Can napping cure a hangover?

The saviour may be napping. If you sleep during the day, the alcohol will likely have been processed from your body, allowing you to fall into a deeper, most restorative snooze. Sleep also speeds up the detoxification process, so you can rid the body of the alcohol byproducts more efficiently. “Essentially, you can ‘sleep off’ the hangover symptoms. Plus, if you had disrupted sleep quality and quantity due to alcohol intake, a nap can help you to “catch up” on the sleep that you missed from the night before,” says Dr Molloy.

“To be clear, it is not as good as an uninterrupted night of sleep without any alcohol, but it is still valuable. And if you’ve had a ton to drink, sleeping during the night or the day after absolutely will not save you in any way shape or form. I wish it would, but sadly that is not the case,” he adds.

The best way to cure a hangover is to avoid one. The best way to do that is to not drink, but if you’re partial to a glass of red on a Friday night or enjoy a gin and tonic on the weekend, Dr Molloy recommends shifting your drinking to earlier in the day “so you can process the booze out before your head hits the pillow, massively reducing the impact on the following day’s activities”.

Then there are the tried and tested tips of staying hydrated, topping up on electrolytes that are lost in the drinking process and eating carbohydrates with your drink to “stabilise blood sugar levels and calm the GI tract,” says Dr Molloy. If you catch us napping tomorrow, you know why.

Can a good night’s sleep help you to avoid or cure a hangover after you’ve been drinking alcohol?