people claimed fought hangovers were bacon sandwiches, salty foods, carb-heavy foods and fried, fatty foods like sausage rolls.
Dr. Zoe Williams spoke with SWNS, saying, "Depending on your weight and other factors, it takes about one hour for a healthy liver to process a unit of alcohol. Consider stopping drinking well before the end of the evening, so the process can begin before you go to bed."
Williams continued, "The only 100% effective hangover cure is prevention, either through drinking moderately, or not at all, but we all know that Christmas can get the better of us."
Dunk your head in a vat of ice cold water. Seriously.
In an interview with the Associated Press in 2017, actor Nicholas Hoult, best known for "X-Men: Apocalypse," revealed that his icy hangover saved him countless times from the dreadful realities of a hangover.
Dunking your face into ice water might sound like a nightmare following a night of debauchery, but thousands of people seem to swear by it. So much so that it has become a trend on social media.
TikTok, known for its life hacks, has become a popular place to go to for the perfect cure for a hangover.
Users willing to bear extreme cold and a different type of discomfort are dunking their faces in ice water to fight the symptoms of their hangovers, and the trend has dominated the platform.
But the "ice bowl trick" or the "ice bowl challenge" has everyone who has felt the thunderous hangover headache asking one big question: Does it work?
"This is supposed to cure a hangover," user Andreana "Anna" Tay said in one video as she sat before a huge bowl of ice water. "I saw this on TikTok, and they say it's supposed to help."
The video showed someone off-camera dunking Tay's face and holding it underwater for ten seconds as she panicked. She wiped her face with a towel, recovered for a few moments and plunged in again.
"Oh my God, it works," she said, then hesitated before continuing. "No it doesn't. What the f---, it doesn't."
Tay is far from the only user discrediting the hack's claims. Another user recorded herself dunking her face into a bowl of ice water and sharing details about her upcoming hectic day.
"Whoever told me to put my face in a bowl of ice water to fix my hangover was lying," she captioned.
"Nobody told me it was going to feel like I was drowning," another TikToker, Crissy Love, said in her video captioned "HANGOVER CURE." Love insinuated the trick worked for her and said she had already dunked her head in the water three times before recording the video, but wanted to submerge her head more to be at "100%."
Pharmacist Dr. Chris Jackson said in his own TikTok that the trick activates the "diver's reflex," a biological response that allows mammals to stay alive in oxygen-deprived underwater conditions, according to Dartmouth.
"Put your face in a bowl of ice water, let the water hit your nostrils, and hold your face in the water for 5-10 seconds up to 3x. This will activate the diver’s reflex and help with nausea. It’s also great for anxiety, migraines, and your skin care routine," Jackson captioned.
Other TikTokers used the hack for other medical reasons Jackson mentioned, including one who dunked her face under water as a form of anxiety treatment and claimed the experience made her "more alert, awake and much less overwhelmed."
A nurse under the username @officialtiktoknurse also praised the trick for helping with panic attacks and anxiety by activating the parasympathetic nervous system and thereby relaxing the body.
FOX News and the Associated Press contributed to this story.