The hangover-recovery drinks market is large and getting larger. Pedialyte, Liquid IV, Hydralyte, LMNT, DripDrop, oral rehydration salts, sports drinks, coconut water, and a growing list of branded “hangover cure” sachets all promise to help. The honest answer: most of them genuinely do work, the science behind them is real, and the cheapest version is fundamentally the same as the most expensive. This article is part of our Hangovers hub, the complete guide to preventing and recovering from a hangover.
This article covers what electrolytes actually do for a hangover, which products are worth the money, and the homemade version that costs almost nothing.
# Why electrolytes matter for a hangover
Alcohol suppresses vasopressin (covered in The Science of a Hangover), which causes your kidneys to flush out water more aggressively than they’re refilling it. But it’s not just water leaving. Sodium, potassium, and magnesium all get flushed alongside.
By the morning after a heavy session, you’re typically:
- 1-2 litres short on fluid
- Meaningfully low on sodium
- Mildly low on potassium
- Mildly low on magnesium
Plain water replaces the fluid. It does not replace the salts. If you drink a litre of plain water on a depleted system, your body actually struggles to retain it; without enough sodium, the water gets flushed back out faster than it should. This is why some people drink a lot of water the morning after and still feel terrible.
Electrolyte drinks add the salts back, which lets your body rehydrate properly. The fluid stays where you need it. This is the entire mechanism, and it’s why electrolyte solutions consistently beat plain water in hangover comparisons.
# What you’re actually trying to replace
A reasonable target for hangover rehydration:
- Sodium: roughly 500-1000mg
- Potassium: roughly 300-600mg
- Magnesium: roughly 100-200mg
- Glucose: a small amount, which helps the sodium absorb (the World Health Organization’s oral rehydration formula uses this principle)
- Water: 500ml-1 litre over a few hours
The numbers vary by how much you drank and your body size. Most commercial products aim for similar ratios.
# The product comparison
The honest assessment of common options:
# Oral rehydration salts (Dioralyte, Pedialyte powder, generic ORS)
The original. Designed for treating dehydration from diarrhoea and rehydrating cholera patients. The WHO formula has been used at scale for half a century. It works. The flavour is medical and unpleasant, the price is low, and the sodium-potassium-glucose ratios are scientifically optimised.
If you don’t mind the medicinal taste, this is the best evidence-based option and it costs less than any branded alternative.
# Liquid IV / Hydrant / DripDrop
Branded sachets you mix into water. They use the WHO oral rehydration ratios with better flavouring. The marketing claim “3x the hydration of water” is roughly accurate in the technical sense (your body retains the fluid better), though it’s overstated as a benefit. Cost per serving is high relative to the active ingredients.
These work well. They’re worth it if the better flavour gets you to actually drink the fluid, which is the bottleneck for most people.
# Pedialyte (the original liquid)
Designed for sick children. Slightly different ratios than ORS but the same principle. Available pre-mixed (more convenient) or as powder. Tastes meh but tolerable. Effective and reasonably priced.
# LMNT
A fitness-market product with high sodium content and no glucose. Aimed at low-carb dieters and athletes. Works for hangover rehydration but the lack of glucose makes the sodium absorption slightly less efficient. Tastes salty in a deliberate way that some people like.
Effective, expensive per serving, niche aesthetic.
# Sports drinks (Gatorlyte, standard Gatorade, Powerade, Lucozade Sport)
Standard sports drinks have lower electrolyte content than dedicated rehydration products, but more sugar. Work fine for mild hangover rehydration, less effective for severe dehydration. The sugar content can be too high for some people’s morning-after stomach.
Gatorade’s Gatorlyte line is a closer match to dedicated ORS products: more sodium, less sugar, designed for actual rehydration rather than mid-game energy. If you want the familiarity of a sports drink with the formulation of an ORS, that’s the bridge.
Available everywhere, cheap, decent if not optimal. Read the label and pick the one with the most sodium per bottle.
