With Christmas around the corner, the worries once again start to creep into our heads…. Not looking forward to my traditional weight gain over the festive season, aaah waking up feeling not so good after a Christmas party & then still venturing to work the next day, multiple festive dinners and then still wanting to look good in next week’s outfit… well here are some ideas to hopefully help you control the situation a little more.

Energy drinks should not be Consumed during exercise.
Energy drinks should not be confused with sports drinks such as Gatorade, which are consumed to help people stay hydrated during exercise. Sports drinks provide an appropriate amount carbohydrates in the form of sugar and electrolytes to replenish that which may be lost through perspiration. Energy drinks should not be used while exercising as the combination of fluid loss from sweating and the diuretic quality of the caffeine can leave the user severely dehydrated.

What are energy drinks?
Energy drinks are beverages like Red Bull, Rockstar, Monster, Full Throttle, Amp, and NOS. Most energy drinks are carbonated and contain large amounts of caffeine and sugar with additional ingredients, such as B vitamins, amino acids (e.g. taurine), and herbal stimulants such s guarana, and ginseng. These drinks are marketed primarily to people between the ages of 18 and 30 as a stimulant.

Hangovers are a frequent, though unpleasant, experience among people who drink to intoxication. Despite the prevalence of hangovers, however, this condition is not well understood scientifically. Multiple possible contributors to the hangover state have been investigated, and researchers have produced evidence that alcohol can directly promote hangover symptoms through its effects on urine production, the gastrointestinal tract, blood sugar concentrations, sleep patterns, and biological rhythms. In addition, researchers postulate that effects related to alcohol’s absence after a drinking bout (i.e., withdrawal), alcohol metabolism, and other factors (e.g., biologically active, nonalcohol compounds in beverages; the use of other drugs; certain personality traits; and a family history of alcoholism) also may contribute to the hangover condition. Few of the treatments commonly described for hangover have undergone scientific evaluation. KEY WORDS: post AOD intoxication state; symptom; urinalysis; gastrointestinal disorder; hypoglycemia; sleep disorder; circadian rhythm; ethanol metabolite; disorder of fluid or electrolyte or acid-base balance; nutrient intake; headache; vomiting; neurotransmitter receptors; congenors; multiple drug use; personality trait; family AODU (alcohol and other drug use) history; drug therapy; literature review

It’s official…the day after has arrived and you’re sicker than you ever thought possible. What can you do about it? After thousands of years, we have searched in vain for a cure for hangovers. While there are enough concoctions to make your head spin (if it isn’t spinning already), only a few of them are helpful, and none of them truly cure the hangover.

The best cure is to prevent the hangover from happening. Here are a few tips.

• Don’t go out on an empty stomach. Forget your New Years Resolution to diet for just one night. Snack on some carbohydrates before your night out, or grab a snack at the bar before your drinks arrive. The reason that food is so important is because it’ll sop up the alcohol so that it doesn’t all go directly into the bloodstream.

1 The Eleatic hangover cure
In my (2004), I argued that it is possible to drink any finite amount of alcohol without ever suffering a hangover by completing a certain kind of supertask. Assume that a drink causes drunkenness to ensue immediately and to last for a period proportional to the quantity of alcohol consumed; that a hangover begins immediately at the time the drunkenness ends and lasts for the same length of time as the drunkenness; and that at any time during which you are drunk you do not suffer any hangover you might have at that time. Starting at a time at which you are not drunk and not hung over, drink a half pint of beer. Wait until you are just about to get a hangover (30 minutes, say), and then drink a quarter pint. Wait until you are just about to get a hangover again, and then drink an eighth, and so on…. After an hour you have drunk a pint, and you do not have a hangover. Every hangover you incurred happened within the hour you spent drinking; but you were drunk that whole time, so you didn’t suffer the hangovers. It seems that the old drunkard’s method of a “hair of the dog” can be effective in completely avoiding a hangover.

It’s well known that one way to cure a hangover is by a “hair of the dog”—another alcoholic drink. The drawback of this method is that, so it would appear, it cannot be used to completely cure a hangover, since the cure simply induces a further hangover at a later time, which must in turn either be cured or suffered through.

But, if you think about it, there is a way to completely cure a hangover using a hair of the dog. Suppose (1) that there is a simple and direct relationship between the amount of alcohol consumed and the duration of its effects, so that, for example, a pint of beer induces an hour’s drunkenness, followed by an hour’s hangover, with smaller quantities of alcohol corresponding to proportionally shorter periods of drunkenness followed by shorter hangovers. Suppose also (2) that a hair of the dog works because drunkenness masks the pain of a hangover. I will speak loosely: when a hangover is masked in this way, I will say that the hangover is “cured”, though perhaps it would be fairer to say only that its symptoms have been relieved.