Drinking-Water Benefits! How to Increase Your Water Intake?
Drinking water
Drinking-Water Health Benefits, The Importance, and Benefits of Drinking Water:
We all know that water is an extremely important nutrient for survival. But besides keeping us alive or just quenching our thirst, it can do a number of things in our bodies to keep us healthy and to help fight the aging process. Drinking water
Many experts say the average person should drink about 64 ounces of water per day. Other experts say you should drink 1/2 ounce for every 1 pound of body weight to account for all the water loss through the consumption of coffee, alcohol, etc.
Regardless of the number you use, the sad truth is most of us do not consume nearly enough water throughout the day to really reap the tremendous benefits that clean, fresh water can give us.
Water Content in The Body:
- Babies: 78%.
- Adult Men: 60 %.
- Adult Women: 55%.
The amount of water in the human body decreases from birth to old age. The most decrease occurs within the first ten years of life. The above percentages are only ranges. There is no statistical number, exactly, the same for all people. It, also, depends on the condition of the person.
For example,
- Obesity can decrease body water amounts to as low as 45%.
So How Much Water Should You Drink?
The eight glasses a day theory has no real scientific base – it was probably meant as a good starting point, as each person’s requirements depend on body weight, activity levels, and where you live. Here is a formula though, that will give you a good estimate of how much to drink:
Take your body weight and divide it by 16, and you will know how many 8 ounce glasses of water you should drink.
For example:
- If you are 160lbs, you should drink 160÷16 = 10 (8 ounces) glasses of water per day.
When is a Good Time to Drink Water?
In the morning
- Drink at least 2 glasses of water in one straight go.
- Build it up to 3 glasses if you can.
- This will really kick-start your metabolism and flush your system out.
15 – 30 minutes before a meal:
- Drink a big glass of water before eating and it will help curb the confusing signals your body sends out when it is thirsty.
- The result will be that you will eat less too.
Try and drink a glass of water every two hours after meals.
For example,
- If you finish lunch at 2:00 pm.
- Drink a glass of water at 4:00 pm.
- Then another at 6:00 pm.
If you do sports:
- You should also make sure your body is adequately hydrated at all times.
- (If you have any medical conditions, taking certain types of medication, or pregnant, consult your doctor).
Do You Drink Enough Water?
Here are the signs that indicate your body is in need of some fresh, clean drinking water!
Severe Headache:
Dehydration can lower blood flow and oxygen to your brain, causing inflammation. If you’re feeling discomfort from a headache, try drinking water first. It might be an easier solution rather than taking medication or seeing your doctor.
Muscle Cramps And Joint Pain:
Water plays an integral role in your muscles and joints. It’s important to remember that with less water in the body, muscle mass decreases and causes inflammation or soreness. Similar to your muscles, joints require water to absorb the shock of sudden movements, such as tripping.
Dry Eyes, Mouth, and Skin:
Your body relies heavily on water to stay hydrated. Throughout the day, your body is losing much-needed fluids and electrolytes to stay active. Without water, your skin experiences a lack of moisture; eyes a decrease in tear production, and mouth the ability to produce saliva.
Exhaustion, Lack of Energy:
Are you tired? Fatigue? Or lethargic? These may be signs your body is craving water. Your body tends to store energy when dehydrated and decrease blood circulation throughout the body, reducing energy and productivity.
Weight Gain:
Weight gain is probably the least favorite side effect of dehydration. If you’re not drinking enough water, it can be easy to pack on the pounds. Why? When water is in short supply, it’s easy for your metabolism to slow down and prevent your body from burning fat.
Not Sweating Enough:
Yes, it’s possible when you’re dehydrated. It’s common for most people to sweat during a workout. Sweat keeps your body temperature regulated. If there is not enough water in the body, it makes it challenging to maintain proper body temperature and can lead to heatstroke.
Constipation:
Too often people suffer from digestive problems such as constipation as a result of not drinking enough water. It’s important to keep your stomach clean and full with nature’s most refreshing purifier.
Color of Urine is Too Dark:
If your body is deprived of water, the waste inside is harder to flush out, literally! Aim to drink plenty of water to help eliminate toxins and produce a clearer, lighter shade of urine for best results.
