The mainstream health industry tells us to drink eight glasses of water a day, and more if you exercise. This is a very new idea, recently introduced into western society. Ancient traditions and eastern medicine have never advocated the 8 by 8 theory.
Some people sip water all day long to try and reach their quota, but this can cause stress on the kidneys and dilute the level of salt in the blood, which affects the brain, muscle, and heart tissue. It is important to be hydrated, but it is better to listen to your body.
The theory that once you are thirsty, you are already dehydrated doesn’t make sense. Our body gives us signals about what we need, and those signals are there for a reason; just as the hunger signal tells us when we need to eat. It is better to drink when you first rise (to rehydrate after sleep) and then drink when you are thirsty (away from meals). It will naturally be less in winter, more in summer, less when sedentary, and more when exercising.
Many women think they are incontinent, when in fact, they are just drinking too much water. As soon as they tone it down, and drink only when they need to, they can miraculously go hours without needing to ‘go’. And, no longer need to know where every bathroom on the planet is located.
When you are drinking, avoid using plastic water bottles, including the polycarbonate bottles that are advertised as a healthier option. Even polycarbonate can release chemicals into your water. Try to use glass or stainless steel.
My father is a professor, and he noticed that after the 8 glasses of water a day advice became mainstream, a large % of his students started to bring water bottles to class. Classes and exams were frequently disrupted because so many people had to get up to go to the bathroom. So clearly students were always horribly dehydrated before this wonderful advice became the norm, right? 😛
Thanks for posting this! So true.
Some people don’t want to believe me when I say that if I drink that much water I feel absolutely awful and rather like I’m walking on a rocking boat. They think I should just keep doing it and I’ll adjust, but that never worked, so I drink based on thirst, just as you wrote. 🙂
Well done Lillea! You will tend to get a lot of flack on this subject because people just cannot believe that it could be true. Well done for sticking with your intuition and listening to your body. So rare these days!
Hi Christine, a very interesting topic indeed!
I was wondering if it’s possible to put an amount on how much we should drink a day? There are days that if I’m super busy, I’m lucky to have a glass of water at all (bad, I know!). Is there is a minimum amount of water we should be drinking everyday?
Not really a minimum, it really depends on each person’s signals. I have hung around with doctors of Chinese medicine, and they don’t drink that much, and when they do, it is tea. If the weather isn’t hot and we haven’t been exercising, we don’t have a huge requirement for water intake.