Dehydration

Dehydration

Without water we would survive only a matter of days, without water our bodies would eventually be poisoned by their own waste products. It's unsurprising then, that dehydration can have serious implications for your health. Even mild dehydration manifests itself through tiredness, headaches and poor concentration and is believed to be the primary cause of daytime fatigue.

Mild Dehydration is a Common Problem

Disturbingly, research shows that many people are mildly dehydrated most of the time. This is partly because of the common misconception that you only need to drink when you feel thirsty, when in fact thirst is one of the last reflex signals of dehydration. That means that as the thirst starts to grate, your system has already slowed down significantly.

The metabolism becomes sluggish and everything else follows, the body fails to eliminate toxins, which build up in the liver and are the subsequent cause of a range of minor ailments. If your eyelids are starting to droop, or you're suffering from indigestion, or pains in your stomach, the best thing you can do is drink some cool fresh water.

Water is Vital to Normal Organ Function

Because brain tissue is mainly water, at only 2% dehydration short term memory is impaired, mental ability is significantly diminished, and when subject to prolonged dehydration the brain cells actually start to shrink. And it's not just the brain drain you need to worry about. Water deprivation shows up everywhere, in dull, prematurely aging skin, lifeless hair, sour breath, fluid retention (as the body clings to its precious reserves) and can even cause weight gain (this is because the liver, which helps the body metabolise fat is forced to abandon this process as less essential and assist the labouring kidneys, so any excess fat simply gets stored).

It's strange, given our accessibility to water, that persistent dehydration should be so widespread. What's more it is exacerbated by the cultural trend of replacing water with any old fluid, particularly sugary and caffeinated drinks, which are diuretics that actively dehydrate the body themselves. Water alone can be almost instantly digested, leaving the stomach within 5 minutes of consumption. Anything else actually uses water in the digestion process, and caffeine is an active diuretic, actively losing the body water.

Health Benefits of Drinking Water

Pure English drinking water is one of the healthiest products one could wish for and it is a vital component in well being and body regulation. Water not only constitutes the majority of the volume of your body (70%), but more importantly it is vital to a multitude of physiological functions such as blood flow, digestion & liver activity, temperature regulation and the endocrine system.

It is recommended we drink 2 litres of water each day to help the body maintain all its systems in tip top form. Most office workers tend to be mildly dehydrated the whole time. This may not sound too serious but the long term damage to your body can be significant with a host of ailments being brought on or worsened by low water levels including osteoporosis, chronic constipation, headaches and fatigue. So the health benefits of drinking water are immeasurable.