No one likes a hangover, but regardless of the lamenting in the morning, the pain and discomfort that follow a night of drinking don't seem to have much of an effect on people's future drinking behavior, a new study suggests. 
 
 In the study, participants kept a diary for 21 days, and reported the days they drank, whether they had a hangoverthe next morning and whether they expected to drink again that night. 
 
 Participants were just as likely to say that they expected to drink again that night, regardless of whether they experienced a hangover that morning, according to the study. [11 Interesting Facts About Hangovers] 
 
 When the researchers looked at participants' actual drinking habits (and not just what the individuals expected to do), the scientists found that hangovers did have a small effect on drinking behavior. Specifically, hangovers made subjects delay their next drink somewhat. 
 
 On average, participants waited six hours longer to take their next drink after a drinking session that led to a hangover, compared with drinking sessions that did not result in a hangover. (The average time between drinking episodes was 44 hours after a hangover, and 38 hours without a hangover.) 
 
 "Drinkers do not seem to be bothered that much by the temporary discomfort of a hangover, since it does not get them to delay their drinking in any meaningful way," study researcher Damaris Rohsenow, a professor of behavioral and social sciences at Brown University School of Public Health, said in a statement. 
 
 The findings may, in part, reflect the fact that drinking habits are determined by a number of factors, including the day of the week and people's social plans, said study researcher Thomas Piasecki, a professor in the department of psychological sciences at the University of Missouri. 
 
 And the immediate, pleasurable effects of drinking may outweigh the unpleasant effects of a hangoverin terms of influencing drinking decisions, Piaseckisaid. Participants in the study who had hangovers also tended to get more pleasure from drinking, he said. 
 
 The findings suggest that hangovers may be indicators of other drinking-related risk factors, such as an inclination to lose control when drinking, the researchers said. 
 
 "Experiencing frequent hangovers is a warning sign that should probably prompt you to reflect upon your drinking, and to consider seeking help if you are having difficulty drinking within safe limits," Piasecki said. 
 
 The study involved 386 people (mostly college-age and young adults) in Missouri who were frequent drinkers (reported drinking at least one drink per week). Two-thirds were also smokers. The findings may not apply to other populations, including people who are not frequent drinkers, the researchers said. 
 
 It's also possible that hangovers delayed drinking for some, and hastened drinking for others, and these two effects cancelled each other out. 
 
 Future studies should investigate whether having a hangover reduces the number of drinks at the next drinking episode (rather than just the time until the next drink), the researchers said. 
 
 The study will be published in the May issue of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research. 
 
 Follow Rachael Rettner @RachaelRettner. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science. ||||| When it comes to hangovers, people are of two minds: They see them as nature's way of punishing excessive drinking, yet some also believe a touch of alcohol ("the hair of the dog") can relieve a hangover's discomfort. 
 
 But which turns out to be true? Does a hangover lengthen the time til the next drink? Or does it shorten it? 
 
 Probably neither, discovered a group of scientists. Instead, they found that hangovers appear to have only a modest effect on subsequent drinking. 
 
 That's the conclusion of one of the three studies to be released today on the topic of alcohol. 
 
 The first found the more available alcohol is, the more likely that people will drink heavily. If you've ever underwritten the cost of an open bar at a party, you did not need Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health to team up with New Zealand researchers to nail this one down for you. 
 
 One aspect of liquor availability that is most closely linked with family violence, including child abuse, is sales from so-called "off-license" purchases. (That's a bar or store that sells for consumption off-site.) 
 
 The heaviest drinkers tended to buy their alcohol during the later hours. Reducing the hours of off-premises would go a long way to addressing alcohol-related diseases and violence. 
 
 The researchers say previous studies have relied on people reporting their own drinking — and thus vastly underestimate the true amount they've consumed. 
 
 The second looked at binge drinking in 446 people ages 55 to 65. Three-quarters were men, the rest women. Most called themselves moderate, regular drinkers, while 74 of them were moderate drinkers who engaged in occasional episodes of heavy drinking. 
 
 They were followed for 20 years. The resulting data showed the odds of dying during that time period doubled for those who engaged in binge drinking. The researchers at Boston Medical Center and the University of Texas at Austin conclude it's important to focus on how a person drinks, not their weekly average — a figure that may mask the damage of episodes of heavy drinking. 
 
