In a captivating book called “Your Body’s Many Cries For Water” that I recently read and highly recommend, the author gives an astounding presentation of the many benefits of drinking water.
Besides the other very interesting facts which stress the importance of drinking water, the author makes special reference to some common ailments that almost all of us suffer from time to time and shows that their most probable cause is dehydration. Below, I give you some examples:
Headaches and migraines
You should agree with me that some of the most common ailments that millions of people get afflicted with on a daily basis, are headaches and migraines. Most of the times, the underlying cause is very simple: You skipped on drinking adequate quantity of water.
You see, 75% of our brain consists of water and when it detects that there is shortage of it, it produces histamines which cause pain and fatigue. The intention is to make us slow down our activities, so as to preserve the minimum water quantity that will allow our brain to function properly.
More often than not, a big glass of pure water and a 20 minute break will work better than any pain killer medication to make our headache go away!
Sore Back
Second in my list of the benefits of drinking water comes another ailment which is one of the leading causes for loss of workdays and for the creation of a lot of distress and pain. This is none other than the back pain.
Let me elaborate on this.
The discs which our back consists of, have a hard external surface while inside they are filled with water. Provided that the quantity of the water is maintained at an adequate level, then the discs are performing their function well. This meaning that they are robust enough to help our backbone support the weight of our body.
Being flexible, our discs respond to the varying pressure exerted on them when we move our upper body, by shifting their shape. When they do this, water that stands around in our body is sucked inside the discs. As long as there is enough water around, then our discs have no problem, as they are properly filled with fluid.
The problem begins when we don’t replenish our body’s natural stock of water by drinking enough quantities. When the discs are shifting, then there is not enough water around them to be sucked inside, as explained above. The result is devastating: The internal fluids are gradually depleted and so the outer shell of the discs is no longer supported. Without this support, our poor discs are helpless, as the whole weight of the body is shifted on them! Pain and swelling ensues, putting us in distress and agony.
High blood pressure
The importance of drinking water is also manifested in the case of hypertension, that is the increase in pressure exerted by our blood circulatory system on the arteries.
You probably don’t know this, but it has long been established that hypertension more often than not occurs when the total volume of our blood is decreased. Considering now that more than 80% of our blood consists of water, then it is easy to realize that water deprivation can very well lead to blood volume loss.
When the total volume of our blood goes down, then an alert is triggered in our body. What follows is that our blood circulatory system self-adjusts by guiding all blood flow to the most active organs, switching everything else off. High blood pressure inevitably ensues, as a consequence of this blood redistribution.
To summarize, it goes without saying that improving your quality of life can be as simple as getting into the habit of drinking more water each and every day.
One word of caution: In order to benefit the most and avoid any adverse effects on you health, both yours and your family’s, make sure that the water you consume at your house is the very best quality. Considering now that, based on reports and statistics issued not only by private but also by government bodies, it is widely acceptable that both tap and bottled water quality leaves much to be desired, I should advice that time investigating your options about what you can do, will be time well spent.
PXP: 