The human body is 60% water and hence even though we don’t realize water plays an important role in bodily functions. Water helps us improve our health, fitness and appearance.

Here are a few benefits of drinking water:

1. Water regulates body temperature. It is important to stay hydrated to maintain normal body temperature. We lose water through perspiration as it helps us to stay cool but if we do not replenish lost water we become dehydrated. Dehydration has serious effects on our body varying from fatigue to serious consequences like high blood pressure or seizures.

2. It helps with improving joint health. Water helps us in improving joint health by providing lubrication to our joints and tissues. Optimal joint health helps us to prevent arthritis so that we can enjoy a long active pain-free life.

3. It regulates digestion and helps with nutrient absorption. Drinking enough water helps our digestive tract to break down food easily. It also aids in dissolving vitamins, minerals and other nutrients present in our food and transporting them to our cells.

4. Improves blood oxygen circulation. Our body needs water to transfer essential nutrients as well as oxygen to different organs and water plays an important role in this.

5. Improves focus by helping with brain function. Water helps us to improve our brain function, focus, alertness, and memory. It also helps us improve our mood.

6. It helps in reducing body weight by lowering caloric intake and boosting metabolic rate. At times our brain is mistakes thirst for hunger and we reach out for food when we are thirsty. If we stay hydrated, we can reduce caloric intake. Water helps in boosting metabolic rate. A research study has proven that just by drinking 500 ml of water, we can boost our metabolic rate by 30%. The metabolic rate is directly proportional to energy expenditure. Increase in energy expenditure results in increased weight loss. Also, as water improves digestion, drinking enough water along with a healthy diet and exercise can speed up fat loss and weight loss.

7. Improves the appearance of skin. Even though water intake alone cannot prevent visible signs of aging on your skin, it does play a key role by keeping our skin well hydrated and improve collagen production. Also, as we saw above it helps in efficiently transporting nutrients in our body at the cellular level.

8. It helps in flushing out waste from our body and prevents constipation. Our body eliminates waste through sweat, urine, and defecation. When we sweat we lose water as well as electrolytes. Water also helps our kidneys to function at an optimal level as they are our body’s filtration plants and they remove toxins via urine. When our body is efficiently removing toxins, we eliminate the possibilities of frequent headaches and migraines.
   Also Just consuming fiber is not enough for smooth bowel movements. Fiber along with water is required for our body so that it can remove solid wastes through bowel movements. Adding fiber and water to our diet will ensure that we have smooth bowel movements. Thus, it can help us to prevent piles and fissures.

9. It helps with performance during physical activity and exercise. Water helps in boosting metabolic rate. A research study has proven that just by drinking 500 ml of water, we can boost our metabolic rate by 30%. When our metabolic rate is boosted, we feel more energized. Boost in our energy levels is linked to better performance during physical activity and exercise. Also, when we exercise our body produces free radicals. Free radicals are harmful, so our bodies must remove them efficiently. Water speeds up the removal of free radicals and toxins.
   When we exercise, our muscles produce lactic acid which results in discomfort and soreness. Water speeds up the removal of lactic acid from our muscles so that we can exercise without discomfort and bounce back quickly from soreness.

10. It helps in healing certain medical conditions like Urinary tract infection, kidney stones, constipation, high blood pressure, diabetes, piles and fissures, common cold and cough, migraines, and headaches.

11. Water prevents dehydration. As we saw that water is important for several bodily functions, lack of enough water causes dehydration. There are severe consequences of dehydration on our health.

Now we already know the health benefits of water so the question is how much water we should drink?

According to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, the recommended water intake (from all beverages and foods) is:

• about 15.5 cups of water (125 ounces) each day for men

• about 11.5 cups (91 ounces) daily for women

Out of this, we get around 20% of our daily water requirements from the food we eat. For the rest, we should drink enough water.

A lot of people do not like the taste of tap water and they also know that tap water has harmful heavy metals and contaminants. Hence, they don’t drink enough water, or they use bottled water or they end up drinking sugary sports drink, sodas, or fruit juices without realizing the harmful consequences of microplastics and carcinogens in bottled water or the sugar, artificial colorings, artificial sweeteners, and preservatives present in sports drink, fruits juices, and sodas on our health.

Here are few tips on staying hydrated:

• Drink 2 glasses of warm water first thing in the morning. Add the juice of one lemon to it. Lemon juice acts as a gentle detoxifying agent.

• Invest in a good quality water purification system at home. Not Brita or PUR or anything similar to it. Those are not water purifiers. Don’t take me wrong. They do remove some impurities but not all. They just remove visible macro impurities. They are not equipped to remove microbial contaminants, toxins, and other soluble impurities. In my humble opinion filters like Brita are a waste of money. I don’t recommend bottled water due to several reasons like the harmful effect of plastic on the environment, the presence of microplastics and carcinogens in plastic bottles. Visit https://www.krutithakore.com/contact-us to schedule a free water quality consultation.

• Infuse your drinking water with fruits and vegetables like pineapple, strawberries, blueberries, oranges, lemons and limes, cucumbers, mint, etc. to give it some flavour and nutrients while also making it more visually appealing.

• Always carry filtered water from your home with you in a glass bottle. Keep it on your desk while you work. It will remind you to stay hydrated.

• Also, carry filtered water with you when you go out for exercise or while you are involved in any kind of physical activity.

In our next blog post, we will review the quality of your drinking water and discuss whether alkaline water is good for you. In the meantime, I would love to hear from you so feel free to comment below.