Kombucha: The Hangover Cure

If you’re reading this article, it’s safe to assume that you probably didn’t have the recommended glass of water between each drink last night. So now you are scouring the internet, hoping for the one miracle cure that you haven’t yet tried—right? Well, what if we told you that kombucha can help to alleviate your hangover symptoms?

Let’s take a look at the symptoms of a hangover. While each of us varies a bit in terms of how we suffer the day after over-indulging, it usually consists of some variation of nausea, upset stomach, headache, sore muscles from acid buildup and dehydration, and/or this odd and extremely unpleasant combination of feeling simultaneously worn out and anxious/on edge. Lucky for you, kombucha can help with every single one of these symptoms.

The dehydration part may be obvious because kombucha is a beverage, but there is more to it than that. Kombucha also contains a significant amount of electrolytes, the essential salts and minerals that your body uses for all of its reactions and processes. You can actually skip the sugary recovery drinks and vitamin concoctions that actually force your liver to process more junk, and grab a low-sugar kombucha instead.

Since headaches are closely linked to digestive problems, kombucha’s high probiotic content can begin to restore the balance in your gut while also helping to soothe your headaches.  Many of us also tend to run on coffee or tea during the day, so the residual caffeine in kombucha can help us with those pesky caffeine-related headaches.

Perhaps one of the most notorious features of a nasty hangover is the horrible stomach ache. Grabbing tea or Advil is usually the go-to cure for most of us, but did you know that kombucha can help even the worst tummy aches?  The antioxidant content of kombucha helps protect the gastric tissues, which can relieve stomach aches even during the most vicious hangovers.

Your sore muscles can also be attributed to some mischievous microscopic remnants called endotoxins, which are released when bacterial cells disintegrate. Alcohol is damaging to your gut and its lining, so after a night where you’ve gone one (or more) drinks overboard, some of your gut bacteria can actually escape your gut lining and release these inflammatory toxins into the bloodstream. Your muscles soak up these inflammatory toxins, and then your liver and immune system have to try and deal with them.

Alcohol depletes B vitamins, which can cause nausea.  Kombucha contains these powerful B-complex vitamins. Look for brands like Seek North that contain and list Vitamin B12 content. 

Kombucha can come to the rescue again by replenishing some of these gut flora, and thus your gut barrier plus some components of that badly-needed immune system too, since a large part of your immune system is actually in your gut.

No one needs to be reminded of the stress that alcohol can put on one of your most vital organs: the liver. Thankfully, kombucha also contains many antioxidants, including the powerhouse Vitamin C, all of which may help your liver fight off some of the damage from the free radicals that are byproducts of these toxins. There has also been research on tea and its protective effects on the liver, and tea is a significant element of kombucha’s base.

Lastly, let’s address that anxious but worn out feeling. Both black and green tea (both of which are in Seek North kombucha) contain a superstar amino acid called L-Theanine, which helps to cultivate a calming effect with increased attention and focus.  This combination makes for a perfect one-two punch of attentive zen that we all long for on those foggy hungover mornings.