World Cup Watch Party Survival: Get Electrolyte Supplements On Your Team

For football fans who are excited to watch their team play but struggling to stay up until kick-off, here’s how hydration can help you watch the full 90, and still make it into work the next day.

With the FIFA 2026 World Cup being hosted on the other side of the Atlantic, timings aren’t ideal for those of us watching from home. 23:00, 02:00, and 05:00 are all pretty common kick-off times in this competition. That means everything from keeping your eyes open during the game to not falling asleep at your desk the next day will be a challenge.

Here’s how electrolyte supplements can help you handle the late-night and early-morning games, avoid the effects of any celebratory pints and replace all the fluids you’ll lose nervously sweating over penalties.

Do Electrolytes Keep You Awake?

Your body relies on a delicate balance of electrically charged minerals, or electrolytes, to regulate fluid balance and preserve nerve and muscle function. Electrolytes like sodium, potassium and chloride all help your body stay hydrated. 

Electrolytes don’t exactly keep you awake, they help your body to function normally. When your electrolyte balance is off or you’re dehydrated, a common symptom is low energy and tiredness. But by replenishing electrolytes, you can maintain a proper fluid balance and stop this from happening.

Electrolytes can help tackle tiredness as a result of dehydration, but they can’t help you stay awake forever. However, during a late-night match, you might find that replenishing them with an electrolyte solution helps you concentrate on the game.

Can Dehydration Cause You to be Tired?

Absolutely. Dehydration and electrolyte imbalance can cause us to feel tired or low-energy. The problem is, it’s easy to feel these and blame something else: a bad night’s sleep, working too hard or even stress.

But in reality, tiredness and low energy can be the result of dehydration and electrolyte deficiency. Here are some other common symptoms to watch out for:

Persistent fatigue

Cramps and twitches

Brain fog and sluggishness

Headaches and headrush

When you’re drastically changing your routine, like staying up until 02:00 to watch the World Cup, your electrolyte balance can suffer. 

Most of our electrolytes come from food, but if you’re staying up late watching the football, you may not have eaten enough in the day to account for increased activity. This means electrolytes that need replenishing.

Our kidneys also play a vital role in maintaining electrolyte and fluid balance, and they’re also affected by a lack of sleep. In fact, when we’re sleep deprived, our kidneys find excreting electrolytes far more difficult, meaning our body is less able to maintain electrolyte balance.

It’s a cycle: staying up can leave us dehydrated, and being dehydrated can make us tired.

Dehydrated and Tired VS. Happy and Hydrated

During a late-night World Cup game, it’s important to know what can contribute to dehydration. Aside from staying up and disrupting our natural rhythm, nerves can be one of the worst things affecting fluid balance.

Think back to any penalty you’ve ever watched. Was your heart pounding? Was adrenaline coursing through your veins? If so, you were probably losing water. That’s because when we’re stressed or anxious, our bodies go into fight-or-flight mode. 

In times like these, potassium shifts from your blood to your cells, and the delicate balance of sodium in your body can be thrown off. We also sweat more, losing more sodium, chloride and fluids through our skin.

O.R.S Hydration Tablets can help here by replenishing sodium, potassium and chloride. Our tablets also include a functional dose of glucose, which helps your body absorb these electrolytes and rehydrate faster.

Caffeine, Alcohol and Dehydration

A lot of people might enjoy an alcoholic drink while watching the football, while others might even turn to drinking coffee to stay awake. While these might feel fine in the short-term, late at night, they can have pronounced negative effects.

Alcohol and caffeine are both diuretics, meaning they accelerate dehydration. Plus, that late-night coffee might keep you awake well past full-time and into the next day.

If you are going to be on the coffee or the beers, remember, O.R.S. hydration tablets can negate the worst effects of alcohol and caffeine. Take an electrolyte supplement before bed to support your body's rehydration.

The Next day

The day after a late night is never easy, especially if you’re dehydrated and your sleep schedule has been disrupted. Thankfully, O.R.S Hydration Tablets can help you recover from the World Cup madness.

Our everyday hydration tablets contain electrolytes to help your body hydrate faster and more effectively than water alone.

How to take them?

Dissolve two tablets per 200ml of water. Adults and children over six can take 200ml when required.

How can they help?

O.R.S Hydration Tablets are the only NHS-prescribed electrolyte tablets following WHO (World Health Organisation) guidelines, and they can make a world of difference for people recovering from dehydration.

So if you’re feeling tired, electrolytes help you to perform normal bodily functions and can help you fight that low-energy feeling. If you’re feeling hungover, electrolytes can help your body rehydrate faster.