Of all the pieces of nutrition advice I came across at the beginning of my journey to living a healthy lifestyle, drinking water was the one I disregarded the most and for the longest time. Why, you may ask? Well, it didn’t seem much of a big deal to me if I didn’t drink enough water and I never felt thirsty anyways, so the idea to hydrate wouldn’t even occur to me.
However, the more I read about nutrition, the more I understood the vital importance of drinking water. On this post, I want to highlight to how drinking water plays a role in physical and cognitive performances, gastrointestinal, kidney and heart functions, promotes headaches, and impacts skin health.
Water intake and physical performance
Whenever you partake in rigorous physical activity under mild levels of dehydration, your performance will decrease due to fatigue, altered thermoregulatory ability, altered motivation, and increased perceived effort. Water intake can reverse these drawbacks.
Water intake and cognitive performance
Dehydration can affect your mood and cognitive functioning such as concentration, alertness and short-term memory, psychomotor skills, visuomotor tracking, and arithmetic ability.
Water intake and gastrointestinal function
Failure to drink sufficient water can slow down gastrointestinal transit, lead to constipation. This may not look like much of a big deal, but it is. In the worst case, failure to drink sufficient water can lead intestinal occlusion.
Water intake and kidney function
The kidney helps regulate water balance and blood pressure, and removes waste from the body. Water is needed by the kidneys to filtrate waste from the blood stream and excrete it via urine.
Water intake and heart function
Drinking water decreases heart rate and blood pressure within 15 to 20 minutes of hydration and can last up to an hour. I’ve noticed this first hands. On week days, I drink a pint of water first thing in the morning. However during the weekends, I have about three cups of coffee in bed before having breakfast or drinking water. I have noticed that on numerous occasions, my heart rate suddenly starts accelerating for no reason after a couple cups of coffee and I automatically know I am dehydrated. I drink water and my heart rate goes back to normal.
Water intake and headaches
Dehydration promotes headaches.
Water intake impacts our skin health
The skin is made up of about 30% water, which plays a role in plumpness, elasticity, and resiliency. So the best way to hydrate your skin is to drink water!
Frequently Asked Questions:
- How much should you drink per day? A gallon of water.
- When should you drink? Throughout the day. Don’t wait to be thirsty to drink. Indeed, by the time you feel the thirst, you’re already dehydrated. So you should drink regularly throughout the day. Make it a habit to carry a bottle of water with you.
- I don’t like drinking water, what can I do to drink more without it feeling like a chore? There are so many ways you can make drinking water more fun. Flavored water is the best way to do so, simply add lemon slices, strawberries, blueberries, or raspberries to a glass or bottle of water and you have yourself a refreshing drink!
- In the wintertime it’s harder to drink cold water. It’s true! I find it harder to drink more water during the cold months, but what I do is drink warm water with a few drops of lemon juice.
- Is tea a good option to drink water? Yes and no. While drinking tea will increase your water intake, tea is also a diuretic so you will eliminate the water as quickly as you ingested it.
