Most of us, at some point in our lives, have experienced a hangover. And with the Christmas period round the corner, the temptation to overindulge can be hard to resist.
Understandably, only a small amount of research money is assigned to the science of hangovers. Possibly because the solution to avoiding them is not one of life’s great mysteries: drink less.
However, with recent research suggesting that fitter people tend to drink more than their less fit contemporaries, runners may be interested in a new study that suggests a novel solution to hangovers: hard running.
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The researchers looked at more than 1,600 college students from two large US universities. All subjects had experienced at least one hangover during the past three months, and all exercised at least 30 minutes a week.
Among the findings, the researchers discovered that the more alcohol subjects consumed, the worse they felt the next morning. So far, so obvious. More surprising, however, was the discovery that students who exercised more seemed to have less severe hangovers. Plus, the more intense the exercise, the bigger the hangover-reducing effects.
In fact, the benefits of vigorous physical activity, such as interval running, were twofold: it reduced both the association between ‘drinking and hangover likelihood’ and ‘the association between drinking and hangover severity’.
This is not your invitation to drink the bar dry simply because you did an interval workout that day. The dangers of excessive drinking (regularly drinking more than 14 units of alcohol a week) remain very real – regardless of whether high-intensity exercise reduces the effects of a hangover. It’s also worth noting that the subjects in this study were young – aged 18-25 – when hangovers, in general, seem to be less severe.
It is, however, an interesting discovery in an under-researched area of sports science. A tempo run on the morning of the office party? We’ll raise a glass to that.
