Drink plenty of plain water to keep our body healthy

I like to drink water.  Since young, I listen to mom’s advice to always drink plenty of water to keep my body ‘cool’ and healthy, especially in hot weather. Whenever I had a fever, I rarely visited the doctor; I took a lot of rest and kept a large bottle of water with me and drank water throughout the day. The fever would usually subside after one or two days with little or no medication.  It was very effective for me.

Most people do not drink enough water everyday. Actually, increasing water intake can increase energy levels, aid digestion, give skin a boost and help boost your anti-aging armoury.

No doubt, ‘Drink plenty of plain water to keep our body healthy’ is one advice that I always like to share with others.

Water Drinking Tips

Here are a few water drinking tips that I have learned:

1. Drink a large glass of water (up to 1 liter) first thing in the morning after wake up and before brushing teeth. This is called Japanese (or Chinese) Therapy. It was said to bring numerous health benefits, such as curing of diseases, besides glowing skin and feeling fresh. [1]

2. 

   Add lemon to warm drinking water. Lemon not only improves the taste of the water, but also is increasing the body’s alkalinity. Lemon is also an excellent stimulant to the liver. Here is an excellent article on “The Health Benefits of Drinking Lemon Water”. [2]

3. Add Himalayan Salt (at least unrefined natural salt) to your water for hydration purpose, especially after exercising. It also electrolytes in the body. Moreover, the Himalayan Salt contains not only sodium but also a lot of other minerals that our bodies need. [3]

4. Drink filtered water. It is the safest, healthiest, and most cost effective way to get good water. Ideally, the water should be slightly alkaline [4]. Although Singapore’s tap water is safe to drink, and its quality meets and sometimes even surpasses the requirements given by the World Health Organization (WHO), it is still necessary to filter the water since it still contains chemical (e.g. Chlorine) and some contaminants. [5]

My Water Drinking Regime

I come up with my own water drinking regime that combined all 4 tips together.

Every morning, immediately after I wake up and before brush my teeth, I will fill up a 1 liter glass bottle with warm filtered water, and add half a lemon (I have replaced lemon with Young Living Lemon Essential Oil lately, which works equally well) and a pinch of Himalayan salt to it. To filter my water, I use just a water filtering pitcher. This is an affordable and practical solution.

I will drink two glasses of the water from the bottle immediately to rehydrate my body before brush my teeth and washing up. I will normally finish the one liter within an hour after wake up and before breakfast. I find that this water drinking habit is very good to kick start my body system and I will have a bowel movement within an hour after wake up – smoothly and consistently. This is the sign of healthy stools.[6]

I will continue to top up the bottle throughout the day and drink from it. Since the bottle is exactly 1 liter in volume, I can keep track of the number of liter of water that I consume everyday, i.e. Usually about 3 liters or slightly more.

Drinking too much of water is dangerous! Really?

“That is too much of water. I read an article about expert warning against drinking too much water. It will hurt your body!” Exclaimed a friend, when I told her about my water drinking regime to promote health. “Really ?!”, It made me wonder. So I set out to search for more information on the Internet.

In fact, “drink at least eight 8-oz glasses of water a day” (or called 8×8 for short), has always been the standard medical advice given by doctors for many years. However, in 2002, an American doctor, Heinz Valtin from Dartmount Medical School, published a paper that summarized his review of published literature on the 8×8 recommendation. He concluded that:

“No scientific studies were found in support of 8 x 8.”

He further states that the conclusion is limited to healthy adults in a temperate climate leading a largely sedentary existence. [7]

So, does it mean that drinking 8x8oz, or about 1.9 liter, is harmful to the body?

No! It simply means that nobody in the scientific community has yet to find any concrete evidence through scientific research. In fact, there is no evidence that says either way.

However, Valtin’s paper received tremendous attention and was spun into a completely different story by others. You can find articles like this one “Strange but True: Drinking Too Much Water Can Kill” which linked Valtin’s finding with a condition call “Hyponatremia” or “Water Intoxication”, i.e. Dilution of the blood caused by drinking too much water, that may lead to fatality.[8]

It is true that one can die from drinking too much water, and it happened before. In fact, this is called “Water torture” in the old days. However, how much is too much? In the case cited in the article, a lady died after drinking 6 liters of water in 3 hours without going to the toilet!

The occurrence of “water Intoxication” is actually very rare. It is only for long distance runners that they should be wary of this condition and must make sure that they should electrolytes their bodies when running. (No wonder sports drink like 100plus and Gatorade has such a big market).

In fact, it is extremely rare or even not possible for a healthy adult to drink TOO MUCH water under normal everyday life.

Our body has a wonderful system that knows exactly what to do to maintain your body’s sodium level in a perfect balance. It has been proven that a healthy body can excrete 1 liter of water without any problem. One research showed that drinking 0.9-1.8 l per hour for 3 hours on 6 subjects at rest is completely safe! [9]

My Conclusion

So, with such understanding, I still stick to the advice of drinking plenty of water a day (2-3 liter). It has definitely no adverse effect on our body.

The health promoting benefits of this ancient wisdom are long term in nature and have yet to being fully uncovered and understood by today’s scientific studies.

Reference:

[1] “Benefits of Water Therapy”,  http://www.knowledgebase-script.com/demo/article-113.html

[2] “The Health Benefits of Drinking Lemon Water”, http://www.waterbenefitshealth.com/benefits-of-drinking-lemon-water.html

[3] “Water and Salt – Balanced Intake Are Essential for Health and Hydration”, http://www.waterbenefitshealth.com/water-and-salt.html

[4] “Filtered Drinking Water Four Important Benefits”, http://www.waterbenefitshealth.com/filtered-drinking-water.html

[5] “Do we really need water filters?”, http://waterqualityinsingapore.blogspot.com/2010/11/do-we-really-need-water-filters.html

[6] “Stool – Healthy and Unhealthy Stool”, http://altmedicine.about.com/od/gettingdiagnosed/a/stools.htm

[7]” Drink at least eight glasses of water a day.” Really? Is there scientific evidence for “8 x 8”? http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12376390

[8]” Strange but True: Drinking Too Much Water Can Kill”, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=strange-but-true-drinking-too-much-water-can-kill

[9] “Peak rates of diuresis in healthy humans during oral fluid overload.”, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11732457?dopt=Abstract