How would you feel if you are blacked out during an important examination or an interview? This happens frequently and when you get to consult with your primary care physician, you come to know that your poor mental performance is not due to some complicated disease but because of your poor habits of not drinking water sufficiently.
Another scenario can be that in the later stage of your life, you come to realize that your early aging is just due to your negligence to drink water.
On the other hand, another situation comes in which your doctor tells you that you are facing some health complications, due to overdrinking water.
It is also possible that you may get swollen legs or feet after drinking too much water.
Yes, these statements may seem overboard, but these are possible in real-time. Your health can be affected just by how you manage water intake.
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| Set your menu for hydration yourself! |
Overview
Water makes two third of our bodies and all of our organs are dependent on the water whether it is their composition or functionality.
Interestingly, water is color-less, odor-less liquid, it contains no nutrients, no proteins, or components of a balanced diet, yet it is crucial to supply nutrients to cells and organs, helping detoxify the blood, flushing the wastes from the body, and helping us prevent complicated disorders.
The calculation of water required for a day is not a fixed volume. The volume of water required varies according to the person.
The factors that can affect the water calculation are variable and they must be considered while setting the water intake schedule.
Those predisposing factors are as follows
Eating habits: (People with fried food items need more water for digestion and metabolic activities).
Area of residence and environment: (People residing in hot areas tend to drink more liquid than those residing in low-temperature areas).
Health status: (Different diseases can affect the liquid intake. You can look at the courtesy note).
Pregnancy or breastfeeding: (Such women need more liquid intake as per their current health status)
Level of physical activities: (People involved in sports are advised to drink more water to prevent dehydration)
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| Commands by the brain and body must be followed to fulfill the body's requirements! |
How much water to drink daily?
Now the question is about how much water should we drink during the day. The answer is simple to deal with. You can check the color of your urine, and if it is dark, it shows you need to increase your water intake.
Water in your body is up to 60 percent of your total body weight.
However, initially to set the standard volume of water to be drunk during a day was assumed as follows
Water intake for an average woman is about 12 glasses/per day.
Water intake for the average man is about 16 glasses/per day.
But to drink the above-mentioned volume seems practically tough so the set values were changed.
If we elaborate it further the thumb rule is supposed to be 8*8. It means 8 glasses should be taken a day.
Children and young people are advised to drink at least 4 to 6 glasses of water per day.
If you are an athlete or engage in strenuous physical activities, you should drink water after a certain while. You may need to drink one glass of water after every hour.
Pregnant ladies are advised by their doctor to drink extra fluid so that child can be safe in the amniotic sac and nursing women are also asked for increasing their liquid intake. Such people are asked to drink up to 12 glasses a day to get optimal results.
It is also recommended to increase the daily water intake, if you are running a high fever, working for an infection or having diarrhea, or even doing strenuous exercises and random physical activities.
What are other alternates of water?
Water is supposed to be an easy beverage because if pure it does not pose any health problems. It is also zero calories, so it aids in weight loss plans. However, zero-calorie liquids are also considerable (diet colas).
In addition fruits and vegetables are super nutritious sources of water as they provide vitamins and minerals too.
Avoid those beverages that seem to be liquid providers but result in more excretion, i.e coffee, hot chocolate, and soda beverages.
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| Vegetables and fruits also provide liquid content. |
Courtesy Note:
If you are a patient of some chronic disease i.e. liver, kidney diseases, thyroid disorder, diabetes, or even edema( swelling of lower legs and feet), or you are prone to retain water, you must discuss this with your doctor before increasing the liquid intake.
If you have an overactive bladder that makes you visit the restroom more often, you can cut off your water intake and try urine-retaining exercises.
If you are prone to get a problem after drinking too much water, you should listen to your body and drink accordingly. We are not supposed to follow the thumb rule.
Take-home message
It is interesting that all bodily functions are dependent on water and they are interlinked as well whether it is the maintenance of oral health or digestion, or making bowel movements regular, or keeping brain cells active and joints lubricated.
These systems need water intake at regular intervals and you should provide them with what they need.
In addition, we can have hydration from different sources as well like vegetables (cucumber), fruits ( watermelon), and all water-carrying food items.
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| Stay hydrated, and stay healthy! |
Candid dialogue
No thumb rule is applied when it comes to individual requirements for food and water. We should study our bodies and don’t make them have problems from figures provided by some institute or center.
We should focus on the benefits of drinking water, that’s the only way we can make ourselves safe from the side effects of not having satisfactory liquid intake.
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