It feels like someone is pounding your head in with a hammer. Your mouth is as dry as sandpaper. There is a pit in your stomach and you aren’t sure if it’s queasiness or anxiety. You fumble around your nightstand, desperately trying to feel for a cool glass of water without opening your eyes to the blaring sun.
Since when was the sun so bright?
You thought your residence blinds could block out anything but it feels like you’re on another, more blinding planet. Rolling over you realize you are completely and totally hungover.
What happened last night?
Those are mornings some can expect to happen in university—especially during frosh week.
According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), university and college students are most likely to participate in unsafe drinking habits during the first weeks of classes.
“The first six weeks of freshman year are a vulnerable time for heavy drinking and alcohol-related consequences because of student expectations and social pressures at the start of the academic year,” the NIAAA’s website said about college drinking.
But don’t let drinking compromise your academics—that’s what you’re at university for.
The NIAAA said one in four college and university students miss classes, fall behind, and receive lower grades because of their drinking habits.
Better to be safe, than sorry
Last year during my frosh week at Carleton, my friends and I were walked back to our residence building by frosh facilitators. At the time, I thought this was ridiculous.
I had drank a decent amount of alcohol before attending the frosh event in the fieldhouse, but I made sure to drink within my limits. My drunkenness had also worn off by then and my residence building was a short five-minute walk away.
But the frosh facilitators told me I had no choice in the matter.
Looking back, I am glad I was escorted home safely. Even though I felt like I was being babysat, you never know what can happen when you’re not completely alert.
Don’t get me wrong, I think drinking is a rite of passage during frosh week. But university campuses aren’t a trusted high school friend’s basement—you’re in a new environment, and must be in control and aware of your surroundings.
It’s always better to be safe than sorry, especially when it comes to drinking alcohol. Always have a plan to arrive home safely that you can count on.
Keep track of your drinks
Being away from home for the first time with unlimited freedom, it’s crucial to make sure you do not fall into the ‘unsafe drinking’ trap on university residences.
According to the NIAAA, binge drinking is when your blood alcohol concentration levels are above 0.08 g/dL after two hours of drinking. They said this occurs after approximately four drinks for women and five drinks for men.
Many students enter university not knowing how much alcohol their body can tolerate. So if you can determine them right off the bat, you will be one step ahead of your peers.
The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) also recommends low-risk drinking habits. For men, this means no more than fifteen drinks in a week and less than three in one day, while women should not consume more than ten in a week, or more than two in one day.
Of course it’s okay to have fun, but keep track of your drinks and listen to your body. You can’t forget that it takes time for alcohol to catch up in your system—you don’t want it to hit you all at once.
There is no hurry—you can always drink more if you want to. But it’s a lot more difficult to undo what you’ve already consumed.
Tips for the following morning
According to Life Science, dark liquors such as red wine, bourbon, and rum can cause worse hangovers than distilled drinks.
But sometimes hangovers are impossible to avoid, so the best thing you can do for your body is to drink lots of water. You need to flush out the alcohol from your body, which takes longer when consuming energy drinks or sugary drinks.
A 2013 study published in the journal Food and Function said Sprite helps the body metabolize alcohol by speeding up processes that cause hangover symptoms.
You can also plan ahead with the best hangover-preventing foods before you go drinking—eat asparagus, bananas, and pretzels. Why? According to a 2009 study published in the Journal of Food Science, amino acids, the basic building blocks that form proteins and found in asparagus, improve the speed of breaking down alcohol in the body and prevent long-term damage.
Bananas and pretzels are also high in salt and potassium to help prevent dehydration, according to the same study.
Just make sure to keep that glass of water handy for the next morning. You might need it.
