There are always two sides to a coin. If we discuss the benefits of drinking water for the human body, the next part would be to elaborate on the severity of the side effects we may face due to our not-so-good water drinking routine. If not all, we can face many of these potential health problems posed by low water intake if it becomes a habit.
Let’s ponder over every not-so-friendly effect of low water intake.
Imbalanced homeostasis
Homeostasis is a condition that keeps our body in control and balanced by coordinating with the brain. It regulates the body temperature and sends signals as per our health condition. If we are running a fever, our homeostasis goes out of balance, and our body temperature keeps on getting higher.
That’s why with fever and poor health conditions, we need to drink more water.
If we do not take care of our water intake routine, we may lead to disturbance of homeostasis, and this disturbance can affect every cell of the body and slow down their functions and even change the cellular structures.
To avoid these conditions, we must take care of water intake along with other electrolytes i.e. Calcium, Magnesium, and Potassium.
Chronicles of fatigue and low energy
Our body excretes water in form of sweat and breathing. We daily lose approximately one liter of water without doing anything special.
Low water intake puts our bodies in stressful conditions.
Our energy cells are directly connected with brain cells and when we don’t drink enough water, we might get lethargy and our energy levels are down for no special reason.
Moreover being long-term thirsty can cause our blood vessels to shrink and, make the heart exert more pressure than usual to cope with decreased lower blood volume. All this exertion results in fatigue and due to the dehydration of neurons, our energy is too low to conduct chores.
When we become habitual of not drinking water enough, we become tired of chronic fatigue and poor health.
There were few studies to check the effect of skipping thirst time, and results showed that many of the contributors were in poor mental and physical states after being kept away from water for a long time.
Hence, being slow to drink water can make you feel sick and keep you away from showing good performance at work.
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| Not drinking enough water leads to poor performance and brain fog. |
Dry mouth and poor oral health
Water helps in the production of saliva and keeps the internal environment of the oral cavity moist. When we don’t drink enough water, it can lead to a dry mouth, and if stays for an extended period, it can cause bad breath or halitosis as bacteria keep on growing in a dry mouth and release gases which further cause persistent bad breath and other oral health complications.
Weak immunity and frequent illnesses
Water is not only responsible for supplying nutrients to cells, but it also helps in the removal of harmful toxins produced during metabolic activities. It removes a lot of bad bacteria via bowel movements. If we decrease our water intake, those unnecessary products would stay in our bodies and cause multiple diseases.
If you keep on getting frequent infections, you need to focus on your liquid intake.
If we stay fatigued and avoid physical activities, it can also make us immunocompromised and invite many health management issues.
Moreover, if we don’t drink enough water, our inflammatory markers stay up and lead to chronic inflammation that can cause diseases like diabetes, heart health issues, and even cancer.
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| Weak immunity invites plenty of infections. |
Poor digestion and irregular bowel movements
Our intestines contain water receptors that are dedicated to taking water from the bloodstream and making digestion convenient.
If the water content is satisfactory, bowel movements are also good. When we are at a loss of water content, our receptors fail to get water and the bloodstream takes water back from the intestines, resulting in irregular bowel movements and then constipation. Constipation is mainly due to hard stool, caused by low water intake.
Moreover, constipation is the biggest problem for human health because when our body is unable to excrete wastes and undigested food, it leads to problems inside the body and it affects the whole body including the liver, stomach, intestines, and colorectal area (constipation is considered to be the risk factors for piles and hemorrhoids).
Additionally, when we don’t drink enough water, our dry mouth is unable to produce saliva and this leads to slow chewing of food. When food is not digested properly, it leads to painful stomach and cramps that can make us rush to the ER.
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| Vegetables and fruits are also water enriched. |
Easy weight gain and difficult weight loss
Low water can give you a tough time if you are trying to lose weight. A few sips of water a day can have an unhealthy effect on our weight management process.
The role of low water content is crucial in making weight gain easier and causing difficulty in weight loss.
If we look at how low water content affects weight loss is simple. If we drink enough water before meals, we feel full and we take a decreased amount of food than usual. It leads to calorie control and ultimately weight loss.
(Calorie control plan is the best method to control the weight management process and it is a conventional yet effective approach that can be made more effective by drinking water sufficiently)
On the other hand, when we keep ourselves thirsty, we unintentionally eat more and it leads to frequent overeating patterns. Overeating is the biggest reason for unhealthy weight gain.