Confusion:
Drink plenty of water to avoid periods of confusion, delirium, or dizziness. Your body will spin into a tizzy if it doesn’t receive the nutrients to refuel and get going.
Here’re Twelve Health Benefits of Drinking Water:
1. Feeds and Cleans The Cells:
- Water makes up more than 60 percent of our body weight, and without enough water, other nutrients in the form of food or supplement will have a hard time being assimilated quickly and efficiently.
- Water moves in and out of the cells on a constant basis. This process helps dissolve nutrients and carries them where they need to go and it carries waste out of the body.
- Water also feeds your cells to give you the energy you need. Before grabbing that next cup of coffee or an expensive “energy drink” try downing a big glass of water instead.
2. Improves The Digestive Process:
- Waterworks much like oil does in a machine, it keeps us running smoothly.
- Without it, our digestive processes tend to slow down and get sluggish.
- This can cause a digestive “backup” or in other words, constipation.
3. Maintains an Even Body Temperature:
Whether it is extreme heat or extreme cold, water is a crucial element in helping your body temperature stay out of the danger zone. In extreme heat, our bodies sweat, causing a loss of a lot of water.
- Not only will water help keep your body temperature from overheating, causing heatstroke,
- it will also help prevent serious dehydration.
- In cold weather, hypothermia is just as serious as heat stroke.
- Experts have said that dehydration is the number one cause of frostbite.
4. Helps The Body Heal after Sickness, Injury, or Surgery:
The body will tend to retain water to help itself heal. By drinking lots of extra water, this process will be amplified. Water will also help flush viruses and infections out of the body.
5. Keeps Your Body Hydrated:
One of the benefits of drinking water is it keeps your body hydrated. Chronic dehydration can cause many medical complications such as migraine headaches, allergies, asthma, and hypertension. Water helps to cushion your joints and aids in protecting your vital organs and tissues. The spinal cord is protected from damage due to shock which is another importance of drinking water.
6. Makes Your Skin Soft And Smooth:
Water is very important for the skin to be soft and smooth:
Skin is the largest organ of the body. It’s comprised of cells containing water. If your skin does not receive the proper amount of water, it can become tight, dry flaky skin, less resilient, prone to wrinkling, develop acne, and more.
Water replenishes skin tissue, moisturizes, increases skin elasticity, flushes out toxins, improves blood circulation, increases energy, and helps to provide a more youthful, radiant, complexion.
Drinking-Water,
- is beneficial for acne relief.
- Warm water reduces the size of pores, helping to get rid of blackheads.
- Drinking water can flush out toxins that build up in the body causing acne breakouts.
- Acne may seem to be worsening when drinking more water because toxins are being flushed out of the skin.
- Don’t worry, this enhanced acne condition is only temporary. You are fighting acne and improving your, overall, skin condition.
- Acne breakouts will be less likely to occur since toxins have been purged from the skin.
- Also, consider adding a slice of lemon to your drinking water. It’s a natural, stimulating, acne-fighting, drink!
7. Helps Halt Kidney and Gallstone Formation:
Water helps flush waste and impurities from the body:
Enough water circulating through the body should be enough to help combat the formation of kidney and gallstones. Gallstones are created when the bile secreted by the liver does not contain enough water.
Drinking plenty of water will keep these two organs working with ease.
8.Helps in Weight Loss:
Those that are looking to lose weight can reap the benefits of water. The importance of drinking water cannot be stressed enough when someone is dieting. It makes a person feel fuller longer; it keeps your body hydrated and prevents you from consuming empty calories that you normally would accumulate when you drink other beverages.
9. Helps You Get Rid Of Germs:
Water isn’t just for the inside of the body, the best way to rid the germs lurking on your hands is a good soap and water washing. Fewer germs mean less sickness and disease.
10. Makes You Smarter:
The brain is one of the most vulnerable parts of the body that is highly affected when we are not consuming enough water. Water will help you be able to focus, concentrate, and complete tasks more efficiently.
Have you ever stopped to think about how much water you drink in a day? Is it enough to accomplish the important tasks your body has that requires adequate water to effectively hit the mark?
