I Drink, Therefore I Am: Water – The Elixir of Life

Water is crucial for our health. Naturally, water suppresses the appetite and helps the body metabolize stored fats. It flushes out wastes, regulates body temperature, transports nutrients and mineral, and support processes that happen inside our system. It even keeps our skin in good shape and texture.

But nowadays, we tend to take for granted these basic facts about water. We tend not to drink more than what is required. How many times a day do we feel hungry when our body actually means thirsty or in need of water? How often do we spend time, money, and effort in having medical treatment that could have been prevented through proper hydration? Having proper water diet is one of the easiest and least expensive ways to have a top healthy shape.

Drinking eight glasses of water a day is one of the most common health advice that we receive. However, we do not give it due importance and worse, we even laugh at it. But do you know how much it can really contribute and pay off?

Zap Your Pain Without a Stomachache

If pain killers and mefenamic acids cause you stomach distress just to forget bout your other pains, then the solution to lessen it is with extra water. The more water you drink with the drugs, the less your chance of getting this kick in your gut. The water dilutes the medicine that causes it to spread evenly in your body system.

Keep Skin Healthy and Glowing

Our body cells need water to perform certain processes. And one type of cell that really needs water for continuance of living are our skin cells. The more water our body consumes, the more it reaches the amount that is needed by our skin to be healthy. Water replenishes our skin cells that are partly exposed to the environment, especially the heat of the sun.

Help You Lose Weight: Removing Toxins and Waste Products in Your Body

Hunger is often confused with thirst. You can actually drop a pound of every four weeks by just consuming the daily basis of eight glasses of water a day. How? Your body will tend to use up calories just to warm up the water in your system, leaving sweat, which composes of toxins and waste products, as a by-product. Water is a natural appetite suppressant, so maintaining a proper habit of balance consumption of water can lead to a healthy weight.

Boost Your Endurance

Basically, water hydrates every cell in our body. In addition, it gives us the feeling of refreshment. In an Australian research, it had been proven that water really does affect an individual’s endurance. The more water an individual drinks, the less glycogen, which is the main energy source of our muscles, is used. Our muscles tend to use the water stored rather than breaking down the glycogen for energy. Due to this, our muscles will not tire up fast.

Increase Your Mental and Physical Performance

Generally, physical activities cause you to lose a lot of water and can weaken you. Through sweat, electrolytes, electrically charged minerals which power the muscles, are lost. Sweating, since it causes you weariness, can also impair your concentration and ability to think properly. “There’s no doubt dehydration can affect your ability to make decision,” says Michael Sawka, Ph D, chief of thermal and mountain medicine at the US Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine in Massachusetts. So if you are feeling too tired due to some activities, take a break, replenish your self.

Allow for Proper Digestion

“If you are constipated, it may be because you are not drinking enough water,” says a professor of nutrition in a university located abroad. Minerals are hard to digest, specifically fiber. Total digestion of these minerals will not be made possible unless you have enough fluids in your system to flush things through.

Apparently, not drinking water when having soft stools or diarrhea is not preferable. Reducing intake will not firm things up, hence can even make you weak. The solution is to drink and eat more to further replace the lost nutrients.

Lower Your Chances of Common Cold, Fever, and Cough

Our respiratory tracts have protections in them – mucus. Antibodies cover mucus that can help trap cold viruses. Dehydration, on the other hand, is not preferable for our mucus linings. Dehydration dries out our mucus-producing tissues, causing uneasiness and eventually leading to sickness. Rather than grabbing medical cough syrups for wet cough, consume a glass of water instead. It will function as an expectorant and will flush out the unnecessary mucus in your system. Drinking water can also help in lowering fever. The amount you perspire as you suffer from a fever is dehydrating your brain as well as your body, which causes you a feeling of nausea and dizziness. With proper consumption of water, the amount of water that was lost from perspiration will be replaced.

So the next time you see a glass and a pitcher of cold water on your kitchen table, do not hesitate. Drink. Your eight glasses of water should be spread out evenly over the course of the day leaving every cell in your body system complete and revitalized. After all, I drink, therefore I am.