Hydration
The missing key to your ultimate success.
“Is my calf supposed to hurt that bad?”
My client winced on the table as I squeezed his gastrocnemius and soleus muscles and calcaneal tendon in my strong hands.
They don’t call me Iron Paws for nothing!
I was trying to find the balance between the deep pressure he had requested, and the most compassionate version of massage therapy that would have a noticeable effect on this guys super sore legs.
But I could tell that it was getting too intense, so I gave up on the thought of actually addressing his sore leg, and shifted my intention to be more of a soothing experience for the poor guy.
All the tautness that had softened out of his back with the long relaxing strokes I had made that stretched the myofascial tissues of his thoracolumbar fascia was tight once again as my client opposed my efforts to release tension in his leg muscles.
He had come in that evening to the massage salon where I work, complaining of the usual culprits. Tight neck and shoulders, sore lower back, stiff knees, and general pain and discomfort nearly everywhere in his body.
These are the common ailments of most modern tech slaves. I see them nearly every day.
I sighed and answered that, no his leg shouldn’t be hurting that badly. Had he thought about maybe drinking more water on a day to day basis?
Pee clear.
Who hasn’t heard the advice to drink enough water to make your urine clear? This handy page provides a color-coded chart on how to judge exactly what your particular shade of urinary yellow means.
Paying attention to the signs the body gives us is a bit like watching and taking action when one of the warning lights on your dashboard lights up.
Ignoring dark pee or a sense of discomfort in your kidney area is akin to driving well past when the maintenance required light tells you it’s time for an oil change. It’s not good for the lifespan of either vehicle — automobile or body!
You may have been told to just drink when you feel thirsty, although thirst is actually not the best indicator of hydration status. The thirst mechanism changes with age, exercise, fatigue, and stress.
What about the relationship between dehydration and inflammation?
Science has proven that histamine production and discharge is directly connected to the concentration and viscosity of internal solutions.
Why are smart people not just drinking more water?
Dehydration is at the root of a whole host of bodily ills and injuries.
I think most of us have heard this at some point, and yet, most of us still fail to regularly consume enough water.
And while yes, it’s technically possible to overhydrate and even die from drinking too much water, I’ve never seen or known anyone this has happened to. And I see dehydration nearly every day I do massage!
Writing this post is making me thirsty, hang on.
Ok, I’m back! I had to fill up my mason jar from my kitchen Berkey. Yep, I’m that lady!
It turns out that working on computer screens day in and day out is pretty bad for a lot of the homeostatic mechanisms evolved by human beings over their evolutionary history.
Knowledge workers who spend a lot of time in their heads are at particular risk for this issue. Because when you are deeply involved in the tasks on your screen or in your office, you simply aren’t as mindful of your physical body as you could be.
Overdoing it on screens stresses the vision, the breath, the nervous system, and yes, the thirst reflex. This means your laptop, your television, and the cell phone you probably check like a billion times a day.
Pair these nifty facts with the ubiquitous Keurig machine of the break room with hermetically sealed, where the hell did it come from, how long has it been in that little plastic case, coffee substrate, and the sedentary habits and poor posture of most tech people, and BAM!
I feel like I’m never going to run out of massage clients. Ever.
I could choose to view this unfortunate fact as job security.
Instead, it feels like a series of Sisyphean tasks involving the compassionate masochism of the painful calf squeeze, knees gingerly pressing into overly sensitive IT bands, and my overburdened thumbs pressing into spasmed rotator cuffs of a crowd of people that extends further than Horton’s field of pink clovers.
It feels like a lot of people are going to suffer unnecessarily because they don’t understand the perils of chronic dehydration!
Keeping Ourselves Alive is So Boring! Not.
We MIGHT find the motivation to change when we truly realize what might happen if we die from complications born of our really silly habits. Even if we don’t die directly from dehydration, we set ourselves up for some seriously terrible repercussions.
Have you ever seen the cartoon that shows two women walking out of a yoga class? Drawn by Hilary Price and Rina Piccolo, it illustrates the absurdity of our tendency to forget the very basics of homeostasis.
How is it that we’re the most successful species on the planet, yet we need to pay people to remind us to breathe and drink water?
How many of our treasonous physical habits come from an inability to truly perceive the misery we are cruising for when we continue our bad habits past the point of sanity?
Hmm… should I have more coffee, or maybe drink some water. Let me think.
Did you know that the risk for fatal coronary heart attacks goes up dramatically with dehydration?
Are we all just inherently self-destructive? Or are we just not paying attention to our physical bodies in this increasingly digital world.
Did we learn as children that water tasted bad? Did we never see our parents drink anything but soda, coffee, and beer?
Five Steps to Better Hydration
Most of this advice you’ll have heard before. It’s not rocket science. But I’ve included a few things that might be new, and just might help.
ONE — Get a water bottle. Steel or glass is the best option, but honestly get one you’ll use that’s easy to clean.
TWO — Figure out how much water you want to try and drink during the day, and set a goal.
If you’ve been living as a desert for years and you’re just starting in on this process — start with something reasonable. While you might be familiar with the idea of eight 8oz glasses/day, that’s not a very customized formula.
And who, besides my kids, uses 8 oz glasses ever?
Pull up your calculator and follow this tip by the eminent Paul Chek — How much water you should drink is dependent on your weight, simply multiply 0.033 by your body weight in kg and you have how many liters of water you need per day.
THREE — Source your water properly. There’s a whole can of worms underneath this simple advice.
You will want to pay attention to avoiding plastic bottles and supplementing water from reverse osmosis systems with sufficient minerals. Drink from a filtered source if possible. Make sure the filter has been changed out to still work properly. And try not to drink water with chlorine in i
FOUR — Use some kind of reminder tool or accountability system in place to make sure you can accurately track your water intake daily.
I used to put 3 rubber bands on the top of my bottle at the start of the day. When I would finish a full bottle, I’d move one of the bands to the bottom of the bottle and refill it. By the end of the day, all 3 bands needed to be at the bottom. This method is thrifty and effective, but a little bit cumbersome.
Now I use this nifty gadget called an Ulla. This isn’t an affiliate link, but I have been amazed at how well the little thing works. Especially when I spend a lot of time working at my desk. There is no more carrying around a full water bottle all day and not drinking ANY of it. Can you relate?
FIVE — if plain water is not your thing, consider putting fresh sliced fruit in your bottle. You can also add an electrolyte/hydration tab to your water. I like the kind called KSP tabs because they don’t have extra sugar added to them, and they taste pretty good.
Drink up!
There are so many things we could all be doing to live healthier lives. A lot of these things require significant effort and cost. Choosing to hydrate regularly is a reasonable and easy way to take one more step towards a healthier, happier, more productive you.
Don’t wait on this one. It’ll bite you in the butt if you keep putting it off. I invite you to challenge yourself to a 30-day hydration improvement program if this is something you know you should be doing.
Recruit a friend or two, start a new kind of drinking habit, and see what happens. Here’s to your health!
Kaia Tingley is a writer, artist, podcaster, digital strategy nerd, and sometimes hot-tempered supernova with a wild, free soul. You can find her on Instagram here or on LinkedIn here.