How to Stay Hydrated: Best and Surest Ways to Keep Your Body Refreshed

Body dehydration occurs naturally, whether it is during summer or winter.  The only difference is that during hot seasons, our bodies lose water faster than when it’s cold. Now the big question is how to stay hydrated? There may be different ways to maintain your fluid level to the recommended levels.  However, one need to be cautious as some methods might lead to health complications like obesity.

Having enough water in the system is vital in keeping your heart healthy.  This enables it to pump enough blood to the farthest end without straining due to pressure deficit. On the other hand, it is a medium that each body process requires. We are going to look into different ways to stay hydrated to maintain healthy bodies. The rate of dehydration differs, for example, when hiking; the rate of sweating will generally be high. Consequentially, you’ll need to keep your body hydrated by taking enough water.

Before we get to our main discussion, you need to know what causes the body to dehydrate.

What Are Leading Causes of Body Dehydration?

Sweating

Everyone sweats regardless of whether you’re working or not.  However, people who are more active, are prone to dehydration since they profusely sweat.  Additionally, weather conditions and seasons determine the rate of sweating.   During summer, the sweating rate is higher than in the winter, hence people lose water faster.

Illnesses

A healthy person experiences the normal water loss through the biological processes. The water loss from the body is gradual, unlike in a sick person.

If someone is suffering from vomiting, diarrhea, or diabetes, they lose water more gradually.  This call for recharge or the person will suffer from a dehydration.

Alcohol consumption

Consuming alcohol without taking enough water can result into lesser blood fluids. Upon drinking alcohol people urinate more, drawing much water from the body. The reason is that alcohol requires a lot of water to be flushed out of the body. Hence, it leaves the body dehydrated.

Age

When it comes to age and dehydration, children are more sensitive than older people. Their bodies require constant hydration since they are smaller and more exposed to environmental factors.  For an adult, dehydration might be slower to notice than on a kid.

How to Know You Are Dehydrated?

• Dry skin. One of the surest ways to ensures to know you have a low fluid level is drying of the skin.  This is common among the people who sweat heavily and take less water.  To some extent, it can cause skin flushing and cracks. For example, medics indicate that dry lips are a sign of dehydration
• Fever, chills, and headaches. Though sweating causes dehydration, it is essential for cooling our bodies.  If you have a little water in your system, you might experience high temperatures leading to headaches, chills, dizziness, and fever.
• Bad breath. Bad breath is the top indicator of a dehydrated person.  Regardless whether your oral health is okay, when you are dehydrated, lack of enough saliva causes your mouth to smell bad. This is due to the reaction of salivary bacteria causing the foul smell.

After knowing some of the causes of dehydration, and their effects, it’s good to know how to protect yourself.

Keeping your body hydrated is worth than wait until the fluid level decline. To see how long the body digest water, see our excellent article on this subject.

Who Are People Prone to Dehydration?

Although water loss from the body occurs to everyone, the rate at which one is exposed is different from one another. For a normal healthy person, dehydration might not cause dangerous effects.

However, there is a group of individuals who are sensitive to excessive water loss and need to rehydrate their bodies always. The group includes

• Infants and little children
• Critically ill people
• Aged
• High altitude living people
• Sportsmen

How to Keep Your Body Hydrated?

Keeping your body in the correct fluid level can depend on the personal commitment.  As you know, all the surrounding factors will lead to loss of water from the body.  To counter this, you need constant refreshment.

However, it is advisable to keep away from drinks that can lead to weight gain like soft drinks.

Drink enough water

Water is the best ways to rehydrate your body.  It is the most available fluid and everybody can easily afford it.  When leaving the house, make sure you refill your bottles with water.  You don’t need to worry about weight gain as with soft drinks.

Also, water is neutral, it won’t affect your blood pH much.  In fact, it helps to create an osmotic balance if the person is suffering from dehydration.

There is no daily recommendation on how much an adult person should drink.  The state of the body is what determines the amount one should take.  On average, a healthy person should take at least 8 glasses of water, though this is not fixed.

Some people will require more than others.  Also, it is important to note that the body produces some of the water through metabolic processes. But, it is not to sustain the body, and that is why drinking water is necessary to cover the deficit. It is estimated that through these processes, body only produces about 750 ml.  As stated earlier, production of dark colored urine is an indicator you have lesser water in your system.

