For this week of my Genius Hour, I wanted to look at another aspect of healthy living that we tend to overlook in our focus on food: Hydration! I think we all know that it’s important that we stay hydrated as a factor into our overall health! But it can be a challenge to do this as students when are always busy! Despite this, we need to figure out the best way to stay hydrated and ensure we are hydrated enough in order to be healthy.
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| Mader, Ron. (2015, January). Buzzword Bingo: Hydration Station (Online Image). Retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/planeta/20670945808 |
A study by Patrick Ritz and Gilles Berrut details the importance of staying hydrated by outlining the issues that can occur when even mild hydration is present! They claim that even mild hydration impairs things like concentration, alertness, and short-term memory! Harvard health Publications also details the importance of hydration to all of your bodily functions as point out that fluids carry nutrients to your cells, flush bacteria from your bladder, and prevent constipation. The American Heart Association also stressed the importance of staying hydrated as it is critical for your heart health!
Additionally, the American Heart Association shares this importance tidbit of information: they claim that thirst isn’t the best indicator of how much you need to drink, because if you are feeling thirsty, you are already dehydrated! They also argue that simply drinking water is the best thing to drink to stay hydrated! Aside from just drinking water, you can also access sources of water through foods like fruits and vegetables! This is preferable over sports drinks with electrolytes due to their high levels of added sugars and calories. Therefore, drinking water and foods with high water content are your healthiest options for staying hydrated!
So how much water should we be drinking in a day? According to the Mayo Clinic, the answer for exactly how much water you need to drink in a day isn’t a simple one . Many of us are well acquainted with the rule of drinking 8 glasses of water a day, which isn’t necessarily a bad place to start, but may not be fulfilling our needs. The Mayo Clinic explains that your water needs depend on several personal factors like your overall health, how active you are and where you live. Despite this, as an estimate they claim that a healthy adult living in a temperate climate needs about 13 cups of water daily if you are male, ad 9 cups of water daily if you are a female. So this can give you a general starting point on your hydration journey! On page two of this article, they speak more specifically to the factors that can help you get a better idea of how much water you need to drink to stay hydrated!
A good way to monitor your hydration levels is by checking the color of your urine throughout the day! There are several guides that you can look at that will give you the look-for’s of dehydration through your urine. Usually the darker in color it is, the more dehydrated you are, and the lighter it is, the more hydrated you are.
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| OpenStax College. (2013, June 19). Urine Color Chart (Illustration). Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2601_Urine_Color_Chart.jpg |
The Live Science website provides a few tips that you can use to help get you motivated to drink more water throughout the day and stay hydrated. One of my favorites is buying a nice water bottle! I was recently gifted a pretty cool looking water bottle for Christmas and it’s definitely helped me because I love toting it around all day!
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