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Working Out Hungover. Yay or Nay?

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Imagine getting wasted the other night, and then still hitting the gym the following morning. That’s some kind of dedication you have there, bro!

But before you pick up yourself together and prepare for another intense gym time, here’s a question that we want to ask you: “Is it safe to resume your gym activities even when you're hungover?”

Mario Batali –  a famous American chef and restaurateur –  thinks that gym time is an absolute hangover cure! In an interview with People, he said, "Basically, if you get up and you exercise hard for 45 minutes and then shoot a beer, it's gone, but you have to sweat it out. Keep in mind, a hangover is the poison lying in dehydrated areas. You need to pump it out." 1            

However, before you prep up for gym time and follow Batali's piece of advice, hear this out first:

According to Damion Martins, M.D. –  sports medicine physician, and the director of Executive Health, Orthopedics, and Sports Medicine at New Jersey’s Atlantic Health System exercising on a hangover is a big NO.

He said that by trying to sweat out, you further dehydrate your body, endangering your body to more harm instead of helping it cope.2

He further explains that after drinking alcohol, two chemicals called acetate and acetaldehyde are produced by your body when metabolizing alcohol. These chemicals are both pain-inducing and toxic and they're responsible for making you feel drowsy, experience being dizzy, having concentration problems, etc.

The acetic acid is excreted in your body as toxins through your breath, urine, and sweat. And when you sweat, the toxin is expelled from the body. In other words, the more dehydrated you are, the more concentrated the toxin becomes in your sweat.

And while it may sound like a good idea to sweat to excrete the toxin, it's absolutely not. If you exercise while hungover, you are in much more risk of experiencing muscle pulls, cramps, muscle strains, and electrolyte imbalances. You are also more prone to muscle soreness, so it’s impossible to survive hangover workout.

Training with a hangover is not totally safe. Instead of working out, you should focus more on hydrating yourself – so drink plenty of fluids. And by the way, avoid caffeine intake since it will make you pee more, further dehydrating you. Additionally, you should consider getting a better quality of sleep for you to feel better in the morning. 

And if ever you feel like you really need to do something active to shake things up, just do light activities like yoga! Take a lot of rest, and hopefully by the next day, you’ll feel way better to start your fitness routine again. 

References: 

1. https://people.com/food/mario-batali-reveals-his-best-hangover-cure-and-it-involves-chugging-beer/

2. https://www.runnersworld.com/uk/health/a774874/can-running-help-cure-your-hangover/

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