# Coconut water
Naturally contains potassium and some sodium. The marketing oversells it as a “natural hangover cure.” Reality: it’s a decent mild rehydration drink, lower in sodium than dedicated ORS products, higher in potassium per ml.
Pleasant, expensive per ml, mildly effective. Good if you find the medical-tasting alternatives unpleasant. Not the strongest option for severe hangovers.
# Hangover-specific branded sachets
A growing category: products marketed specifically as “hangover cures” sold at bars and convenience stores (in the UK, brands like Berocca, Resurrection, and similar; internationally, hundreds of variations). Most are vitamin-and-electrolyte mixes with hangover-themed branding and prices to match.
Honest assessment: the electrolytes do help, exactly as much as the equivalent in any other ORS product. The vitamins (typically B-complex and vitamin C) provide minimal additional hangover benefit; you’re not actually short on those after one heavy night. The “hangover cure” branding adds 200-400% to the price relative to the active ingredients.
If the convenience and the marketing make you actually drink the fluid, fair enough. If you’re judging on cost-effectiveness, plain ORS or even sports drinks beat them.
# The homemade version
You can make a perfectly effective electrolyte drink with kitchen ingredients:
Per litre of water:
- 6 teaspoons of sugar (or 3 tablespoons of honey)
- 1/2 teaspoon of salt
- 1/2 teaspoon of “lite salt” (potassium chloride, sold in supermarkets) OR 1 banana mashed in OR a glass of orange juice mixed in
- Squeeze of lemon for flavour
This is roughly the WHO oral rehydration formula. It tastes worse than branded products, and slightly worse than basic ORS sachets, but it works just as well. Cost: a few pence per litre.
If you want it to taste better, dilute coconut water 1:1 with regular water and add a generous pinch of salt. The coconut water provides the potassium and some sodium; the added salt brings the sodium up to therapeutic levels.
# Timing and amount
Don’t drink a litre of electrolyte drink in 10 minutes. Your body can only absorb fluid at a certain rate, and dumping a large volume in one go just makes you urinate more. Better:
- 250-500ml on waking up, sipped over 20-30 minutes
- Another 250-500ml an hour or two later
- Continue with plain water alongside food through the day
Pair the electrolyte drink with eating something. The combination of food and electrolytes recovers blood sugar, replaces salts, and rehydrates simultaneously. We cover the food side in Best Foods to Eat Before, During, and After Drinking.
# What about IV drip clinics?
A premium-tier option that has appeared in cities over the past decade: pay £100-200 to have a saline IV with vitamins administered for a hangover. The IV does work; it rehydrates you faster than oral fluids because it bypasses absorption.
The honest cost-benefit: you’re paying £100+ for the speed advantage of getting fluid into you 30-60 minutes faster than drinking ORS. The end result several hours later is the same. If you have £150 burning a hole and want a faster recovery for an important morning meeting, sure. For value, this is theatre. The actual rehydration benefit costs £1 in oral form.
# What electrolytes don’t fix
Worth being clear: electrolytes address the dehydration component of a hangover, which is one of several mechanisms (we covered the full picture in The Science of a Hangover). They don’t help with:
- Acetaldehyde clearance (your liver does that on its own time)
- Glutamate rebound and the associated anxiety (we cover this in Hangxiety Explained)
- Sleep disruption damage
- Inflammation
A well-rehydrated person can still feel rough. The headache, the fatigue, the dry mouth, the dizziness on standing all mostly clear with electrolytes. The mental side of a hangover does not.
# How AlcoLog supports the hydration side
AlcoLog logs water alongside alcoholic drinks, so you can see at the end of a session how much you drank both ways. The Hydration reminder is set in Settings, with options for time-based intervals, drink-count-based reminders, or both, helping you build a habit of drinking water alongside.
Over time, the History view shows whether your sessions where you alternated water and ate properly produced milder next-morning patterns. The data isn’t electrolyte-specific (the app tracks volumes, not chemistry), but the sessions you remember as bad mornings will line up with the patterns the data shows.