Drinking water only when your feel thirsty is not a good way to judge whether or not you are drinking enough water.
The fact of the matter is,
by the time your brain signals your body to trigger a thirst response, you have already gone into slight dehydration. By remembering to drink at least 64 ounces of clean, fresh water every day, you will be in a great place to help fight the many signs of aging, increase your energy level and help stave off certain illnesses as well.
11. Stops Cramps:
Blood transports oxygen to the muscles for activities such as exercise. If there isn’t enough oxygen in the blood, the muscles create lactic acid which causes painful cramps. Drinking more water helps to keep blood pumped with oxygen.
12. Prevents Fluid Retention:
When you are feeling puffy as women often do before a period, drinking water isn’t your immediate thought. But it’s the best treatment for reducing fluid retention.
How to Increase Your Water Intake?
The importance of drinking water is always reiterated to you in different ways. However, often one fails to consume the adequate amount of water required by the body. Let’s look at ways to increase the intake of water.
1. Carry a Water Bottle:
No matter where you go, a handy water bottle in your bag is a must. By doing so, every time you feel thirsty, you can immediately gulp down some water from the bottle rather than keeping yourself thirsty for long.
2. Alarm:
If you belong to the kind of people who need to be reminded to drink water, then set an alarm that would beep after every hour and remind you to drink water.
3. Accessibility:
When a bottle of water is kept right in front of your eyes, it is more convenient for an otherwise lazy person to pick it up and drink from it. Be it your office desk or your bed; make it a habit to have an attractive bottle right in front of you.
4. Tasty additions:
If plain water is not something you are very fond of, add interesting flavors to it to make it easier to consume the required quantity of liquid for your body. Adding lemon rose or any other refreshing syrup to your water can help you achieve your target.
5. Sticky:
Notes Writing and sticking witty and alarming one-liner to remind yourself about drinking water can be another effective way. Stick these notes at the places you tend to spend the most amount of time. It could be your desk, living room, or any other space in the house.
6. Soups and Juices:
Changes or additions made to one’s diet can also help in increasing the water intake. Drinking your choicest fresh fruit juices and soups in the day can also ensure water intake for your body.
7. Fruits and Vegetables:
A number of fruits and vegetables contain a good amount of water. Tomatoes are nothing but 97% of water and oranges are composed of 87% water. Similarly, avocados, strawberries sweet limes amongst many others are rich in water and you must eat them to consume a sufficient amount of water on a daily basis.
8. Motivate Yourself:
Self-motivation plays a very vital role when you are out there reaching a target. Measuring the amount of water and pushing yourself for the sake of good health to drink more water every day can be an effective way to consume plenty of water.
It might seem a mammoth task, but applying simple and innovative techniques to drink more water daily can work in the right direction for you.
Caution:
It’s important to provide the body with an adequate amount of water. Notice, I said “adequate”. It can be harmful and dangerous to drink too much water or not enough water.
Drinking too much water can burden your circulatory system, cause stress upon your heart and – or kidneys, cause inter-cranial pressure and Hyponatremia, a condition having too little sodium in the blood.
Drinking too much water can cause a mild headache to impaired breathing and even death. Not drinking enough water leads to dehydration affecting vital organs of the body, such as the kidneys and the lungs. Dehydration can, also, affect the condition of the skin.
Summing UP:
So there you have it, the importance and vital benefits of drinking water to the human body. If you are still not convinced that water is good for you and that you should start drinking water regularly, then you are signing your own death wish. Drink lots of water today and save yourself from a whole lot of medical bills in the future.
Furthermore,
The quality of the water that you drink will affect your health also. You should always try to get the best water that you can through filtering. Make sure that it has all of the pollutants out of it. Also, you should carry your water in only plastic containers with a recycling symbol of #2 or #4 polyethylene, also #5 polypropylene.
The plastic bottles that you get your store-bought water in are #1 and are only good for 1-time use only. The safest material to carry water in is stainless steel. It can be pricey, but you use it over and over again.
If you find this article useful, don’t forget to share it with your friends and family, as you might help someone in need. Thanks.
Disclaimer: “Nothing in this article makes any claim to offer cures or treatment of any disease or illness. If you are sick please consult with your doctor.”
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