Stay Hydrated for Self-Care

As it starts heating up outside, let’s brush up on the most crucial element of human life: water.

Water makes up over 50% of the adult body, and as the main component of your cells, it plays a crucial role in so many physiological processes, including transporting chemicals and nutrients, lubricating your joints, cleaning out waste products and pathogens, normalizing blood pressure, facilitating metabolism, and so much more.

So to ensure your body is running smoothly, you can:

• Learn What Adequate Hydration Looks Like For You: While the official recommendations for men and women are 15.5 and 11.5 cups of total water per day, respectively, this number varies significantly from person to person, and also depends on exercise, the temperature outside, and food intake. Therefore, the amount of plain water or other beverages may be significantly less. A good rule of thumb is to always make sure you drink when you’re thirsty, and to monitor your urine to make sure it isn’t too concentrated—a pale or light yellow color is ideal. (Mayo Clinic)
• Make Hydration Convenient: Bringing a water bottle with you on walks, to the gym, to work, on errands, and wherever you go will make achieving your hydration goals much easier. This is especially important on hot days, where drinking enough water can prevent heat exhaustion.
• Choose Healthy Beverages: While most drinks are okay in moderation, it’s generally a good plan to stick to simple, natural beverages like water, milk, and tea for the majority of your water intake. Not only will this increase your hydration, but it will also help prevent conditions like hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease (Malik et al., CDC).

There are only a few very basic things we need to survive as humans, and water is one of them. We hope this post inspires you to stay hydrated with mindfulness and moderation.