A hangover can be one of the most terrible feelings you ever experience. If you're badly hungover you don't want to move, you don't want to eat, you don't want to drink, and you really don't want to go to work. It's painful, and you want it to stop as soon as possible. “Make it go away,” you mutter, growing even more conscious of the throbbing sound in your head, “just make it stop.”

As the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The best way to deal with a hangover is often not to get one in the first place, which really isn't too difficult. Of course, you could avoid getting a hangover by not drinking alcohol at all, but many people don't really see the fun in that. It is not realistic, you might say. If you do plan on consuming alcohol, then take some preventative measures. In other words, prepare for the battle you know you'll have to face. First of all, don't go drinking on an empty stomach. If you have food in your stomach it'll help you absorb the alcohol more slowly, which is generally a good thing if you don't want to feel terrible the next morning. Also, make sure you're hydrated, since the majority of the symptoms of a hangover come from merely being dehydrated.

Once you're out on the town, be cautious with your alcohol choice. Drinks with high sugar content or sulfites (like wine) will probably make you much worse the next morning. Also, it helps if you stick to one drink the entire night; your stomach won't be as upset as when you gulp down ten different kinds of drinks from Long Island Tea to Sucking Cowboy. Moreover, you'll probably end up drinking less. Drink water while you are out too in order to try and stave off dehydration.

When you make it back home, drink a big glass of water or two; this is one of the most important prevention steps. Stay away from Tylenol since it's hard on your stomach and liver if you take it with alcohol, but a multivitamin will probably do you some good.

When you wake up in the morning, hopefully you've avoided the worst of a hangover. If you're still hurting, don't reach for the coffee nor the Tylenol. To relieve your headache, take a couple of aspirin instead and drink more water, and if you're still feeling nauseous don't go to work. Lie if you have to, say you have the stomach flu, since your body is filled with toxins and will take some time to recover. When you can finally eat, something full of vitamins will work wonders, and some people have a lot of luck with fattier foods like hamburgers to help replace nutrients and settle the stomach.