Drinking water is key to our everyday health and wellbeing. Often, symptoms such as tiredness or constant hunger can actually be dehydration. Taking on enough water is essential to the normal function of our bodies. Without enough water, it’s inevitable that we might suffer while our bodies are out of balance.
The 12th-18th of March marks nutrition and hydration week. Nutrition and hydration week is an important event that helps teach people how to properly care for their bodies with the right levels of hydration and great nutrition. With this in mind, here’s our top tips for better daily hydration…
Carry water everywhere
An easy way to ensure you drink more water is to carry a bottle with you wherever you go. This might seem obvious, but many people find it difficult to stay property hydrated when on the go. It’s all about making accessing water convenient, so that you’re never caught short.
You should aim to drink 6-8 glasses, or around 2 litres of water everyday. Some bottles come with markers to indicate how much you’ve had to drink. This can really help you keep on eye on meeting your targets.
Everyone is different
Guidelines are helpful to follow to get a rough idea of how much water you should be drinking. But consider that everyone is different when it comes to their hydration needs. How much you exercise and how tall you are will affect how much you need to drink. As will how much you weigh and how efficiently your body uses water.
Keep an eye on your own hydration needs. This will help you understand whether you might need to drink more water than you currently do. Do you regularly feel tired, despite getting a good night’s sleep? Maybe you notice your urine is often dark in colour? Regularly suffer from headaches? You might need to drink more! Try drinking at least 2 litres of water a day and continue to monitor your symptoms. If there’s little or no improvement, try increasing to suit your own unique needs. If issues such as fatigue and headaches continue despite, increasing your water intake, arrange a visit to your doctors to have the problem investigated fully.
Consume hydration boosting nutrients
What you eat can go a long way to helping your body retain more water. It’s not just water that you need to stay hydrated, you also need electrolytes and carbohydrates. Both of these nutrients help your body absorb the water that you drink. Electrolytes include potassium, magnesium, calcium, sodium and chloride. Eating foods rich in these nutrients will boost your hydration, and should be considered as part of your plan to increase your daily hydration.
Once you start to make an effort to boost your hydration, you should start to feel more energetic and generally better in yourself. Hydration is key to your wellbeing and health, and so it’s important to consider it daily, and make any necessary changes to ensure you’re taking on enough water.
On Site Wellbeing Co offer a variety of Nutrition and Hydration Workshops promoting good practice in the workplace. For more info, take a look here.