To make sure you get clean and potable water on the go, check out our list on the best filtered water bottles to help you.

Fruit juices

Natural fruit juices are ideal ways to ensure you keep your body fluid at the correct level.  The juices are perfect for everyone as they do not cause weight gain.  Further, unlike other beverages like coffee and tea, natural fruit juices do not have a diuretic effect. In fact, they have many body benefits besides maintaining the dehydration levels.

When a person is sick, he/she loses a lot of water and electrolyte. Giving them pure water is ideal, but an electrolyte is greater than pure water. The good thing is you don’t need to rely on commercially prepared oral rehydration formula; a combination of different fruit juices can correct the situation.

Therefore, don’t wait until you are dehydrated to start looking for solace.   Make fruit juice daily!  One of the most natural juices available is coconut water, and no blending or additives are required for you to drink it.

Besides being useful for keeping the body hydrated directly, the juices help in reducing toxins in the body’s vital organs. Some of the organs involved in water absorption, such as intestines and kidneys, sometimes have their effectiveness reduced due to the presence of toxins from food.

The water found in the juice is used in the elimination of these toxins. By consuming a lot of fruit juice, your body will become effective in fighting microbes such as bacteria and fungi and lowering the level of free radicals in the body.  When the internal organs are working properly, absorption of water and other nutrients is efficient, hence the body is well hydrated.

Eat a lot of vegetables and fruits

Vegetables are the greatest source of water, which can help in keeping your body hydrated and your skin smooth and tender.  Fruits are made of over 70% water.  This shows that besides drinking water and other refreshing drinks, fruits and vegetable are perfect Dehydrators.

Unfortunately, the majority of people nowadays value processed food, hence they will only consume processed food and drinks. The fact is that commercially prepared fruits and vegetable aren’t useful as they are in natural ways.

If you aren’t so keen on making fruit or vegetable juices, all isn’t lost.  You have a chance to keep your body hydrated as well as detoxified and in good health. All you need is to include a lot of vegetables and fruits in your meals.

Through research, some of the fruits are found to contain 90% water of their total weight, such as watermelons, radishes, grapefruits, and tomatoes among others. But, the general rule is, eat as much fruit and vegetables as possible and you will not experience dehydration.

Listen to your body

When you become dehydrated, there are some of the common feelings that your body will portray.  For your own good, never ignores these signs, and refresh as soon as possible.

When you feel thirsty, it is an obvious indicator that your body doesn’t have enough water. By observing your body needs and listening to them, you are giving your internal body organs time to perform vital processes.

Urine color can also suggest the state of your body.  Normal urine should appear clear and not colored. Sometimes you can experience a change in urine color due to many factors. The most common one is due to insufficient water in the body system.

Amazingly, you also might experience this scenario, but you without feeling any sign likes being thirsty.  But, to counter dehydration early, it is ideal to find a refreshing drink.

Avoid diuretic drinks

A diuretic substance is one that causes a person to experience frequent urination.  These are substances that contain alcohol and caffeine.  Though people drink coffee and tea as a way of rehydrating their bodies, the truth is that they are doing more harm than good.  While taking a beverage with caffeine, one tends to have an increased frequency of urination.

Caffeine is not ideal to the bladders as it causes irritations causing a person to feel the urges to urinate.  This increased urination contributes to massive water loss from the body which needs to be replaced.

Alcohol, on the other hand, it is a great contributor to body dehydration.   Upon ingesting alcohol, some people may experience nausea resulting in vomiting.  Further, when it gets into the body system, it prevents the absorption of water by the kidney through inhibition of antidiuretic hormone.

Without ADH, water absorption can’t take place, hence all is channeled to the bladder causing the urge of constant urination. Also, alcohol requires a lot of water to eliminate it from the body; this causes dehydration of cells, leading to a significant loss of water.

In some instances, individuals who have taken excessive alcohol are given coffee to reduce the effect of alcohol. But, since both coffee and alcohol are diuretic drinks, the situation can leave the victim badly dehydrated.

