Unfortunately: drinking in the sun gives us a worse hangover

The terrace season has started and you can't make me happier with that. Even more than going on vacation, I sit every afternoon with my face in the sun and a delicious Negroni in my hand. As soon as the sun sets, I roll home again, so I can still get enough sleep. But despite sufficient hours of sleep, the hangovers after such an afternoon on the terrace really feel like the worst of all. It feels like you've been partying all night, while you just went to bed neatly at eleven o'clock. How can this be? Does the sun make our hangovers worse?

Many people think that we get drunk faster in the sun, but there is no scientific evidence for this at all. According to Tom Bart from research agency Jellinek, there are several reasons why we seem to feel alcohol faster in the sun: ‘In the sun, your body is working harder to maintain your energy balance. Being in the sun costs energy, just like drinking alcohol. As a result, you may process the alcohol less effectively. Additionally, blood flow in the blood vessels also increases, causing alcohol to spread more quickly throughout your body. This can make you feel the effects of alcohol faster, but this is mainly psychological.’ Well, I feel this psychological effect already after one cocktail in the sun.

But what about those intense hangovers after a few hours of drinking in the sun? I really do feel those. Well, that has everything to do with dehydration, which is the main culprit of your hangover. Due to high temperatures, you dehydrate faster anyway, and alcohol exacerbates this by extracting moisture from your body. The greater the dehydration, the worse your hangover. Unfortunately. We all know what we need to do to remedy this: drink enough water on the terrace. It seems so simple, yet we often stop after two glasses. If you want to tackle those intense hangovers differently this terrace season: order a glass of lukewarm water alongside every alcoholic drink. Yes, lukewarm water indeed, because that seems to remedy our dehydration better than a glass of ice-cold water. source: AD, Libelle.

Ella and Nina on the beach with a drink