Hello! I'm Lee Seung Hwan, doctor at Tong-in Korean Medicine Clinic.
As we head into the year-end season, the weather gets colder, and Christmas vibes are everywhere. 🎄🎁
This is when social drinking peaks—company dinners, year-end parties, and friend gatherings fill up the calendar. 🍻
While it's great to enjoy time with people as the year winds down, heavy drinking can lead to suffering. We've all been there: pounding headaches, digestive troubles, and that familiar promise—"I'm never drinking again!" 🤣
In this article, I'll cover how to drink more responsibly and Korean medicine approaches to reducing hangovers.
1. What Causes Hangovers?
When you drink, ethanol gets absorbed through your stomach and small intestine, then travels to your liver, where it's broken down into a toxic substance called acetaldehyde. ☠️ This is the main culprit behind hangovers, causing headaches, nausea, and fatigue while triggering inflammation throughout your body.
So how can we prevent hangovers and recover faster? 😉
📌 How to Escape a Brutal Hangover
① Know Your Limits and Pace Yourself
It takes about 30-60 minutes for alcohol to be absorbed and for you to feel tipsy. That ‘drinks are going down easy’ feeling can make you drink too fast and leave you suddenly drunk later. Set your limit from the start and pace yourself throughout the evening.
② Never Drink on an Empty Stomach—Eat First
Carb-heavy meals or snacks protect your stomach lining and slow alcohol absorption, preventing your blood alcohol level from spiking too quickly.
③ Drink Plenty of Water
Water helps flush out alcohol, lowers your blood alcohol concentration, and honestly—it also means you'll drink less alcohol overall.
④ Smoking While Drinking is the Worst Combination
Alcohol and cigarettes together increase your risk of oral, esophageal, and throat cancers. Smoking also steals the oxygen your body needs to break down alcohol, making your hangover even worse. 🤯
⑤ Stick to One Type of Alcohol
Mixed drinks or "bomb shots" irritate your stomach lining and speed up alcohol absorption, getting you drunk faster and keeping you miserable longer. Unrefined drinks like makgeolli may have lower alcohol content but tend to cause longer-lasting hangovers.
⑥ Know which Drinks Suit Your Body Type
Here's a simple guideline:
- If you're someone who gets cold easily with cold hands, feet, and lower abdomen: higher-proof drinks — whiskey, Chinese baijiu, soju
- If you run hot and sweat a lot: lower-proof drinks — beer, wine
But either way—don't overdo it!
⑦ Hangover-Fighting Foods (Also Great as Drinking Snacks)
- Shellfish soup: Taurine helps your liver recover
- Pickled cucumbers: Cucumbers provide hydration and vitamins; vinegar speeds up alcohol metabolism
- Bean sprout soup or radish soup: Asparagine in bean sprouts and radish's detox properties effectively relieve hangovers
- Orange or Lemon juice & Fruit: Vitamin C helps metabolize alcohol and reduces fatigue
⑧ Get Enough Sleep and Rest
Your liver—which handles most of the detox work—works best while you sleep. The worse your hangover, the more essential sleep becomes.
Drinking all night with minimal sleep? Really, really bad idea. Having a light day-drink session on the weekend, then sleeping deeply after sobering up a bit? That'll help tremendously.
Hangover Q&A
As we all know too well, long-term heavy drinking can cause serious health damage.
Excessive drinking can lead to alcoholic fatty liver → hepatitis → cirrhosis → liver cancer. It also causes brain damage and alcoholic dementia, respiratory depression, increased risk of accidents and injuries, and various other diseases.
So even when you're having a great time drinking, moderation is key—and try not to drink too frequently!
📌Does Drinking Help You Sleep?
Some people struggling with insomnia say they need a drink to fall asleep.
While alcohol might help you fall asleep initially, it actually disrupts deep sleep. That's why even after sleeping for hours, you don't feel refreshed.
So I don't recommend using alcohol as a sleep aid.
📌Is Throwing Up a Quick Hangover Cure?
Vomiting after drinking isn't just a side effect—it's your body's defense mechanism trying to expel toxic substances. When blood alcohol and acetaldehyde levels rise, they stimulate the vomiting center in your brain, triggering nausea and vomiting.
Alcohol also directly irritates your stomach. High-proof drinks put pressure on your stomach lining and slow down stomach and duodenal movement, making food sit in your stomach longer. This can cause reflux into the esophagus and vomiting.
In the short term, yes, vomiting can help relieve hangovers. It's a way of getting alcohol out before it's fully absorbed.
But the problem is the cycle of heavy drinking → vomiting → drinking again. This pattern can lead to:
- Esophageal damage from stomach acid
- Chronic acid reflux (GERD)
- Rarely, aspiration pneumonia from vomit entering the airways
📌Repeated Vomiting After Drinking
If you frequently vomit heavily after drinking, it could be a sign of alcoholic cirrhosis. When cirrhosis progresses, your liver's detox capacity drops, causing more acetaldehyde buildup and more severe vomiting.
You need a professional medical evaluation if you notice these symptoms alongside vomiting:
- Unusually red palms
- Abdominal swelling from fluid buildup
- Spider-web-like blood vessels on your chest
Korean Medicine's View on Hangovers and Liver Health
Hangovers aren't just about headaches—they can manifest as various symptoms, including digestive problems, fatigue, and insomnia. Korean medicine treatments can speed up recovery. Acupuncture, moxibustion, and herbal injections are all effective, and if your hangover is severe or long-lasting, I recommend taking herbal medicine.
📌A Potion to Keep the Immortals Sober
Representative formulas include Sinseon Bulchwidan (신선불취단, "Immortal's Anti-Intoxication Pills") and Seongju Boganhwan (성주보관환, "Sober-Up Liver Support Pills"). The names alone sound promising for hangover relief, don't they? 😉
The key ingredient is "galgeun(갈근)"—kudzu root. It is excellent for rapidly relieving hangovers, treating neck tension and stiffness, and reducing thirst.
⚠️ But these medicines have a side effect!!! If you take them while drinking, your tolerance might increase beyond normal, which could lead you to drink even more—so be careful! 🤣
📌Acupressure Points for Hangovers
Pressing acupressure points that help with hangovers is another good method:
-
Sobu point: helps break down alcohol
Located between where your pinky and ring finger tips touch when you make a fist; usually in the depression at the tip of your pinky
-
Taeyang point: good for hangover headaches
On both temples, in the depression where the end of your eyebrow meets the outer corner of your eye
-
Naegwan point: good for hangover heartburn
About two finger-widths up from your wrist crease toward your elbow
-
Daedon-Eunbaek points: good for various hangover symptoms
At the edge of your big toenail's base
⚠️Does Herbal Medicine Harm Your Liver?
Have you heard this concern? It's actually a serious misconception about herbal medicine.
According to a recent paper published in an SCI(E) journal, analysis of data from 670,000 people confirmed that herbal medicine prescribed at medical institutions poses virtually no increased risk of liver damage.
However, patients with underlying liver disease are more sensitive to all medications and need to be cautious.
Year-end drinking gatherings are fun, but repeated hangovers can damage your health.
If alcohol doesn't agree with you, non-alcoholic beer is an option. You might discover that what you actually enjoyed wasn't the alcohol—it was the feeling of drinking! 🤗
This year-end season, try sticking to the basic principles: moderate drinking, plenty of water, and sufficient rest.
If your hangovers last a long time or if digestive issues, headaches, and fatigue keep recurring, I recommend seeking help from Korean medicine. 😉
Have a great year-end!
