How to Drink Water More Often

We all know most of our body is made up of water but it turns out that the major­ity of peo­ple have a hard time remem­ber­ing to drink water!  For me per­son­ally, it wasn’t until my late teens that I started to real­ize that I am con­stantly dehy­drated.  I don’t even remem­ber drink­ing much water up until high school.  Plas­tic water bot­tles, which are so com­mon nowa­days, weren’t even the norm back then.  I wouldn’t be sur­prised if a large chunk of peo­ple are liv­ing their entire lives dehy­drated.  Hope­fully this arti­cle will help change that for a few of you out there in Inter­net land.

Why should you strive to stay hydrated?

Water is the uni­ver­sal sol­vent and lubri­cant for our bod­ies.  Just think about it… the saliva in your mouth right now is mostly water.  The blood that’s pump­ing through­out your body is mostly water as well.  Your brain is 90% water!

Water helps…

• Your skin stay mois­tur­ized, elas­tic and look­ing good,
• Loosen and break up phlegm so your cough will be more pro­duc­tive,
• Carry and flush wastes and tox­ins out of all tis­sues and into the uri­nary sys­tem,
• Move digested food out of the colon,
• Reduce fat deposits.

Just like how you can’t wash the dishes with­out mak­ing the dish­wa­ter dirty or wash the car with­out mak­ing the rags and water dirty, or mop the floor with­out mak­ing the mop and mop-water dirty, your body can’t eas­ily move the waste and tox­ins out your body if you’re dehy­drated all the time.  Suf­fice it to say, you need to drink water reg­u­larly in order to help make it easy for your body to make the con­stant changes it needs to stay healthy.

How do I know how much water I should drink?

Doc­tors aren’t sure where the 8-glasses-a-day rule came from.  We think the gov­ern­ment came out with the 8 x 8 glass rule just to tell peo­ple a num­ber, any num­ber.  There are so many dif­fer­ent body types and dif­fer­ent cli­mates peo­ple live in, not to men­tion vary­ing lev­els of activ­ity to be able to just give out a num­ber like that.

So how do we know if we’re hydrated?

Urine color!  If your urine is dark yel­low, orange or has a strong smell to it, you need to drink more water.  Strive to have your urine color be pale yel­low to clear.  Col­or­less urine indi­cates over-hydration, which is usu­ally con­sid­ered much health­ier than dehy­dra­tion but one should not over do it. Drink water reg­u­larly through­out the day but like most things, in moderation.

How do I drink more water at home and work?

The trick is to sim­ply ded­i­cate a big mug or a refill­able water bot­tle for your­self.  It’s impor­tant that it’s larger than usual so you don’t have to con­stantly refill it.  This will be your go-to-bottle or cup. Place it on your desk so it’s always within reach and in view so there are no excuses!  I keep mine on my com­puter desk because that’s where I am most of the time.

Prac­tice the oppo­site of “out-of-sight-out-of-mind.”  If you keep a large bot­tle of water in your view and reach, it’s an inher­ent reminder to drink water. So don’t put it on the ground, or on the desk behind you, but next to the mon­i­tor you’re using to read this.

How do I drink more water when I’m on the go?

Before you leave the house, have a glass of water and make a habit of always leav­ing the house with a full water bot­tle.  I’m not talk­ing about those stan­dard 12-16oz bot­tles but those 1 liter bot­tles because they’ll last you a long time.

If you run out of water while on the road, food estab­lish­ments will not refuse to give you free water, espe­cially if you have your own cup or bot­tle.  I usu­ally stop by a fast food joint and refill my bot­tle using their foun­tain drink machine.

If you’re going to school, slip a large bot­tle in your book bag so you can drink dur­ing your class.  I am aston­ished that I almost never see any­body drink­ing water through­out a 3 hour class.

What refill­able water bot­tle should I use?

I tend to reuse 1 liter plas­tic water bot­tles.  They are not too heavy and it’s enough to last you sev­eral hours if you’re out of the house and run­ning errands.  I always avoid putting the bot­tle in direct sun­light because the water tastes funny if the bot­tle heats up.  Even worse, if it is a cer­tain type of plas­tic, Bisphe­nol A (BPA) will leach into the water.

What is Bisphe­nol A?

BPA is a hormone-mimicking chem­i­cal that is found in some plas­tic bot­tles that leaches into the water.  BPA is well proven to dis­rupt the endocrine sys­tem at very low concentrations.

If you look under a plas­tic bot­tle, there is a recy­cling sym­bol with a num­ber in it that indi­cates the type of plas­tic it is.  The #7 type plas­tic bot­tles are the ones most likely to con­tain BPA while oth­ers don’t. The “Smart Water” brand of bot­tles, for exam­ple, are stamped #1 (PETE) and don’t con­tain BPA.

Some­times I’ll reuse a glass bot­tle because glass is inert and the water will remain fine even if I leave it in the direct sun­light in a hot car.  How­ever, it is heavy and has a chance of breaking.

Stain­less steel bot­tles are a good option too as they are also inert and won’t shat­ter if dropped.  Plus, they can come in a vari­ety of shapes and colors.

Some more tips…

In the morn­ing when you wake up, before you do any­thing, drink a glass or two of water.  You’ll notice that you will anni­hi­late that water pretty fast sim­ply because you haven’t drank any in the past 8 hours.  Which reminds me, before you go to sleep, go pee so you don’t have to get up in the mid­dle of the night.

Please be aware that we often con­fuse hunger with thirst because the sig­nals are very alike!  If you drink a glass of water before your snacks or meal, it will help pre­vent you from overeat­ing.  While you’re at it, replace car­bon­ated sodas with water, espe­cially dur­ing your meals and you’ll feel a lot less bloated.

Any­way, I hope this helps!  I wish all of you hydrated and healthy lives.