How And Why Alcohol Triggers Headaches
Last night was great. You partied until your legs couldn't hold you up anymore. This morning, though, wake up with the worst hangover you've had in years. You feel like throwing up, every inch of your body hurts, you want to stay in a dark room because your eyes hurt just being in a lighted room and you have one heck of a headache. In between the after-effects of last night's partying, you swear to yourself, "Never again!"
A pounding headache is one of the most recognized after-effects of drinking alcohol. But what is it in alcohol the triggers headaches? Blame the pounding headaches on ethanol, which is the by-product of sugar and starch fermentation. Ethanol is basically the main ingredient for making alcoholic drinks and motor fuel.
Ethanol can cause headaches in a number of ways. One, ethanol can cause vasodilation, which is the expansion of blood vessels. This expansion manifests itself as the pounding you have in your head. Since ethanol, like caffeine, is a natural diuretic, vitamins, mineral and salt escape from your body, leading to dehydration. When your body recognizes that it is losing fluid, it tries to remedy the problem by diverting the blood supply to the major organs such as the brain. The blood vessels in the brain enlarge and dilate, which results in a headache.
Aside from ethanol, alcoholic drinks may contain congeners, impure chemicals that form during fermentation. Congeners are what give alcohol its distinctive color and taste. Alcoholic drinks that have high content of congeners can cause hangovers. Keep in mind that dark alcohol drinks high amounts of congeners.
If you never want to experience the headaches caused by drinking alcohol, a sure fire way is to completely avoid alcoholic drinks. But many people just can't stop drinking. They have sworn off drinking countless times, but they find themselves unable to resist the temptation of alcohol. As soon as they forget how they felt during their last hangovers, they are back to drinking again.
So what if you can't not stop drinking? In this case, you will need to exercise moderation. Avoid over-indulging and drinking too much at one time. If you are already feeling the after-effects of last night's drinking, try to drink as much water or sports drinks as you can. This way you replenish the vitamins, minerals and salt that the alcohol has flushed out of your system.