Another factor that is associated with low water intake is that when we don’t keep ourselves hydrated, we crave sugary products like sweets and chocolate. These craving and binge eating habits are pillars of the easiest way to gain weight.
In addition, when we do not check our calories and keep eating, it comes out in form of belly fat and stored glucose. Obesity in the form of belly fat in particular and overall extra fats, in general, is the risk factor for many non-communicable diseases.
If you are working on your weight management, you should take a look at how much you drink water and what is the pattern for drinking water.
Imperfect skin tone and health
Skin is the largest organ and it is visible to everyone who looks at us. Skin like other organs needs water to stay healthy. If we ignore sufficient hydration, it can affect our skin negatively in the shape of wrinkles, imperfect skin tone, and dry look.
If the skin is kept dry for a long time, it can cause aging signs to appear early, and once your skin losses its fluidity and elasticity, it is hard to regain radiant and vibrant skin tone even by spending thousands of dollars on skincare products.
Frequent UTIs and poor kidney health
As discussed above, water plays a crucial role in making the body free of waste materials and microbes either through bowel movements or the urinary system.
When water is not drunk enough, our brain is unable to send signals to the bladder and we don’t feel the need to urinate as a result of which urinary wastes are not excreted out. They keep on accumulating and affect the bladder, urinary tract, and kidneys. When water is not sufficient, kidneys release water back into the bloodstream, and these materials are also released into the bloodstream.
This is easy to hear, but it affects our kidneys more than we can imagine and ultimately we are diagnosed with chronic kidney diseases with stones and other complications.
Additionally, many bad bacteria are also excreted via urine, when we don’t drink water and do not visit the restroom often, we end up getting frequent Urinary tract infections and those bacteria keep on producing gases and even disturb the pH of urine.
If you are getting a foul odor and dark-colored urine, you may need to fix your water intake routine.
Stubborn headaches
Being water deficient can lead to chronic episodes of headaches that can be mild or even strong migraine.
A study was conducted in which 90 percent of the participants felt immediate relief after drinking one to two glasses of water while the remaining ten percent were free of headaches within a couple of hours.
The reason for these headaches may be that our brain when feels droughty, tends to contract and pain-sensitive receptors inside the brain tissues are activated and they show up as headaches.
Our headaches are usually due to stress (staying thirsty is also a risk factor) and dehydration, especially in hot weather, because we keep on secreting sweat. So if you are working for chronic and stubborn headaches, look at your hydration, take water along with electrolytes, rest for a while and then you would be feeling just fine.
Poor cognitive abilities
Our brain is composed of 80 percent water and the brain is the main coordinator for the whole body. When we do not drink water, the balance of our brain cells is disturbed and it can lead to brain fog.
Brain fog is the main reason for poor cognitive abilities. It makes the simplest tasks difficult to perform.
The other potential side effect is the lack of focus which lowers our quality of performance.
Moreover, people who keep themselves dehydrated, are usually slow-witted and sick from persistent mood changes. Their low energy and mood swings prevent them from socializing and joining social activities.
Another potential side effect can be long-term memory loss as continuous stress on the brain can affect memory and make us more prone to memory loss.
If you are tired of confusion, brain fog, poor focus, and lethargy, you can get over these problems by correcting your routine.
Poor metabolic activities
Our body functions are undoubtedly dependent on metabolic activities being done on various levels and water serves as a carrier of nutrients, oxygen, etc.
If metabolism is slowed down, it would eventually slow down the whole body functions and when we are going through poor metabolic activities, our body comes into surviving mode. This can cause an imbalance of whole bodily functions and as a result of which we end up getting weak health status.
Take-home message
Our organs work in coordination and anything that can break that coordination is significant.
There is no assigned amount of water or liquid content to be taken necessarily during a certain period of time. Have a look at yourself and realize what is being disturbed and what could be the possible reason.
It is interesting that our body sends us continuous signals and helps us sort out problems. From now on, be careful of your brain health, kidney, urinary tract system, skin, and even digestive system.
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| Stop thinking, start drinking water! |
Candid dialogue
How amazing it is that our many problems can be sorted out just by drinking water and we can stay healthy by setting a good routine of food and water (additionally the electrolytes to make our brain and body stronger).
After reading this article, I hope my readers would arrange their water bottles and set an hourly reminder for reminding them to drink H2O (the best zero-calorie liquid).
You can read out the episodes related to this topic by clicking on the tag health benefits of drinking water.
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