We hear it all the time. Drinking water is crucial for your health and wellbeing. But are you aware of how many health benefits are associated with drinking enough water?
1. Drinking Water Helps You Lose Weight
If you decide to drink water instead of sugary drinks, you are reducing dramatically your sugar consumption which is necessary for a
successful weight loss. Craving a soda may not necessarily mean that you are a
sugar addict. Possibly you are just thirsty and you chose to drink a coke. Replace it with water and you will quickly improve your chance of
getting lean.
Apart from that, drinking more water increases your metabolic rate, helping you burn more calories. Drinking more water will also make you eat less food because you are already feeling full.
“One extra cup of H2O in a day will save you 68 calories,” said Dr Michael W. Smith MD, MBA, CPT from
WebMD
2. Maintains Healthy Balance of Body Fluids
You are composed of approximately 60% of water. But every day your body is losing two to three litres of water. You need to replenish that amount by drinking water if you want to be healthy and feel good.
If you don’t drink enough, you may notice bad mood, lack of motivation, less energy, and cognitive impairment.
3. Prevents Hangovers
Hangovers are caused by consumption of alcohol. There are many symptoms of a hangover, including nausea, dry mouth, headache, fatigue and bad mood.
Some of these effects are caused by dehydration. That’s because alcohol is a diuretic, meaning that when you drink it, you lose more water. In the morning after you were drinking alcohol the day before you can be dehydrated.
To counteract this effect drink one glass of water between drinks. It will help you reduce some symptoms of a hangover.
4. Is Known to Prevent Constipation, Kidney Stones, and Cancer
Some known health benefits of drinking water that you may find online include helping with constipation, reducing a chance of getting kidney stones, reducing a risk of getting cancer and improving skin health.
However, not all of these claims can be supported by appropriate research papers.
Studies support the fact that indeed, more water intake can help with preventing constipation and kidney stones.
Some studies on cancer support the theory that more water intake can reduce the risk of cancer, but there are also some studies that conclude no correlation at all.
However, when it comes to skin hydration and skin health,
WebMD didn’t find
any research papers to support
any correlation between skin condition and water research.
5. Drinking Water Makes You Smarter
When you don’t drink enough water, your brain can’t work on its full capacity leading to cognitive impairment.
Have you ever tried to solve a hard task or to study while being thirsty?
One interesting study was presented in London at the British Psychological Society Annual Conference. The research concluded that student’s that brought water with them for the exam, performed better than those who didn’t. This suggests that drinking water may boost your cognitive performance.
6. Drinking Water Makes You Lose Excess Water
Being properly hydrated will result in reducing water retention. This is interesting because it doesn’t seem to be logical until you think about it.
That can be explained by the fact, that if your body is constantly dehydrated, it will look for ways to keep more water in your tissues – increasing the excess water. On the other hand, when you drink enough water, you stay properly hydrated, and your body doesn’t want to keep the excess water anymore.
7. Drinking Water Will Help With Detox
Kidneys are responsible for filtering blood from waste and toxins. They do it by producing urine, so you can get rid of them. Kidneys are responsible to balance our bodily fluids, and their aim is to reach the optimal proportion of electrolytes in our system.
If you don’t drink enough water, your concentration of electrolytes will be higher then required and kidneys will flush them out. This isn’t good because you will lose important minerals.
However, if you drink enough water, your body will want to get a higher concentration of electrolytes, so it will get rid of excess water instead, keeping important minerals. When you do this, you will have more opportunities for the toxins to be cleared out of your system.
8. Helps Maximise the Physical Performance
Sports nutritionists recommend drinking enough water to increase physical performance. It is crucial for athletes to remember it because during a physical activity we lose much more water than normal.
Having enough is when your urine is constantly light-colored, or transparent. Many athletes report surprising improvements in performance when they try to keep that level of hydration.
You don’t need to be an athlete to give it a try. You will feel better and full of energy.
9. Improves Motivation and Increases Energy Level
When you are feeling depressed your motivation and energy level suffers. You need to feel good if you want to be full of energy. One study with young women linked fluid loss after exercise with impaired mood.
A similar study with men indicated that fluid loss promoted anxiety and fatigue. If you drink enough water to stay hydrated, you prevent that from happening, keeping your motivation and energy level high.
10. A Headache Remedy
Having a headache is never nice. It won’t let you focus and you will get easily annoyed. Did you know that a headache can be a good indicator, that you are dehydrated?
One of the easiest and safest remedies for a headache is a glass of water, especially if you haven’t been drinking for a while.
The same study that indicated mood impairment in women after exercise, linked fluid loss to increased headache frequency.
Next time, if you start having a headache, drink a glass of water instead of taking painkillers. If that doesn’t help, only then you should consider taking pills.
