

How Long Does A Hangover Last, Anyway?

Because mine just lasted two days.

Girl crying in bed
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The first thing you wonder after waking up after a Rough Night-style evening: Uh, how long does a hangover last again?

Typically, hangovers only last the morning (like, until you finally get around to eating breakfast)—at most 24 hours.

But sometimes, that after-effects of a night of drinking stick around way past their welcome—like the dreaded two-day hangover which makes you realize, oh yeah, you're not in college anymore.

Just wondering...why are hangovers even a thing?

“Hangovers are somewhat poorly understood from a medical standpoint,” says Fred Goggans, M.D., the medical director of McLean Hospital’s McLean Borden Cottage in Camden, Maine. For the most part, the symptoms are considered a form of short-term withdrawal and tend to be time-limited.


Goggans also says that the strength and length of your hangover goes hand in hand with the amount of alcohol you had. Beyond that? “There are also some other factors that are speculated to influence the intensity and duration of a hangover,” he says.

But why do some hangovers last an appropriate amount of time and others...don't? Here are eight possible reasons why (and your prob might be combo of a few).

1. You didn't drink enough water.

    “Alcohol has a diuretic effect—heavy drinking may maximize that,” says Vincent Pedre, M.D., author of Happy Gut. Drinking can dehydrate you—even more so if you’re vomiting or suffering from diarrhea. And this, on top of mineral imbalances (from the influx of booze and loss of fluids and electrolytes), can slow how fast your body detoxifies itself, he explains.


    2. You had a rough night's sleep.

    You know that a good sleep can help you feel your best in the a.m. But you might not realize that while a few glasses of wine could put you to sleep, vino certainly won’t help you get your deepest snooze on. “People tend to have interrupted sleep following a drinking episode,” says Goggans.

    And it all comes full circle: The more you drink, the worse you sleep, and then, the worse you feel the day after (and sometimes the day after that).

    3. You drank a darker booze.

    Meet congeners—they’re flavoring agents or byproducts of fermentation in booze, and they are linked to hangovers, says Goggans. “It seems like the congeners in the darker liquors and drinks are associated with a longer hangover,” he says.

    Stay clear to keep yourself in the clear: Liquors linked to worse next-day pain include whiskey, rum, red wine, and brandy, says Goggans; those less likely to cause a hangover: white wine, vodka, and gin.

    4. You're getting older (sorry, but it's true).

    If you’re 21, your ability to detoxify alcohol is different than if you’re 40 (or even 28), says Pedre. “As we get older, our cells age, and we might not be able to process toxins as we did when we were younger,” he says. So while three drinks was fine back in the dorms sophomore year, that amount may feel like double that 10 years later.

    5. You have a sensitivity, but don't realize it.

    Lots of people have sensitivities to certain food or chemicals they don't even know about. Beer, for example, is made with barley and hops (a.k.a., gluten); mixers can be super high in sugar; wine can have sulfites—all of these are things you can be intolerant to, says Goggans, which can really amp up your hangover (yes, even if you only have one glass).

    6. You drank on an empty stomach.



    The solution? Eating a little bit of something relatively hearty (think: a peanut butter and jelly sandwich instead of a garden salad) before drinking to slow alcohol's absorption.

    7. You have your period.

    Your body's already under a little bit of strain during your period (you are bleeding, after all), and since alcohol can dehydrate you, it can deplete your energy even more on your period, says Cox.

    8. You're on medication.

    Many medications are metabolized (a.k.a., broken down) by the liver and kidneys—the same organs your body uses to metabolize alcohol, which can leave those two organs working overtime, and possibly not performing their best.



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