 Their results were released by the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research. 
 
 Which brings us back to hangovers. The researchers asked their study participants — described as "community-based frequent drinkers — and asked them to keep a journal. Every morning they were to rate the likelihood they'd drink later that day. 
 
 "It was striking that ratings made on hangover and non-hangover mornings did not differ," the researchers wrote. "Even when the drinkers were acutely suffering a hangover, it didn't seem to affect their conscious drinking intentions." 
 
 "The message here for clinicians is that it is probably a waste of time to discuss hangovers when trying to motivate a problem drinker to drink less or drink less often," said Damaris J. Rohsenow, of Brown University's School of Public Health, quoted in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research. ||||| Image copyright MARTYN F. CHILLMAID/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY 
 
 Having a hangover does not influence when a drinker will have their next tipple, public health researchers have discovered. 
 
 Hangovers neither deter nor encourage more drinking, says the University of Missouri team. 
 
 The findings dispel the notion that people resort to having a "hair of the dog" to lessen their discomfort. 
 
 Likewise, few appear to delay their next drink despite their post-alcohol headache, sickness and dizziness. 
 
 Our findings fill in a basic piece of the puzzle concerning hangovers and alcoholism Researcher Thomas Piasecki 
 
 The results, published in Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, come from a study of 386 young adults - many of them US college students - who were asked to keep a diary over three weeks about their drinking. 
 
 Participants made a diary entry each morning, and they were asked to rate their likelihood of drinking later the same day. This yielded 2,276 drinking episodes and 463 hangover episodes for the researchers to analyse. 
 
 Overall, ratings made on hangover and non-hangover mornings did not differ. 
 
 Even when the drinkers were suffering acutely from the effects of a hangover, it didn't seem to affect their conscious drinking intentions. 
 
 Surveys of college students have suggested that drinking to relieve hangovers has been tried by up to half of drinkers and that this behaviour is associated with heavier alcohol consumption. But the current study did not find this. 
 
 The researchers also point out that some diary entries were missing - possibly because the participants were sometimes too hung over to do it. 
 
 Puzzling picture 
 
 Researcher Thomas Piasecki said: "Our findings fill in a basic piece of the puzzle concerning hangovers and alcoholism. 
 
 "If hangovers don't strongly discourage or punish drinking, links between current problem drinking and frequent hangover seem less incongruent. If hangovers don't generally hasten drinking, we can rule out a direct causal role of hangovers in the acceleration of problem drinking." 
 
 According to Alcohol Concern, around 200,000 people turn up at work every day with a hangover. 
 
 And up to 17 million sick days are taken each year in the UK because of alcohol. 
 
 There are no cures for a hangover, although making sure you rehydrate by drinking water may help. The best way to avoid one is to drink within recommended limits, which is no more than two or three units a day for women and three or four units a day for men. 
 
 If you've had a heavy drinking session, hangover or not, doctors advise that you wait 48 hours before drinking any more alcohol, in order to give your body tissues time to recover.
– It seems like a raging hangover would be enough to deter anyone from drinking again ... but, as will surprise no one who's woken up Saturday morning feeling woozy only to hit the bars again Saturday night, a new study finds that hangovers actually have very little impact on when we have our next drink. And not only do they not dissuade us from drinking more, it's also a myth that they encourage us to go for another drink in an attempt to relieve our pain, "hair of the dog" style. It should be noted, however, that the public health researchers arrived at these results by asking 386 US college students and other young adults—not, say, middle-aged people—to keep a drinking diary for three weeks, the BBC reports. Each morning, subjects reported whether they had a hangover and rated how likely they were to drink later that day, and researchers found that there was no difference in the ratings between mornings subjects had hangovers (even bad ones) and mornings they did not. (Amusing note: Some diary entries were blank, perhaps because the subjects were too hung over to put pen to paper, the researchers theorize.) However, researchers did then look at subjects' actual drinking and found that having a hangover did delay the timing of the next drink ... by six hours, from 38 hours to 44, LiveScience reports. "The message here for clinicians is that it is probably a waste of time to discuss hangovers when trying to motivate a problem drinker to drink less or drink less often," says one expert, according to the Star-Ledger. (Click to read about a man who suffers from severe hangovers—after eating carbs.)