‘Tis the season for eggnog, mulled wine, champagne – and hangovers. So, what can you do to prevent the morning-after misery as you enjoy your end-of-year festivities?

Hangover cures abound online, ranging from herbal pills and supplements to home remedies like pickle juice and poached eggs.

Most of the evidence for hangover cures is thin, and there is no surefire way to avoid a hangover short of avoiding alcohol altogether. But there are some things you can do before, during and after drinking that can lower your risk for a hangover.

What causes a hangover?

Hangovers can occur for a variety of reasons. Alcohol suppresses vasopressin, a hormone that prompts the kidneys to retain fluid. This can lead to increased peeing and dehydration, causing a pounding headache, thirst, and fatigue. Alcohol also can irritate the lining of your stomach, causing nausea and stomach pain, and it can disrupt your sleep, leading to fatigue and irritability. At the same time, the anxiety that some people experience after a night of heavy drinking can stem from alcohol withdrawal.

Some people are more susceptible to hangovers than others, depending on how your body metabolizes alcohol. When you drink, enzymes in your liver break down alcohol into acetaldehyde, a toxic byproduct and known carcinogen. Some evidence indicates that acetaldehyde may be a culprit in hangovers. A couple studies show for example that people who carry a genetic variant that slows their ability to remove acetaldehyde from their bloodstreams are particularly prone to severe hangovers even after drinking relatively small amounts of alcohol. This genetic variant is especially common among people of Asian descent.

Many dietary supplements that are marketed as hangover cures claim to work by improving your body’s ability to eliminate acetaldehyde. But a 2021 study that evaluated 82 dietary supplements marketed online as hangover cures found that they lacked any evidence of efficacy, and they frequently contained excessively high doses of vitamins. Many also contained N-acetylcysteine, which is technically a prescription drug.

Some studies have found that the severity of your hangover symptoms may hinge on how high your blood alcohol level climbs while drinking (the higher it gets, the worse the hangover) and how quickly your body converts alcohol into its byproducts. The faster your body breaks down alcohol, researchers have found, the less severe your hangover.

Never drink on an empty stomach

Always eat a meal or a hearty snack if you plan to drink. This can slow the rate at which the alcohol enters your bloodstream, which can lower the odds of a hangover, said Julia Zumpano, a registered dietitian with the Cleveland Clinic’s Center for Human Nutrition.

In a small study in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, scientists looked at what happened when they gave a group of men alcoholic beverages on separate occasions, in one case on an empty stomach and on other occasions about 15 minutes after eating a 700-calorie meal. They found that eating before drinking caused a “pronounced” lowering of the participants’ blood alcohol levels compared to when they drank on an empty stomach. Eating a meal also increased the speed at which the alcohol was cleared from their bloodstreams. The researchers found that meals high in protein tended to produce lower blood alcohol levels than meals high in fat or carbs, but ultimately the differences were minimal. Any big meal, regardless of whether it’s high in fat, carbs or protein, will help.

Avoid dark liquors

They tend to contain higher amounts of congeners, a byproduct of the fermentation process that can worsen hangovers. Some research suggests that hangover symptoms increase when people consume beverages with higher congener concentrations. Studies have found for example that one of the liquors with the highest congener contents, bourbon, causes worse hangovers than vodka, which contains essentially no congeners. Of course, drinking vodka instead of bourbon doesn’t mean you won’t experience a hangover – but it might improve your odds.

Drink water

After each alcoholic beverage you consume, have a glass of water. Alternating between alcohol and water will help to keep your blood alcohol level from rising too fast and it will keep you hydrated.

“Alcohol is a diuretic,” said Zumpano at the Cleveland Clinic. “It naturally dehydrates you. When you’re hung over, a lot of the symptoms that you experience are due to dehydration. You can alleviate some of those symptoms by staying well hydrated.”

Try the BRAT diet

It stands for bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast. This diet was originally designed for children with upset stomachs. If you’re experiencing nausea the morning after a big night out, it might be best to start with bland foods instead of having a heavy meal.

“The BRAT diet is very easy to digest and helps you keep down food,” said Zumpano. “Some people say greasy foods are helpful. But a heavy meal can make you feel worse because it’s in your stomach for a lot longer.”

Use ginger

Many studies have shown that ginger can alleviate nausea and vomiting caused by pregnancy, cancer treatments, motion sickness and other conditions. You can add fresh ginger to your food or buy ginger supplements. But for a hangover, it’s probably best to sip on ginger tea or eat ginger chews. To make ginger tea, add fresh ginger slices to a pot of water, bring it to a boil, and let it simmer for a few minutes. Pour it into a cup and add a teaspoon of honey or a slice of lemon for more flavor.

Replenish your electrolytes

Alcohol makes your body excrete electrolytes such as sodium, potassium, magnesium and phosphate. You can replenish them by consuming foods rich in minerals like fruits and vegetables. Watermelon, cantaloupe, peaches and oranges are particularly great because they have a lot of water and they provide a healthy dose of electrolytes. If you prefer liquids, try electrolyte-enhanced waters or sugar-free Gatorade and Powerade.

Rather than waiting until morning, it might be best to start drinking them as soon as you get home from your party – that is, “if the party ever ends,” said Zumpano.

Try one of these hangover cures – it just might work

Recently, a team of British researchers scoured the medical literature to find rigorous clinical trials that put a variety of hangover cures to the test. The researchers found seven products showed some limited evidence of being able to reduce hangover symptoms when compared to placebos. Among them were supplements made with clove extract; the anti-inflammatory drug tolfenamic acid; a form of vitamin B6 called pyritinol; herbal supplements containing extracts of Hovenia dulcis, also known as the Japanese raisin tree; products containing the amino acid L-cysteine; and finally, Korean pear juice and red ginseng.

The researchers cautioned however that most of the studies were typically small and contained mostly men and people under the age of 40.

“The short story is there’s not a lot of very good research out there,” said Emmert Roberts, an author of the study and a visiting scholar in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University. “There were some very small low-quality studies that did show some things that had the potential to help.”

Roberts said that he and his co-authors did not find much evidence that any of the products they highlighted were harmful, so he doesn’t discourage people from trying them.

“You can try them, but they are not going to be miracle cures,” he added. “There are loads of products that market themselves as hangover cures or hangover remedies, and they say they have science behind them but that isn’t really true. There’s a lot of snake oil salesmen in the hangover world.”