5 Hacks To Avoid Wine Headaches
Suffering from a nasty headache after a night of drinking a few glasses of wine? Or how about dealing with a piercing migraine as you share a bottle with friends? If either of these sounds like you, it's likely you deal with wine headaches on a frequent basis. While it may not be a particular medical condition, getting headaches after enjoying glasses of wine can be really common for drinkers.
Nevertheless, there are a few ways to lower your chances of getting those nasty wine headaches. These tricks—and a few products—will help decrease the intensity of wine headaches, and may even eliminate them for good. Here are a few hacks to avoid wine headaches, and for more healthy eating tips, make sure to check out our list of 21 Best Healthy Cooking Hacks of All Time.
Drink water in between glasses.
Alcohol is a diuretic, which means that you'll experience dehydration as you consume it. Diuretics increase the production of your urine, resulting in frequent trips to the bathroom as the water in your body is flushed out. Keep your body hydrated by having a glass of water in between each glass of wine. That way you'll avoid drinking an excessive amount, which reduces the chance of getting wine headaches or even a hangover in the morning. Plus, your body will stay nice and hydrated!
Speaking of dehydration, here are 5 Subtle Signs You're Drinking Too Much Wine.
Remove the sulfites & tannins with a drop.
Did you know that roughly 36 million adults in the United States suffer from some sort of wine intolerance or experience wine headaches? These issues are sometimes closely correlated to the sulfites and tannins found in bottles of wine.
Sulfites (sulfur dioxide) are used to preserve the wine and prevent the wine's oxidation—which helps it to taste good. Tannins are generally found in red wine and make the wine taste dry.
Whether you experience wine headaches or not due to sulfites and tannins, there are products you can buy that eliminate them! DROP IT is a good example of one. With a drop or two, you can remove both the sulfites and the tannins without sacrificing the taste of the wine—and saving you from awful wine headaches later.
Here's why sulfites are The Sneaky Ingredient In Wine You Need to Know About.
Or strain the wine.
Along with drops, you can actually buy products that help strain out the sulfites in the wine. There are filters that you can easily snag, or even buy a product that will strain and preserve the bottle of wine at the same time—like Üllo, a company that sells wine-preserving decanters.
Choose a wine low in tyramine.
According to WebMD, foods that are rich in tyramine can trigger migraines for people. Tyramine is an amino acid that can naturally be found in aged and fermented foods like cheese, cured meats, and of course, wine. Red wines tend to have a higher count of tyramine compared to white wines.
But that doesn't mean you have to stay away from all red wines! Not everyone suffers from a headache because of tyramine. The best way to evaluate this is to keep track of the wines that give you headaches, and look for any patterns in the types of wines—and even where they were made.
Limit your intake.
Could the wine headache you're experiencing simply be a mild hangover? After all, wine is a diuretic, and if you're not drinking enough water with your wine, you could easily experience headaches. The best thing to do is figuring out a good limit for yourself. Does 2-4 drinks a week keep your headaches at bay?
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans says that drinking a moderate amount would be considered 1 drink per day for a woman, or 2 drinks per day for a man. Evaluate your intake and find out if it's time to start limiting it. Even talking to your doctor about this will be helpful in terms of keeping those wine headaches away!
