Waking up after an alcoholic night is not one of our favourite life experiences.
A rude awakening brings with it a slew of feelings, ideas, and emotions.
The agony is followed by nausea, worry, flashbacks, and the discovery of an unfinished bag of curry chips next to your pillow.
The thirst, on the other hand, is one of the most intense sensations.
It’s as if you’ve never drunk a liquid before. Your mouth is itchy and dry, and all you want to do is go back in time and undo your bad decisions.
Another weird sensation is the strong desire to immerse your entire body in freezing water. Sometimes it feels like your body is on fire, and the only way to relieve the pain is to immerse yourself in the chill.
And it now appears that doing so can alleviate a hangover.
The best thing to do the next morning, according to TikTok user @ashyizzle, is to submerge your head in a bowl of ice cold water.
She recommends that others immerse their faces in water for as long as it takes to feel better.
‘I feel fantastic,’ she says as she dips her head in for the second time.
‘Felt awake and alert, looked like all the pores on mg face disappeared, and golly all my nausea was gone [sic].’
But is this hack a silly fluke or does it stand on some medical grounds?
Well, Dr Deborah Lee from Dr Fox Online Pharmacy says cold water on the face can actually help a hangover because of something knowns as ‘Diver’s Reflex.’
‘When you have a hangover, you experience a variety of miserable symptoms including headache, feeling thirsty, nausea, dizziness, feeling weak, tiredness, excessive sweating, and sensitivity to bright lights,’ she said.
‘These symptoms are due to the toxic effect of acetaldehyde – the major breakdown product from alcohol – plus the effects of alcohol on the body which include an increased need to pee and dehydration.
‘This can also result in an imbalance in your sodium and potassium levels, and low blood sugar. Dehydration results in a fast heart rate and low blood pressure.
‘Immersing your face in ice water helps a hangover because it sets off the diver’s reflex. When divers dive underwater, the cold receptors in the skin trigger the trigeminal nerve – the cranial nerve that supplies the skin of the face.
‘Nerve impulses are then transmitted to the brainstem, which activates the involuntary nerve pathway – the parasympathetic (PSNS) nervous system. This results in bradycardia (slowing of the heart rate) and constriction of blood vessels on the skin at the cold site, diverting blood back towards the brain and heart.
‘Specialised receptors in the carotid arteries in the neck, also react to cold by slowing the heart rate.’
Ice water can also stimulate the vagus nerve, which controls bodily functions such as digestion, heart rate and immune response.
‘It may help some other hangover symptoms,’ she says. ‘Short episodes of vagal nerve stimulation have been shown to raise blood glucose.
‘Plus, vagal nerve stimulation also increases blood flow to the kidney, which will help support renal function. Vagal nerve stimulation may help decrease sweating and has been shown to relieve symptoms of nausea and vomiting.’
However, Dr Lee warns people not to use the ice technique excessively.
‘Cold water shock can result in heart arrhythmias,’ she explains.
‘This is not advisable for anyone with a heart condition. You are likely to get the most benefit from only a brief immersion in the cold water.
‘Prolonged exposure to the cold temperature is unlikely to give much additional benefit and could increase your risks.’
