Everything science tells us about hangovers - and how you can try to make the pain go away

The symptoms of a hangover are many, including bleary-eyed exhaustion, nausea, a parched throat, throbbing head, regret, and the short-lived resolution never to do that again.

Perhaps the best definition of the next-day consequences of excessive alcohol consumption, as reported in the latest proceedings of the Alcohol Hangover Research Group is a simple and straightforward one: "a general feeling of misery."

Hangovers aren't just a headache for those recovering from St. Paddy's Day, New Year's Eve, or from a general night out with friends - they're a headache for scientists too. The researchers behind the Alcohol Hangover Research Group (AHRG) formed their organization because of the general neglect towards hangover research, despite the fact that humans have suffered this general misery for thousands and thousands of years.

That neglect leaves those researchers asking the same questions many of us have: why does it feel so bad and what, if anything, can we do to feel better? (The fact that their 8th annual meeting was held in New Orleans surely added some urgency to their quest.)

We've pulled information from their latest report and from other hangover research to see what science can contribute towards explaining why we feel the way we do on those rough mornings - and to see how we could perhaps feel a bit better.