Benefits of drinking water:Discover how water improves your health
The other day I finished reading a very interesting book named “Your Body’s Many Cries For Water”. What impressed me the most from reading this book, is that the author establishes a clear association between the benefits of drinking water and our overall wellness.
Besides the other very interesting facts which stress the importance of drinking water, the author makes special reference to some common ailments that almost all of us suffer from time to time and shows that their most probable cause is dehydration. Below, I give you some examples:
When our head hurts
We all suffer from headaches, or even worse migraines now and then. Some of us more and some others less severely. What you might find interesting to learn, is that more often than not, we should blame ourselves for not drinking enough water.
The biological process of a headache is this: When we don’t replenish the water in our bodies by not drinking enough of it, our brain, which itself is 75% water, generates histamines. The creation of these chemical substances in turn cause pain and feeling of tiredness, the common symptoms of headaches. In turn, this makes us slow down our activities. In this way, the level of water in our brain is preserved at a minimum level, allowing our brain to function properly.
Most of the times, a big glass of pure water and a 20 minute break will work better than any pain killer medication to make our headache go away!
When our back hurts
Second in my list of the benefits of drinking water comes another ailment which is one of the leading causes for loss of workdays and for the creation of a lot of distress and pain. This is none other than the back pain.
Let me explain.
The discs in our back consist of an outer shell of flexible joint tissue which is filled with fluid pockets, mostly water. As long as these pockets are full, then they support the outer shell properly, thus helping it to absorb the weight of our upper body.
When we move our body, then pressure is exerted and released on the discs depending on the type of movement. This creates a suction which allows fluids in the body to enter the disc, thus keeping them properly hydrated.
As you realize, when the fluid levels (especially water) in our body are low, then there is not enough to keep the discs properly hydrated. So, most of the weight load of our body is shifted on the outer disc shells. Most of you have experienced the results on your back or neck: Pain, swelling and soreness occurs.
Hypertension
Believe it or not, deprivation of water is also one of the probable causes of hypertension, better known as high blood pressure.
You probably don’t know this, but it has long been established that hypertension more often than not occurs when the total volume of our blood is decreased. Considering now that more than 80% of our blood consists of water, then it is easy to realize that water deprivation can very well lead to blood volume loss.
In reaction to the reduced volume of blood, our body directs most of the blood flow to the most active organs, shutting off supply to less important ones. This upsetting produces hypertension throughout the blood circulatory system.
In conclusion, these are only a few of the examples that clearly demonstrate that by drinking enough quantities of water can dramatically improve your health.
However, I should stress the following: Not all water that we get at our houses is created equal. Its quality varies greatly, depending on a lot of factors such as where it originates (could be ground water or surface water), the kind of treatment it undergoes, etc. The subject of water quality is a very diverse one and is surely beyond the scope of this article. My personal opinion is that it is definitely worth it to spend some time investigating the issue and decide on taking action to ensure that the water at your house is the purest it can be.
