Liquid Joy: The Key Ingredient to a Healthier Happier You

How to sip to success

“I thought I was doing the right thing, but I could have died, and now I’m scared of water.”

Joanne wasn’t scared of seawater, swimming in a pool, or even taking a bath. She was scared to drink water.

Everyone knows the benefits of drinking water, don’t they? And there are benefits as long as you don’t drink too much.

Drinking more than you need is like trying to overfill your petrol tank; you only need to fill up when necessary.

And Joanne wasn’t exaggerating when she said that she could have died. Joanne had heard about the benefit of drinking water daily but had pushed it to the limit. She’d started to drink 1.5 litres an hour and suffered water intoxication.

It Isn’t Just Alcohol That Intoxicates You

In 2007, Jennifer Strange, a 28-year-old Rancho Cordova, California, mother of three, died of acute water intoxication after the challenge to see which contestant could drink the most water without using the bathroom. A Nintendo Wii video game was the prize for winning the “Hold Your Wee for a Wii” contest.

There’s also a theory that the actor and martial arts expert Bruce Lee died of water intoxication.

What? I thought drinking water was a good thing, you might say.

It is, just not more than 1 litre an hour, as the body can’t keep up when you drink too much. This causes hyponatremia when your sodium levels fall too low.

How Much Water is Enough?

Reports keep changing about how much water you should drink to stay healthy, and advice varies between 1 and 2 litres daily.

Experts say you need 33ml of water per kilogram of your body weight. A 70kg person, therefore, requires 2310ml, 2.31 litres, daily.

However, not drinking enough can lead to chronic dehydration, which contributes to pain and inflammation in the body and can even be involved in developing degenerative diseases.

So check in with yourself to see how much water you need.

People with low blood pressure often feel better with a little less than the required amount of water, as more water can dilute their blood levels of minerals. Increasing your intake of all the minerals can make a significant difference in that low blood pressure feeling. A pinch of Himalayan salt in your glass of water a few times a day may help.

Research even points to how even mild dehydration can have a negative impact on moods and may heighten anxiety.

And you know that drinking water keeps your skin hydrated.

Do You Want to Be a Grape or a Raisin?

You can buy an expensive moisturiser or submit to the knife to look younger, but why would you when you have the easiest and most effective solution to hand?

Imagine every cell of your body ideally looks like a grape, which is when your cells are hydrated.

A dehydrated state means your cells appear more like a raisin, which can result from inadequate water intake and a lack of minerals or poor adrenal gland function.

To help your cells absorb the water you drink, you need calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium, and chloride. Some minerals make their home inside the cell, while others stay outside the cell wall. These minerals all talk to each other, and if one is present in higher concentrations than another, or if one of those minerals is lacking, it can be difficult for water to enter the cell.

Remember, your skin is the largest organ and requires adequate hydration.

Strangely, there isn’t much scientific evidence to back up the claim that water gives you glowing skin, and this might be because water can’t be patented, so it is hard to find anyone to fund such research when there’s no money to fund the research.

However, one study suggests that higher water inputs in a regular diet might positively impact normal skin physiology, particularly in individuals with lower daily water consumption.

Your skin is hydrated from the inside out by pulling fluid from the capillary blood flow in the skin, but if there isn’t enough water to draw from, if you haven’t drunk enough water, the skin can effectively dry out.

Yes, you’re a raisin.

So, whilst there isn’t any hard evidence to back up the claim that drinking water is good for your skin, people report that their skin looks better after a few days of upping their water intake, and many top models claim water is their secret ingredient.

Water for Weight Loss

You might feel bloated after you drink a big glass of water, but that isn’t a weight gain.

You’ve heard that drinking a glass of water 30 minutes before a meal will help you to eat less.

But did you know drinking water after a meal can help you drop those pounds? A 2015 study found that female participants who drank 250ml water after lunch lost 13.6 per cent more weight than those who drank the same volume of a diet drink.

And, of course, replacing processed juice, fizzy drinks or alcohol with a glass of water or herbal tea will have weight loss benefits.

The brain can’t tell the difference between hunger and thirst, so you might mistake thirst as a ‘sugar craving’. The next time you need something sweet, try a glass of water first and watch the pounds drop off.

Final Thoughts

Remember, your body is made up of water. The muscles that move your body are 75 per cent water.

Your blood, responsible for transporting nutrients throughout your body, is 82 per cent water. Your lungs, which take oxygen from the air to provide your body with oxygen, are 90 per cent water, while your brain is 76 per cent water. Even your bones are 25 per cent water.

You don’t have to have endless glasses of water; you forget that many plant foods have a high water content, and this contributes to your overall water consumption over the day.

Fruits and vegetables are almost always over 70 per cent water, so the more you eat, the less you need to consume as fluid.

Herbal teas and soups also count. Drinks containing caffeine and alcohol, however, draw water out of your body, and the more of these you consume, the more dehydrated you become.

There are many ways to get into a new habit of drinking water. Have a 2-litre water bottle on your desk while you work, and keep topping up your glass. Doing this will help you track how much water you drink during your day.

But you might need to make sure you don’t stray too far from a bathroom. When I had 2 litres a day during working hours, I nearly broke the speed limit on the way home.

Water is life; without water, you can only live for three days, and as W H Auden said,

Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.