Apparently, Benjamin Franklin used to say that “In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is freedom, in water there is bacteria.” There is some truth in that for sure 🙂 but first of all, there’s no wine or beer without water, and also: water is as essential to life on our planet as sunlight!
We rarely think about it, but around 60% of our body is made up of water! And still, we often forget to drink. I know many people – and I am one of them! – who can easily go through a whole day on 4 cups of coffee and 2 glasses of wine. I have to keep reminding myself to drink water. I’ve gotten better over the years, but it’s still nowhere near automatic for me.
In our Western countries, where a steady supply of drinking water is more or less taken for granted, still a high percentage of adults is chronically dehydrated.
Dehydration causes fatigue and brain fog, and it can lead to kidney stones amongst other problems. If we don’t drink enough, we risk to get digestion problems, prematurely ageing and wrinkly skin, high blood pressure.
We need water to keep our joints flexible, to regulate our body temperature, to form saliva and tears, to flush out body waste… And these are only a few of the big, immediately observable things it does for us. But water is also involved in the absorption of minerals and other micronutrients and in the regulation of our hormones. It looks like
nothing will work properly without proper hydration!
Sometimes you can find some absolutely unrealistic pieces of advice regarding the number of litres of water you should drink per day. The amount we drink varies a lot from one person to another. It depends on our age, our body weight, our levels of activity, the climate we live in, the way we eat… and it’s not the same every day of the year.
Someone who eats lots of fresh fruit and vegetables and soups will need to drink less than someone who eats lots of fast food. Someone who drinks lots of alcohol will need much more water to compensate for it than someone who drinks herbal teas. People who exercise much will need more water, as we all will during summer or while fighting off a flu. But we have to consider that drinking too much water can be dangerous too. It can flush out too many minerals and it can overwork our kidneys. I think
it’s very important to drink pure water.
Most kinds of other beverages (apart from pure spirits) will of course provide us with some water too, but then they will have added sugars or chemicals or alcohol or caffeine or fats. Especially for people wanting to lose weight, water should be the first choice. Even freshly-squeezed fruit juices are big sugar bombs that are not always a good idea – better than anything industrial though!
Please please stay away from zero-calorie sodas with artificial sweeteners!
If plain water is too dull for you, you could maybe have carbonated water, the kind made only of water and air, with no added flavours and sweeteners. I like adding something fresh to water, like lemon, fruit, ginger, mint and other herbs. It works both in cold water and in teas. Make sure you always have a nice glass or jug or drinking bottle where you work and where you spend most of your time. And take water with you on the go!
I’d like to spend a couple of words on plastic bottles here.
They are handy, and they’ve saved my life more than once. But if you can plan ahead a little bit and have a reusable drinking bottle on you, that would be great for two reasons: first, you’d have much purer water without the chemicals that the plastic bottles release into it; and also, you’d help the environment by cutting back the use of plastic. If you browse the net for “reusable drinking bottles” you will find many different brands that offer beautiful, practical, and affordable bottles. I think they are so much worth the little expense and inconvenience!I live in a place where the tap water doesn’t taste nice. It’s safe to drink as everywhere in Europe, but you can taste the chlorine and that’s really horrible. Everybody buys bottled water here for this reason, the supermarkets sell up to 8-litre tanks, all one-way plastic. I was very unhappy with this until I got a Reverse Osmosis Filtering System, which was a definite improvement in life quality!
Water is the most precious thing we have on this planet.
Without it, there’s no hope and no life. Let’s be grateful for it, respect it, and save it.
Here, on Medical News Today you can find an exhaustive list of the benefits of drinking water.
And here on DripDrop you can learn more about dehydration
