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Wednesday, 01 May 2013
Your body is mainly a fluid environment, made up of approx 70% water, with your brain constituting 80% water. None of your bodily systems can work at the optimum if you are dehydrated. Water has many roles to play in the body, including flushing the kidneys, aiding digestion and elimination, as a delivery system, a lubricant and a temperature regulator. The body signals a requirement for water with the thirst reflex – this is the last sign of dehydration. This kicks in when we have lost 1-2% of body water through sweating, breathing, urine and stools. However, this reflex is often mistaken for hunger and if we ignore or misunderstand it and dehydration increases it begins to seriously affect both our mental and physical performance.
There is a basic rule to remember here: Stress = Dehydration and Dehydration = Stress. The whole picture becomes a kind of Catch 22. If your body is severely stressed and dehydrated, a common picture with today’s lifestyle and usage of alcohol and diuretic drinks, anything you put into it by way of supplementation can add to the stress. Ideally therefore, we need to turn off this dehydration alert so we can start to return the body to wellness. Drinking plenty of water, and cutting back on diuretic drinks is a lifestyle change if you are to maintain your body’s progress back to good health. You will find yourself rewarded by feeling more mentally alert, your skin will improve as toxins are flushed out, constipation is often eased and you feel better all round. Among the conditions that are thought to be considerably helped by drinking an adequate intake of water each day are the following: Allergies Chronic fatigue syndrome Constipation / Colitis / Alternating stools Depression Headaches Overweight/obesity | ||||||||||||
