What are your first thoughts when you hear the words ‘peace’ or ‘pleasure’? For some, the words may be associated with each other even possibly used interchangeably, but in reality, there is a very distinct difference as observed by Jay Shetty.
Every building block that makes up our body relies on water (and the elements contained in water like sodium, chloride and magnesium) so we owe it to our body to replenish it with water.
So, I guess your first question may be why am I writing a whole article on water?
There are a variety of conditions I see as a GP which, though not solely related to a lack of water, can improve many symptoms and conditions. I do ask my patients how much water they are drinking if I think it is relevant to their symptoms.
If you are experiencing fatigue, muscle aches, migraines, constipation or irritable bowel symptoms, a simple step is to look at your water intake. Water has many other functions: It maintains the “plumpness “of your skin from other dehydrating activities such as long sun exposure, caffeine intake, smoking and processed foods. It maintains the function of your kidneys (which filter toxins out of your blood stream) and is important in the digestion of food. Another neglected benefit of drinking water is for healthy teeth and gums.
If we think back to 30-40 years ago, we didn’t have as much variety in food and drink back then and our diet was much simpler and straight forward. I can imagine practicing as a GP was very different back then. Over my last 10 years as a GP, there has been an explosion of different diseases and this has correlated with much more variety in what we eat and drink and quite naturally, water becomes the boring option.
Whilst it is important to have variety in our diet, we need to add dashes of water throughout the day. What’s even better, is that our body doesn’t strictly need all of it to be plain water, you could mix it up with slices of fruit or sugar free squashes or cordials.
On average we need about 2L (or 8 glasses) of water each day unless you have a medical condition such as heart failure which sometimes needs fluid restriction. You may be drinking more or less depending on your activity levels.
I have done my own personal experiment (without realising it) recently. I am great at drinking water in the week, I have a 1L flask which I take to work and will fill this up a couple of times. I feel great, productive and much calmer (I reach for coffee less now because I drink more water). However, on the weekends, I am terrible and certainly don’t consume as much water as I do in the week! As a result, I’ve felt sluggish and fatigued, making me less productive when I make big promises to get those adulting jobs ticked off!
It gives you clear skin – The skin is the largest organ of the body. There are many skin layers of different thickness and it is a complex organ full of blood vessels, oil glands, hair follicles, immune cells and though water alone does not clear your skin, water is part of a healthy diet and to keep the skin healthy, just as it does other organs. Dehydration is not the cause of most common skin conditions but water helps the appearance of skin and should be part of all round healthy lifestyle.
It causes you to lose weight – Water alone does not solely cause you to lose weight but we can mistake thirst for hunger – which can lead to over eating when we should be reaching for fluids instead. Water helps digestion of foods and keeps us hydrated when we exercise, so water intake is an important step in weight loss; but does not cause it. The added benefit of water is that it contains no calories so it can help with weight loss if this is your goal. When losing weight, we are putting our bodies through testing times so we need to replenish with water and whole foods.
It’s good for detox – Our kidneys are responsible for filtering toxins; water ensures these organs are doing the best job they can.
Want to keep learning? Find more articles from Dr Serena Rakha:
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