Hangovers are the worst. They can ruin your morning or make you useless for an entire day; the worst ones make themselves known while you’re still trying to have fun. But let’s assume you’re intent on drinking, because otherwise the first and most obvious tip would be: Don’t drink. Some of these tips will help you while you’re drinking, and others can help if you’ve already hit the sack. Mix and match and see what works for your situation, or check out the whole list and then start drinking.

1. Drink Plenty Of Water

You feel hungover because you’re dehydrated from drinking too much alcohol, but not enough of anything else. If you think about it in time, you can alternate one alcoholic drink with one glass of water all night, and try to completely avoid a hangover. Otherwise, start drinking plenty of fluids when you wake up the next morning. Water will rehydrate your body and help you feel better all over.

2. Chug Gatorade

Or any sports drink! Water is enough to hydrate you, but if you feel like you need a little something else to help you back to tip top shape, try sports drinks like Gatorade and Powerade. Sports drinks have electrolytes and sodium that replenish in your body what was expended the night before. The sugar in fruit juices help quickly burn off alcohol, so try any of these three fluids to help yourself bounce back the morning after.

3. Drink Coffee

Sometimes coffee might not sound good when you’re hungover, like the stout flavor will make you feel even more sick. However, it’s been proven that drinking two cups of coffee is enough to cure your worst headache. Coffee acts as a vasoconstrictor, which lessens the swelling of blood vessels that cause headaches. When you’re trying to get up and go the morning after, the caffeine is only going to help.

4. Take Pain Medication

If you had a really good time the night before, simple remedies like rehydrating or killing your headache with caffeine might not do the trick. If this is the case, go ahead and take some pain meds! Be careful with what you’re taking, though – you don’t want to take too much and make yourself feel even crappier all day. Take ibuprofen or aspirin instead of tylenol. Yes, headaches can be eliminated with tylenol, but when you take that medication and your liver is trying to metabolize alcohol, you can cause liver damage.

5. Take Vitamins

Take vitamin B or C pills if you have them. Vitamin B helps boost brain and nervous system functions, while vitamin C is an antioxidant. If you don’t have pills on hand, you can get vitamin B from whole grain wheat bread and cold milk, and vitamin C in oranges, or even powdered drinks like Emergen-C.

6. Eat A Balanced Meal

Just like coffee making you feel sick after drinking, the idea of eating a balanced meal while your stomach roils like ocean waves probably isn’t appetizing. The idea of fixing or finding something healthy makes this tip seem even harder to achieve. If you’re anything like me, after a night of drinking you’re craving either greasy food or nothing at all! Fast food is so cheap, and you certainly have easy access to a variety of drive-thru’s, but this meal isn’t good for you. Fast food is unhealthy enough, but eating too much fat and grease will make you feel even sicker. Eating a balanced meal will help your body replace some of the essential nutrients you lost the night before.

7. Eat Plenty Of Fruits And Vegetables

Vitamins and minerals in fruits and vegetables will help boost your energy levels, which in turn will help you bounce back to normal the morning after too many drinks. Cantaloupe and papaya have high levels of vitamin C and potassium that will help your body functions, while bananas and coconuts also have electrolytes! Not that you need another benefit, but fruits and vegetables are also easy to digest, so they won’t make you feel too full or sick if you’re still a bit queasy.

8. Add Some Lemon

Lemon detoxifies your body. It’s probably not something you want to eat plain, unless you’re desperate, but try some lemon tea to settle your stomach.

9. Exercise

Being able to sweat the alcohol out of your system by working out is just a myth, because one alcoholic beverage is metabolized by your body in about an hour. So this tip isn’t exactly a way to cure your hangover, but exercise is always going to make you feel better. It will wake your body up and remind it that it can do more than sit on a bar stool and guzzle drinks! Working out releases endorphins that improve your mood, and you’ll burn calories that you consumed in alcoholic form the night before. Keep a bottle of water handy so your system won’t get dehydrated again, and don’t overdo it with the workout – you don’t want to cause damage to your body.

10. Sleep

Hey, if you can’t make yourself get up and exercise, why not sleep, right? You might have gotten a crappy night’s sleep while you were still drunk, because even though alcohol can make you sleepy, it doesn’t really help you get long term quality rest. If you have the luxury of staying in bed when you’re hungover – do it! Forcing yourself to go back to sleep, or taking a nap after you get up, will give you a chance for your body to get more rest, and you’ll wake up feeling so much better.