How to Survive a Freshers’ Hangover

Feeling grim the morning after the night before? Let The Tab guide you to the light at the end of the tunnel.

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What are you going to do with your hangover?

The hangover is a quintessential part of Freshers, and indeed Uni life. If you’re not pre-drinking, or out in a club, then there’s a very good chance that you’ll be struggling through the day with a nasty hangover and a brain that’s functioning at a slower-than-usual rate.

Will you ever learn?

What you do with your hangover though, is very much up to you. With only 40% needed to pass first year, lecture attendance probably won’t feature that high on your list of priorities, so being hungover can become an almost full-time occupation. Here are a few of the options that you may have with what to do the morning after the night before.

Be a proactive go-getter

You’ll need all the fruit n fibre you can get

Alarm goes off early in the morning, you’re straight out of bed, into the shower and off to breakfast. You’re convincing yourself that you’re not hungover. With this approach to tackling a hangover, you’ll probably attend all of your lectures that day, manage a phone call home, make your daily trip to the gym and have lunch out with friends, ensuring that you’re seen on Woodland Road and/or outside the ASS library.

Advantages: This sort of attitude bodes well for a future of high-achievement and a big salary.

Disadvantages: Just think of all of the fun you could be having at home watching TV and festering on the sofa with your friends.

Verdict: If you’re able to do this then you probably weren’t even that drunk the night before. But good on you for having the willpower to actually make something of your day.

Drink through it

Hair of the dog: tried and tested

This option can be fantastically fun if you persuade friends to join you on a bender. On waking up, it may well seem that you couldn’t possibly feel worse, so why not pick up that leftover alcohol and start drinking again. You’ll probably find that after the first one or two drinks, you’re feeling pretty good again, and will spend the rest of the day cockily enjoying an air of invincibility, maybe even putting in an ill-advised booty call. You’re now well prepped for the next night out. And then you can do it all again.

Advantages: Makes for a great story to tell in the future. Kudos and respect from your peers, admiring your ability to stomach booze after a big night out.

Disadvantages: You’ll feel appalling when you finally do stop drinking, and the ensuing detox period will not be enjoying.

Verdict: Not sustainable in the long run, but very fun from time to time.

The lazy, yet methodical approach

Carbs are key

Shower. Brush teeth. Powerade. Eat food or order Dominos. Drink water. Do what you have to do to feel better, and then get on that sofa or into bed and watch great daytime TV such as Jeremy Kyle, Cash in the Attic and Pointless, discussing with friends what actually happened the night before, rueing that late-night loser lap of the dance floor as you looked for someone to go home with. The photos from the night before will be going up onto Facebook shortly, so it’s up to you how many lectures you make it to.

Advantages: Feeling sorry for yourself with other like-minded people is always more fun.

Disadvantages: An unproductive lifestyle in the long run.

Verdict: The most realistic option.

The suicide/ambulance option

Doesn’t get much worse than this

If trying all the aforementioned ways of numbing the hangover has been to no avail, then you know you’ve got a nasty day to face up to. When the symptoms of your hangover still haven’t abated come bedtime, then this is when you begin to worry and seriously regret all that Frosty Jacks or Lambrini the night before. With a racing heartbeat, dangerously shallow breathing and severe hot and cold flushes, you begin to fear that alcohol poisoning is hitting you hard. You’re probably too hungover to sleep, and may even fear passing out in case you never wake up again. Calling mum or even an ambulance will seem like a good idea.

Advantages: You’ll be able to look back and laugh at this in the future.

Disadvantages: This is a real low point in your life.

Verdict: These don’t come along all that often; probably best not to call the ambulance.