I'm sure we've all wondered at one point how much water we really need to be drinking. Is it really that important? Must it be just plain old water, or will any liquid do? We've all heard that 2 litres is the minimum requirement, but why so? Drinking 2 litres a day is 8 eight ounce glasses per day every day! Sounds a lot and if you exercise regularly you should drink about another litre for every hour that you work out. Lets look at some of the reasons why we should aim for 2 litres a day.
Every cell in our body requires clean, pure water. Water is required for us to be able to breathe, digest, eliminate and perspire effectively. Unfortunately most of us are dehydrated and don't even know it. We assume that the symptoms that we are suffering from, such as headaches and fatigue can be remedied by taking some sort of medication. We don't realise that drinking just plain old water would probably eliminate these feelings of malaise.
Have you ever noticed that as people age they tend to shrink a little bit? Have you ever wondered why this happens? It happens because as we age, our bodies dry out, our cell's volume water ratio level drops. It may not sound like a lot, but it is very significant. Over time our cells slowly dry out. Think about how a grape slowly dries out to become a raisin and you'll have a better picture in your mind as to what happens to our cells as they become dehydrated. Your spine and disc core will also dry out, which is what causes the decreased height in older people. You may not be too worried about losing some height, but dehydration will lead to a tremendous amount of disc, lower back, and joint pain. Water acts as a lubricant, and without enough of it you'll experience a lot of unnecessary pain. Who would have thought that just plain simple water could do so much for us!
It is really important to make a conscious effort to drink enough water, because our thirst mechanism is just not sensitive enough. By the time you actually feel thirsty, you are already very dehydrated and even after gulping enough water to quench your thirst, you will only have taken in enough water to satisfy just over half of what your body actually needs. The feeling of thirst is your body's survival mechanism kicking in.
Drinking water is one of the simplest things we can do to maintain our health and vitality. You may think that it's a bit of a pain to always have to drink your water, but after a while it just becomes habit, and you'll find that you crave it when you don't have it handy. You may also notice that you have to make a lot of trips to the toilet when you first start drinking all this water, which can be a bit inconvenient, but after a short period of time your body will adjust to the extra water intake and you won't be making quite as many trips. So why not raise a glass or 12 to your health now, and reap the benefits of this seemingly plain liquid for the rest of your life?