Let’s start with your body’s need for water. We are similar to our planet which is made up of approximately 80% water – so are we. What happens to us if we don’t drink water?
What are the effects of not drinking enough water? Most of you will jump to dehydration – but at what point are we dehydrated? When we feel thirsty? At that point, however we are really dehydrated. Our bodies give us many messages before you actually feel the need to drink.
What are the early warning signs? What are the chronic dehydration symptoms of the body through lack of water?
Digestive issues such as dyspeptic pain, heartburn, stomach acid, rheumatoid arthritis pain, low back pain, neck pain, anginal pain, headaches, stress and depression, high blood pressure, higher blood cholesterol, excess body weight and so on..
Surprising? Not really, and here’s why:
Your body needs an absolute minimum of 6-8 glasses of water per day. Alcohol, coffee, tea and caffeine-containing beverages don’t count as water! Herbal teas do. The best times to drink water (clinically observed in peptic ulcer disease) are – one glass half an hour before taking food – breakfast lunch and dinner – and a similar amount 2.5 hours after each meal. This is the very minimum amount of water your body needs. Adding another glass before bedtime is also helpful.
When you start to drink more, your body recognises the increased intake and kicks in the ‘thirst mechanism’ and begins to become more efficient and then asks you to drink more!
Without the cushion that water provides for our joints they can swell and hurt, without the diluting effect of water for our blood, it comes thick and slow and without enough water we become constipated. Our skin ages faster as there is not enough moisture within the cells and we look dehydrated. We suffer from lower back pain as our kidneys protest that they cannot detoxify us as they don’t have the water flushed through them to do so – so poisons start to back up into our systems.
What happens to your plants if you don’t water them? What happens to your lawn if it doesn’t rain? The answers are all there – we just forget to relate them to ourselves!
