Why It Is Essential You Drink Enough Water

You can go without food for days, weeks and even months, but going without water for just one day can negatively impact your health. Many people don’t realize just how important water really is. The human body is made up of 2/3 (66%) water and when we lose just a little bit of water through sweat and elimination, and we do not replenish this lost liquid, we’ll begin to suffer the negative effects on our health right away.

Water is the most valuable life support product for our health, right up there with oxygen. Water and oxygen are the only two things in life that if we go without for just a short period of time we would die.  Studies have been done that show if a 175 pound man were to lose just 2.5% of the water in his body (2 quarts) he will lose 25% of his body’s effectiveness towards survival.

When a person begins to dehydrate more things happen in the body than just being thirsty. The more liquid in the body that is lost, the thicker the blood becomes and the harder the heart must work to pump the blood through the circulatory system.  Depending on the circumstances, mainly environment, a person can die within 24 to 28 hours after having no water if they are laboring in the hot dry sun with no water. If a person is sedentary indoors and the elements, such as wind, sun, and heat is not present they may live up to 3 days. So water is VERY important for survival, but water is also very important to your overall health.

Most people think they drink enough liquids throughout the day to keep them hydrated. But if you counted all the beverages besides water that people drink you would see that they are actually dehydrating themselves. Most liquids such as coffee, tea, soda, alcohol, Gatorade, and sugary fruit drinks do not hydrate the body like pure water can. Some people are walking around actually dehydrated and they don’t know it because they don’t feel thirsty. Let’s take a look at 4 of the main reasons you should make sure you’re getting enough water.

Why It Is Essential You Drink Enough Water:

1. Fatigue and Tiredness
The first sign of dehydration is the feeling of being tired; some people experience a headache and feel like taking a nap. When the body begins to dehydrate it means the tissues and cells are not getting enough water to make a person feel like doing anything; enzymatic activity slows down and without water the enzymes are unable to produce energy either. In fact a dehydrated person may have no enthusiasm or joy for life.   The good news is once the individual starts to drink some water their energy reserves speed back up and sometimes the headache completely goes away.

2. Constipation and Digestive Problems
If a person is not drinking enough water they do not have enough liquid to help with the elimination process and without eliminating the foods we digest we gain weight, gain toxins, and feel awful.  Being constipated is the beginning to many health problems from allergies to toxic overload syndrome to digestive disorders, such as irritable bowel syndrome, gas bloating, stomach pain, nausea and loss of appetite in chronic cases.

3. Stomach Ulcers
The stomach is coated with a lining of mucous, to protect itself from its acidic digestive fluids that is made during the digestion of food, which are 98% water and 2% sodium bicarbonate.  Sodium bicarbonate helps in the digestive process by neutralizing the acids. When a person is dehydrated the stomach does not have enough liquid available to make the mucous, thus a poor mucous lining protecting a person from the acidic fluids the digestive process makes. This is why some people are more acidic rather than alkaline, and have digestive problems such as acid stomach and heartburn, which eventually without the alkalinity results in an ulcer of the stomach lining.

4. Weight Gain
Many times when we are thirsty we eat food rather than drink water. This can cause unnecessary weight gain, especially for a sedentary person. When your body is dehydrated, just a little bit, sometimes it won’t tell you with a dry throat or mouth, but rather with a feeling of being hungry.  Here’s the thing, if you just ate a sufficient meal not too long ago how can you really need to eat again?

To know if you need water or food, next time you are hungry when you have already ate a meal, drink a couple glasses of pure water. If the hunger pangs subside you’ll know you just needed to feed the body some water. The body needs at least 2 to 3 liters of water a day, and drinking more than that will keep you from feeling hungry. Not only that, but it will also help you eliminate more toxins from your body. Eventually your body will stop telling you it’s hungry because you are maintaining hydration throughout the day.

When you drink enough water throughout the day you are feeding the tissues and cells in your body and that gets the enzymatic system moving, which actually releases fat toxins out of the body! Re-hydrating the body through pure water gets your metabolism running in full balance rather than being slow and sluggish, which is a cause of weight gain.

It is very important to remember to drink pure water. Some water sources are not clean even though many people drink from them. Well water can be full of toxic inorganic minerals that could be making you sick. Bottled water isn’t necessarily any better; you still need to know where it came from and what is in it. Minerals on rocks build up into a sludgy scum and then you drink it. Tap water in some cities is also very mineral laden and too much minerals will cause arterial problems. Water should be as pure as possible, without minerals and bad bacteria.

Minerals and vitamins should come from the purest source, which are organic foods that derive from plants or animals. If you think you might be drinking water that is dirty with inorganic minerals you can have it tested. The safest and easiest thing to do to ensure clean water is to buy a good water filter or softener to put on your faucet that filters out mineral toxins from your water.

If you have any questions or want to learn more about how much water you should be drinking to be healthy please call Dr. Dierdra at Cornerstone Family Chiropractic at 859-815-9371.

Dr. Robison attended Wilmington College, in Wilmington Ohio. At Wilmington College, she studied athletic training and would later graduate Summa Cum Laude, with a Bachelor of Science degree. She then attended Logan College of Chiropractic where she earned her Doctorate of Chiropractic (DC) degree. While at Logan Dr. Robison took a special interest in the realms of nutrition, pregnancy and pediatric care. She obtained advanced training in Nutrition and also completed all the coursework to obtain her diploma in chiropractic care for the pediatric population from the Academy Council of Chiropractic Pediatrics. Dr. Robison also has a passion for working with women and children.

Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored post. It is a guest post by Dr. Robison. We are not providing medical advice.

Sources: Natural News, Dr. Axe.com