Why Do We Get Hangovers? Cruda Explained

Ya sabes lo básico: the more you pound, the more likely it is that you will wake up the next morning feeling like sh*t.

Apparently, this happens first and foremost because alcohol is a diuretic, which means it makes you pee more, so you become dehydrated.  Dehydration is to blame for your pounding headache.

Secondly, when alcohol breaks down in your guts, it releases some bad stuff called acetaldehyde and cytokines.  These are super toxic to you body and cause your nausea.

Finally, your liver is working hard to process the alcohol, so it isn't able to produce as much blood sugar as it usually does when you're sleeping, which is why you wake up exhausted the day after drinking hard.

Some types of alcohol cause worse hangovers than others.  Generally, the rule is that the darker the alcohol, the worse your hangover.  This is because the darker the alcohol, the more likely it is to have been aged in a barrel where it picked up some nasty toxins called "cogeners".  

Yeah, so...you're basically poisoning yourself...for fun.  

...I'm still gonna hit the tequila pretty hard this weekend. ¡Salud!