Additionally, taking excessive caffeine can also lead to vomiting, worsening the overall situation. Therefore, when people think that taking caffeine beverages is a way of hydrating their bodies; the fact is they are totally wrong and are actually doing the opposite.

Measure weight before and after exercising

People, who are involved in strenuous sports activities, need to monitor their levels of body hydration. Failure to check can result into their bodies underperforming and can suffer from heat strokes.   Knowing your body water loss during the exercising period can help you to drink the correct amount of water.  Before you embark on an activity, it is advisable to measure your body weight.

After completing the exercise also get your body weight measured. This will indicate how many pounds you have shed.  It is recommended that for every pound of weight lost; one should drink 16-24 ounce of water to maintain the body hydrated.

As with other situations, when you are exercising, there is no fixed amount of water that you should take.  What is important is to ensure your body doesn’t suffer from dehydration.  Ideally, before you start exercising, take over 17 ounces of water a few hours before the actual training.

When you start exercising, it is ideal to take about 10 ounces every 30 minutes. Otherwise, you are going to experience dry mouth, dizziness, muscle cramps and dry sweat.  These are the common indications of dehydration for sportsmen.

Drink sports drinks

Sports drinks are more ideal for people who are engaged in strenuous exercises.  During the training session, people lose a lot of water through sweating. Besides, the water is lost with a significant level of sodium and potassium ions.  Therefore, drinking pure water might be useful, but these particular drinks are the best.

They are designed with other ingredients such a glucose and salt to add an electrolyte level in the body, besides hydration.  The glucose is the provision of energy, hence preventing muscles from fatigue and cramping.

There are different options of sports drinks that one can opt.  However, you don’t need the commercial ones.  You can also use the naturally occurring ones, and you will get the same results. For instance, people have been using coconut water for refreshments after sports.

Further, grapefruit juice is ideal for individuals who are on a weight loss mission.  Milk, on the other hand, is vital hydrating fluid for muscle building, due to its protein composition.   Alternatively, adding salt to drinking water to replace the lost salt maintains osmotic in the cell and avoids more dehydration, due to low osmotic pressures in the cells. Here’s a list of our top drinks to stay hydrated, check it out and see how these can nourish you even more.

Exercising

Exercising is known by many people as one of the ways your body loses water. So, a lot of people consider it a dehydrating factor.  However, exercising, when done properly, is one of the best ways to ensure your body is properly hydrated.  When you are training, the body’s blood circulation is boosted, facilitating the efficient movement to the farthest body cell.

The enhanced flow is ideal for the supply of nutrients and electrolyte in the body cells.  Also, it increases water absorption in the intestine due to increased blood flow. Therefore, any kind of training is necessary for the enhancement of blood circulation and at the same time more cell hydration.

Avoid smoking

Many people, if asked, know that smoking causes cancer and other breathing problems.  But, according to research, tobacco smoking is directly related to skin damage caused by dehydration.  Additionally, smoking causes a deficiency of vitamins due to harmful chemical substances in the tobacco smoke.

People who have recovered from smoking have shown a great difference regarding skin elasticity and hydration after the detoxification process.  Therefore, avoiding smoking can help your skin to remain elastic and prevent hardening of the cells.

Getting enough sleep and rest

A lot of skin damage and dehydration occur during the daytime.  High sun rays and other environmental stresses are the main culprits. During the night when one is resting your body undergoes the repairing mechanism at a cellular level.

This creates a more alkaline body due to reduced level of stress, hence more elastic cells.  Sleeping also leads to more hormone stabilization, and more efficient body processes. With more relaxed skin and better-restructured skin cells, the body remains tender and soft throughout the next day.

Therefore, having a better sleep and resting is vital in ensuring you have a well-hydrated skin.

What Have We Learned?

It is a fact that we experience dehydration every time, regardless whether it is cold or hot. A normal functioning body will experience a daily loss of water and it will need to rehydrate. By withholding simple aspects, you can save your body from water deficit, hence experience a general good health.

See our first-rate article on the dangers of water intoxication, which is another danger facing physically active people today.

We hope that you found our article useful and that it will help you when it comes to getting your body hydrated properly. If you feel like we missed something, or you simply want to share some of your experiences with us, feel free to leave a comment in the comment section below.