Water, after oxygen, is the most essential element to life and is crucial for efficient metabolism and health maintenance. A healthy adult’s body should comprise approximately 75% water and it must be continually renewed to optimize all aspects of healing, health, and vitality.
Our cells are water, as are the systems that nourish, support, and cleanse them. Water is central in temperature regulation, acts as a shock absorber to vital organs, such as our brain and spinal cord, and provides lubrication for our joints.
Imagine a stagnant pool of water or a fish tank that never gets cleaned. Stagnation is a breeding ground for unhealthy pathogens. We need water to flush waste out and allow fresh nutrients in. When fluids aren’t continually refreshed our internal fluids stagnate and our body’s ability to cleanse, renew, and conduct energy reduces.
What Water Does for the Human Body
Delivers oxygen and nutrients: While 75% of the human body is water, the blood, if we are well hydrated, is comprised of approximately 90% water. This is how oxygen and all nutrients are transported to our cells to fuel efficient cellular metabolism and cleansing. Dehydration causes our blood to thicken, impeding its flow and slowing delivery of oxygen and nutrients. Fresh water consumption thins the blood, enhancing its flow, thus allowing nutrients to get where they are needed and waste to be removed and taken out of the body.
Cleans cells and surrounding areas: Our lymphatic system is also comprised of about 95% water. This system is the body’s drain. Our cells empty waste products from metabolizing toxins and other things we’ve been exposed to through the lymph nodes. If not continually refreshed, lymph fluid becomes saturated with waste toxins that continue to circulate around our entire body, poisoning all tissues it comes in contact with.
Cleans our body: Our body releases toxics through urination, sweating, and mucous from our sinuses. Even our feces contain water, which hydrates fiber, creating lubrication, and stimulating excretion. Dehydration is a key contributor to constipation, which causes the reabsorption of wastes through the bowel wall.
Flushes the kidneys: Our kidneys are in charge of filtering and directing acids out of the body as urine. These acids must be diluted and it is water that does this. Concentrated acid wastes are harmful to our kidneys contributing to kidney stone formation and compromising effective waste excretion.
Another reason to stay hydrated…
Dehydration accelerates aging: At birth our bodies comprise about 80% water, while the water content of senior citizens approaches 50%. This shows us that depletion of internal fluids can be central to the aging process itself, if we don’t take action and stay hydrated. Many people continually ignore the signs of dehydration or satiate themselves with coffee, alcohol, or soft drinks. These drinks aggravate dehydration due to their diuretic effects and introduce more acids to the body.
How to recognize dehydration: Thirst is not an early sign of dehydration but a late sign. If you are thirsty or have a dry mouth you are already very dehydrated. Poor concentration, mood swings, headaches, and other aches and pains are all potential signs of dehydration as it places stress on the body.
How much water to ingest: We should all drink a minimum of 2 liters of pure water per day. Herbal teas or vegetable juices are a good substitute. Alcohol, coffee, or soft drinks are not. If you ever consume these drinks you should increase your water intake to counteract their dehydrating effects. If you eat dry foods such as breads or crackers, live in a hot climate, exercise intensely, or use saunas or steam rooms you should drink more accordingly.
To determine if you are drinking enough water for you lifestyle, record the amount of water you ingest as well as the number of times you urinate. These urinations should be very large. The ideal water intake will produce 8-10 copious urinations a day. This ensures that our tissues are adequately hydrated and our kidneys and bladder supported in the removal of acidic wastes from our body.
The best time to drink water is first thing in the morning to flush out acids from work the body does to heal while sleeping. Drink 1 or 2 glasses of water first thing upon rising. Adding the juice of ½ a lemon or a few drops of therapeutic grade essential oils, such as doTerra, will add an additional boost to the liver and lymphatic systems. Then throughout the day drink 1 or 2 glasses at least half an hour prior to meals or 2 hours afterwards. Try not to drink with meals as this dilutes our digestive juices, inhibiting digestion. Being thirsty with meals is a sign you are not drinking enough away from them. It is also important to note that hunger is usually a sign of dehydration.
A gradual increase in your body fluid levels will bring many benefits. Energy levels will improve, as will levels of concentration, as your body is able to function more efficiently. Maintaining a healthy fluid balance is one of the keys to a healthy and happy life.
What Kind of Water Should I Drink?
The quality of our drinking water is important. Water supplies are often affected by numerous toxins such as heavy metals, pesticides, pharmaceutical metabolites, and hormone residues. It is often treated with chlorine, fluoride, and other chemicals to remove bacteria and other organisms. These chemicals are harmful to us. Choose high quality distilled, reverse osmosis, filtered ionized, spring, or mineral water for optimal health.
Water distillers remove 99.5% of all water impurities and provides the purest water. It is very effective at assisting detoxification due to its high osmotic pull, which increases binding of stored toxins. Water distillers boil water to steam and recollect it. There is reduced free oxygen in distilled water but this and the water structure can be restored by placing a seed sprout or grass in the water after collection. Additionally, all minerals will be removed but can be added back by simply adding a small pinch of natural salt such as Himalayan or Celtic salt.
Some of the benefits of distilled water is that it is not acidic, does not leach minerals from the bones, and is not dead, like most of our treated city water.
Reverse osmosis is essentially an exceptionally fine filtration system involving multiple filters. It removes solutes down to a size of 0.001 microns. That is up to a thousand times or more of most conventional water filters. Reverse osmosis provides the second purest water after distillation.
Water ionizers use the process of electrically charging water to introduce an antioxidant capacity and separate alkaline and acidic solutes. Though the alkalizing effect of this water is often the primary selling point the greatest benefit is the antioxidant capacity. To maintain this it must be fresh. Additionally, the quality of water being ionized is paramount. Ensure high quality filtration proceeds the ionization.
[…] Saturday, I wrote about all the important reasons we need to drink enough water. Not only does water offer hydration but it can also help flush toxins and wastes […]