When drinking alcoholic drinks or intoxicating you may feel your eyes become blurry and even become unconscious. How long will it take to regain consciousness and recover from a hangover? This may be difficult to explain. But keep reading this article as we will be talking about hangovers, specifically how long they last.
The liver is a very important organ, in fact, it is in charge of metabolizing drinks all the time. According to reliable sources, the liver can metabolize one standard drink every hour. But that doesn’t mean it will return to its original state after an hour. It depends on how alcohol affects you, how drunk you are, and we’ll see an explanation of how long that hangover will last. This is of course influenced by many factors.
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1. How do you define drunkenness
Different people sometimes differ in seeing the meaning of drunkenness itself. Maybe you think that you are conscious after being able to walk straight. In fact, it doesn’t mean you are sober. This all depends on the blood alcohol concentration (BAC).
BAC is the amount of alcohol in the blood compared to the amount of water. In America, you are considered drunk completely if the concentration of alcohol in the blood is 0.08 grams per deci liter (dl).
How much alcohol do you drink to bring you to such a concentration, how long it lasts in your system, and the effect varies because it depends on many factors. It also depends on your body composition and how quickly you consume the alcohol. Most people consider themselves drunk when they experience:
- Decreased alertness
- Impaired judgment
- Muscle in-coordination
- Slurred speech
- drowsiness, and
- Difficulty concentrating
Another major factor
You cannot predict exactly how long you will be drunk, trying your best to get rid of the hangover as soon as possible. So there’s nothing you can do to lower the BAC (blood alcohol concentration) after you’ve been drunk with alcohol.
There are many variables that influence the length of time a person is drunk after drinking alcohol.
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1. How much did you drink
The amount of alcohol you consume has a profound effect on how drunk you are. After ingesting alcohol, within a few minutes it is immediately in the bloodstream. So the more alcohol you drink, the more alcohol will enter your bloodstream.
Apart from the number of drinks, there are other things that influence, this is the type of intoxicating you consume. Some alcoholic drinks have a high alcohol content and some are not.
2. How fast your body digests it
Every drink you drink will be metabolized by the body and this takes a certain amount of time. The sooner you consume a drink, the higher your BAC. If your BAC is high, then the consequence is that you will experience a longer and more severe hangover.
3. Your body weight
Your weight will determine too. Alcoholic drinks, if drunk by those with a larger stomach space, will certainly not be as problematic as those of you who have a smaller stomach and drink the same amount.
If you drink intoxicating drinks with a friend who weighs more than your body, of course you will have a higher BAC because it will adjust the drink as your friend drinks. So, it will take you a long time to realize that even if you drink the same amount as a friend who is heavier in body mass.
4. Gender
Furthermore, what affects the length of time you are drunk is gender. So, gender also plays a role in this.
Male and female bodies metabolize alcohol differently, this is due to differences in body composition. Women tend to have a higher percentage of body fat than men. Fat has alcohol-retaining properties, this results in higher BAC and women will be drunk longer than men (even if both drink the same amount of alcohol)
A woman’s body contains less water, it is less good at diluting alcohol and produces less dehydrogenase enzymes. This enzyme helps the liver break down alcohol. So, women are more dangerous if they drink alcohol than men.
5. What’s in your belly
The food that is in your stomach also affects the length of alcohol metabolism. So, the state of your stomach (empty or not) affects the body’s metabolism.
If your stomach is full, the alcohol you drink will metabolize more slowly. It’s different if your stomach is empty, it will be digested faster and eliminated from your body.
6. Your tolerance
If you drink alcohol a lot, your body will react differently to those who don’t drink alcohol often. for someone who regularly drinks alcohol, when he drinks a little, he is immune and tolerant of alcohol so he doesn’t get drunk, it’s different if you never drink alcohol, when you first drink a little, you already feel and your body reacts to being drunk , this is because the body is intolerant of alcohol.
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This means that a person who likes to drink alcohol or is a heavy drunkard can endure a hangover or not feel drunk. This doesn’t mean you aren’t drunk, so it all depends on your BAC (the amount of alcohol in the blood as compared to the amount of water in the blood).
7. Your health
Our health condition also affects how long we get drunk. Especially something that affects the kidneys and liver, can affect whether or not alcohol is metabolized and how it affects you.
How can I be aware more quickly
If you want to wake up quickly after drinking, it’s a shame because you can’t help but wait for the time to pass. However, there are some things you can do to help make your body more comfortable and relaxed.
To get rid of the hangover effect, there are a number of things you can do:
1. Sleep
Sleeping is the best way to calm yourself down during a hangover, try taking a nap to lighten your body. Spending time is one way to lower your BAC, so just go to sleep to spend time in a relaxed manner.
2. Exercise
Exercise is also the best way to speed up hangover. When drunk if we exercise it can increase the body’s metabolism. By itself this can increase the metabolism of alcohol.
While this has not been scientifically proven, exercise does improve alertness and energy and mood levels. So exercise is reasonable enough to do when drunk.
3. Hydrating
Hydrating the body by drinking more mineral water or other non-alcoholic drinks can also help calm and make the body better. However, the duration of the hangover still cannot be shortened because it depends on the person’s BAC.
However, drinking lots of water can at least prevent a more hangover and prevent you from becoming too lethargic.
4. Drink coffee
Coffee is a drink that can increase our alertness. So drinking coffee while drunk can be a way to calm yourself down. Coffee can relieve dizziness that occurs due to drinking alcohol. So says healthline.com
