6 Science-Based Health Benefits of Drinking Enough Water
Yay, science! While the world may be full of pleasant things to drink like soda and alcoholic beverages, science has been slowly but surely trying to convince us to stick to good ol’ fashioned water. It’s what fish drink, you know.
The general concept behind it is that while most beverages will often dehydrate you (to create that lovely feeling of thirst which will just make you drink more), staying hydrated by drinking water has amazing benefits tied to your health and it’ll barely cost you a thing. Let’s take a look at what science has to say about it!
Maximizes Physical Performance
We should mention straight away that “maximizes” means you’ll be performing at your physical peak. You’re not going to turn into Captain America. That, as we all know, takes the Super Soldier Serum. During intense exercise or high heat, being properly hydrated will help you a ton – mostly because our muscles are made up of 80% water. Even losing only 2% of your water content will significantly worsen your physical performance!
Energy Levels and Brain Function
Even mild dehydration can have a very bad effect on your brain function and your mood. It’ll even have an impact on the rate at which you get headaches. And mild dehydration can occur from even doing normal daily activities without drinking enough water, so even if you’re not doing any intense exercise you should keep an eye on your hydration levels. This is the case for men and women equally, with both seeing a loss in their brain function after only a 1,5% hydration loss!
Constipation
Even when it comes to your regular bowel movements, staying properly hydrated will help you out a lot. The best way to prevent constipation is to make sure you’re getting enough liquid in your body, which means drinking loads of mineral water. If it’s right in magnesium and sodium, that’s even better. In fact, the only really known treatment for constipation is just having people drink more water, so you might as well do it in advance and avoid it altogether. It just saves you the hassle of having a doctor tell you this exact thing.
Kidney Stones
That’s right, drinking enough water can even help prevent kidney stones. If you’ve ever had kidney stones before, you’ll be the first to tell people that it’s absolute horror and considering how it can be easily avoided by just drinking enough water, it seems kind of silly to not just do it. It probably doesn’t do enough to prevent the initial forming of the stones, but drinking enough water does make urine pass through your kidneys a lot faster, meaning the stones don’t get a chance to grow and clog up your urinary tract.
Hangovers
Yes, people, drinking water before you go to bed can help against hangovers. Even just drinking a single glass before you go to bed is gonna help a ton when it comes to preventing hangovers and the effects from it. Just one glass, people. You’ve drunk half a dozen at this point, one more won’t kill you.
Weight Loss
The biggest key to weight loss is keeping your metabolism up. Drinking enough water will make sure your metabolism is constantly running, meaning you burn more carbs and fat and will make sure less food gets turned into fat. Significant weight loss was seen in people drinking an additional 1,5L of water per day. The most effective time to have your water seems to be about half an hour before you eat.