You had a good night out. Now your head is pounding, your mouth feels like sandpaper and you're making promises to yourself about next time. Before you make those promises, it helps to know what causes a hangover. It isn't one thing. It's several processes stacking up at once. Some of them you can influence with what you pour and how you pace it. Others come down to one factor only: how much alcohol you drink. Here is a clear breakdown, and what you can do about it starting tonight.
So, what causes a hangover? The five main culprits
1. Dehydration
Alcohol suppresses vasopressin, the hormone that tells your kidneys to hold on to water. So you urinate more than you drink, and you lose fluid and electrolytes along the way. That shows up the next day as thirst, fatigue and a headache. Researchers now think dehydration is a contributor rather than the whole story, but it's the easiest piece to manage.
2. Acetaldehyde
Your liver breaks ethanol down into acetaldehyde, a toxic compound linked to nausea, flushing and a racing heart. Your body then clears it, but only at a fixed rate. You can't speed that up with a trick or a supplement. The only reliable way to make less acetaldehyde is to drink less alcohol, and to drink it more slowly.
3. Congeners in alcohol
Congeners are byproducts of fermentation and aging, like methanol, tannins and other compounds. They give some spirits their colour and complex flavour. Darker drinks such as bourbon, brandy and red wine tend to contain more of them. Highly distilled clear spirits like vodka contain very few. In controlled studies, people who drank the same amount of alcohol reported worse hangovers after bourbon than after vodka. The amount still mattered most, but the type of drink made a measurable difference.
4. Sleep loss
Alcohol may help you fall asleep, but it breaks up the second half of the night. It cuts into REM sleep and wakes you up more often. Late nights make this worse. A lot of what feels like a hangover is really just being badly underslept.
5. Blood sugar swings
Alcohol can interfere with how your liver releases glucose. Sugary mixers can also send your blood sugar up and then down. Either way, the result can be shakiness, weakness and irritability the next morning. Eating a proper meal before and during drinking softens this.
Hangover prevention: what you can realistically control
Here is the honest split. The total amount of alcohol drives acetaldehyde and most of the overall damage, so no drink choice cancels out drinking too much. Within a sensible amount, though, these choices make a real difference:
- Pick low-congener drinks. Clear, well-distilled spirits like vodka give you fewer of the byproducts linked to worse mornings.
- Skip the sugar. Drinks with no added sugar avoid the extra blood sugar spike and crash.
- Hydrate as you go. Have a glass of water with every drink, and another before bed.
- Pace yourself. Aim for no more than one standard drink an hour, and count your drinks. Canada's guidance on alcohol and health is a useful reference point.
- Eat first. Food slows alcohol absorption and helps keep your blood sugar steady.
- Protect your sleep. Stop drinking a couple of hours before bed and give yourself time to sleep in.
- Watch the bubbles. Some research suggests carbonated mixers can speed up alcohol absorption for some people. Fizz can also leave you feeling bloated.
Where Aura fits in better mornings
We built Aura around the factors you can control. Each can is premium distilled vodka and alkaline water (pH 8.5+) with natural flavour. There's no added sugar, no artificial sweeteners and no preservatives, and it's gluten-free. Aura is also completely still. There's no carbonation, which means no bubbles and no bloating. That makes it the still alternative to seltzers and vodka sodas. The fixed 355mL can also makes your drinks easier to count.
To be clear, Aura is not a hangover cure, and neither is anything else. Better mornings with vodka come from moderation, water, food and sleep, plus a drink without the sugar and fizz. You can read more about our approach on why Aura.
Find Aura near you
Try Cucumber Lime, Coconut Pineapple or Mango Peach. Browse our vodka water cocktails, sold by the case of 24. Aura is available in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario. Ontario residents can order directly for delivery to an Ontario address. In BC and Alberta, check where to buy to find BC Liquor Stores and licensed private retailers in BC, or AGLC-licensed private retailers in Alberta.
Please enjoy responsibly. Aura is intended for adults of legal drinking age in their province. Never drink and drive.