Drinking water throughout the day is another easy and important activity to improve brain health. The body is over 60% water. The brain is over 73% water. Dehydration can cause mood swings, fatigue, headaches, brain fog, trouble concentrating, memory loss and irritability. I read a book years ago called Water: For Health, for Healing, for Life: You’re Not Sick, You’re Thirsty! by F. Batmanghelidj MD that talks about how not getting enough water can contribute to many illnesses including asthma and allergies.
Drinking enough water helps you sleep better. Better sleep leads to a better performing brain.
Drinking water helps with weight loss as it fills you up without adding extra calories.
Drinking water helps the kidneys and liver flush out toxins. Being dehydrated can lead to kidney stones. Removing toxins is always beneficial to the brain.
Drinking water is also good for the muscles and healthy skin. Muscles pull glucose from the blood, so better working muscles will improve blood sugar control leading to better brain performance.
If I don’t drink enough water I feel more tired, sometimes get a headache and my lips get red. I try to drink a glass of water every couple of hours. It’s recommended to drink a glass of water as soon as you get up in the morning to rehydrate after going all night without water.
It’s important to note that drinking too much water can have adverse effects, including death. Drinking too much water can cause water intoxication due to not enough sodium in the blood stream. The kidneys can’t keep up, so the blood becomes filled with too much water leading to swelling. Use common sense and don’t go overboard drinking water.
A rule of thumb is to drink an average of 8 cups of water per day. 6 – 8 cups per day is probably a good starting point.
The type of water is also important. Don’t drink water with chemicals, such as fluoride, added to it. Fluoride is not good for the brain either. If using tap water, make sure it’s been tested or known to be quality drinking water. Also, use a water purifier to filter out anything unknown. Drink bottled spring water if there is not access to clean tap water. I currently use this Brita water filter pitcher, but have used Pur in the past. More powerful filters may be needed based on your water quality.
Challenge:Take 1 average day and track how much water you normally drink. Write it down and at the end of the day tally up how many cups of water you drank for that day. This will give you a baseline as to how much water you currently drink. If it’s below 6, give the Day 2 challenge below a try.
On Day 2, try to drink 1 cup of water every 2 hours. If you need help keeping track of time, check out this and this time tracking water bottles.
#ad