How To Survive The Workday When You’re Hungover & ANXIOUS!

Good morning, my sweet kittens. If you’re anything like me, you are generally teeming with overwhelming anxiety, irrational fear, impenetrable sadness and a pending sense of doom.

Throw a hangover on a workday into the mix and you’re having a full-blast panic attack, so dire, you’re contemplating calling 911 on yourself, because who knows? It could be a heart attack. 

If this is you, I need to you take a deep breath babe. Because your lesbian big sister (me) is here to take care of you and your sorely hungover brain.

I’m not here to judge. I get it. Sometimes seemingly “innocent” drinks with your co-workers can turn to pole-dancing at a gay bar in the West Village. Sometimes those basic  “Wine Down Wednesday” event serves cheap, shitty wine and you’ve woken up with a nasty case of the sulfate shakes (there ain’t no hangover like a white wine hangover!). Sometimes a quick “catch-up” drink with your bestie turns into a wasted sobbing session that somehow lasts until 4AM. 

We’ve all been there. You’re not a dirty beauty until you’ve shown up to work still drunk from the night before.

First things first, now is not the time to examine your drinking problem and spiral over how wildly irresponsible and out-of-control your life is (we’ll save that for tomorrow). I need you to focus on simply surviving today. So kindly leave your self-loathing at the door (no one will steal it, who the hell wants that baggage?) and follow my strict instructions.

Because after earning an honorary master’s degree in Accidental Hangovers from Harvard University, I’ve learned how to make a colossally hungover workday my bitch.

And I’m here to show you the ropes. 

Let’s start with…

1. For your body: A spoonful of Tumeric makes your face less puffy and your anxiety less dire!

Go to a bougie juice shop and buy an overpriced drink with turmeric in it. If you happen to have turmeric in your kitchen, that’s even better. Pour that orange loveliness right into a cup of steaming hot water and add some lemon, if you really want to feel smug and healthy (lemon will help to detox the sins out of your body). 

Not only is turmeric a powerful, natural anti-inflammatory (and if you’re anything like me, you wake up with an alarmingly puffy face after a night of drinking) — studies suggest it has powerful antidepressant properties too! And if you’re not depressed today, did you even drink last night, babe? 

As a born and bred New Yorker, I don’t subscribe to all the LA-style bullshit garble that tries to sell me on “natural remedies” for combatting the dire fatigue and manic depression that goes hand in hand with a hangover, but I’m telling you turmeric works wonders. Go order some on Amazon right now. I swear to my higher power (Lana Del Rey) turmeric truly puts me gorgeously at ease. Like Xanax without the fogginess and risk for addiction. It makes me de-puff, fills me with a peaceful sense of clarity, and makes me feel like a magical, glow-y goddess who really has her life together. No matter how hungover I am. 

Every hard-partyer needs to invest in turmeric. Organic turmeric, duh.

2. For your well-being: Write a f*cking gratitude list, you ungrateful bitch!

I know, it’s cliché as f*ck to write a gratitude list but it’s cliché as f*ck for a reason. It works! As you slowly sip your hot turmeric tea grab a pen and a notepad (no typing, I’m a purist and you clicked into my article, therefore must follow my rules) and write out everything you’re grateful for. Your dog. Your spray tan. Maybe your manicure didn’t chip this time?! Maybe you didn’t lose your credit-card last night, for once in your haphazard existence! If nothing comes to mind, just be grateful to have woken up not in jail.

If you are not living in gratitude you are living in expectation, and nothing will make you more anxious than expecting, expecting, expecting things to happen to you. Gratitude will root you into the earth and take away that flighty descending into the air anxiety. Most importantly: Studies suggest that gratitude can help activate the brain stem that produces both serotonin and dopamine, both of which are essential for focus and well-being. 

You need all the help you can get right now. So stop whining and instead be a grateful bitch!

3. A necessary precaution: Lay off the Gladderall (unless you’re prescribed!) 

I’m no shrink, so if you’re prescribed Adderall I’m not going to tell you NOT to take it, that would be wholly dumb, self-righteous and irresponsible. You should always take your meds as prescribed, babes.

However. If you’re a millennial like moi, who has is not currently prescribed Adderall, it can be very tempting to ask your coworker for one “to help you get through the day.” 

Listen to your lesbian big sister: Adderall on a hangover is always, always dark. It might give you a little spring in your step at first, but it will turn on you, fast. Adderall is a powerful stimulant and if your body isn’t used to it, it will send you spiraling down a hole of anxiety so dark, you won’t be able to see your way out of it.

Whatever thought you’re currently having, you’ll latch on to, obsessively once you pop that pretty-blue pill. “I FEEL HORRIBLE RIGHT NOW. I FEEL HORRIBLE RIGHT NOW. I FEEL HORRIBLE RIGHT NOW” will play in your hungover brain on a never-ending loop, that you can’t break free from. Adderall will amplify all the feelings you’re experiencing. Do you want to amplify your self-loathing feelings of self-hatred? No. Also, speed sucks the water out of your body, and you’re already so goddamn dehydrated your insides are like Sahara desert. God knows what will happen if you get even more dehydrated…(Wrinkles. Definitely wrinkles).

4. For beauty: Put coffee under your swollen eyeballs!

I’m not kidding, this beauty hack is a game-changer that will really make you feel like you have your life perfectly strung together. Take some of the ole’ grounds left from morning coffee, and stick them under your eyes for fifteen minutes before work, after work, and even ~during~ work, if you’re a shameless attention whore like me (people will ask you so many questions!).

You will emerge a new entity, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and ready to take on the day! Those sunken, hungover eyes will have transformed into bright, Bambi eyes! 

5. For the innocent people forced to be around you all day: BE STUPIDLY KIND. 

If you feel paralyzed with hungover anxiety and instead channel your hungover anxiety into being super kind to every creature you encounter, your anxiety will transform into something stunningly beautiful: e-m-p-a-t-h-y. One of the most beautiful parts of anxiety (regardless of where it comes from) is that all those intense feels makes you so much more emotionally tapped in. When all of these wild, anxious feelings stew inside of us, all we can do is FREAK OUT over our own banal, meaningless, shit. However. If we take those feelings and use them to deeply care for other people, we are free.

So you know what? Tell Jenna from HR that her pale blue sweater is really pretty. Even if she’s a bitch. She a bitch because she’s anxious as well, and plus — you don’t know what an asshole her husband is or how long it’s been since she had a good night’s sleep because her of her wailing kids, do you? Ask the guy who makes your sandwich at the deli how much you appreciate the fact that he remembers your order every week. Ask him about his week. Get out of your own bratty head for once! Tell the uber driver he’s great at his job. Can you imagine how abused uber drivers must get by drunken idiots (such as yourself) all the time? Text your friends and thank them for existing.

And of course message me, your lesbian big sister if you need a pep talk!