Water is a crucial component of your body, and you can’t survive without it.
After all, this precious substance makes up the majority of your body, including your blood and organs. Without water, your organs and cells would stop functioning properly, slowly shutting down, leaving you exhausted, and ultimately leading to lethal consequences.
Ok, that was the fun part.
Now that we’ve established keeping hydrated is crucial, how much do you actually need to drink?
In this post, we tell you everything you need to know about the power of hydration, how much you should drink every day and how to ensure your drinking water is safe for you and your family.
Why is Hydration So Important for Your Health?
Your body is made up of approximately 60% water. So, when you lose water through sweat or urine, you need to replace it to ensure normal bodily function, such as creating saliva, regulating body temperature, or allowing good digestion. Yet, there are many more reasons you should keep hydrated every day.
Some of the main benefits of keeping hydrated during the day include:
Your body is made up of approximately 60% water. So, when you lose water through sweat or urine, you need to replace it to ensure normal bodily function, such as creating saliva, regulating body temperature, or allowing good digestion. Yet, there are many more reasons you should keep hydrated every day.
Some of the main benefits of keeping hydrated during the day include:
- Clearing the body of toxins and waste by going to the toilet
- Filling you up, so you don’t need to eat as much, thus helping control weight gain
- Stimulating the growth of red blood cells, helping you feel energized
- Relieving headaches
- Preventing muscle fatigue
- Boosting your immune system and lowering the chances of being sick
- Increasing your metabolic rate helping your body to burn through more calories and digest food more efficiently
- Supporting brain health. The brain is made up of 75% water so gulping down water is the best way to ensure enhanced cognitive function
How Much Should You Drink a Day?
As discussed previously, our bodies constantly lose water in the course of a day, mainly through urine, sweat, and essential human functions such as breathing. Therefore, it’s important to drink enough water every day to replenish these levels.
As a general rule of thumb, you should try to drink at least 8 cups of water a day.
Yet, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, or Medicine recommends drinking between 11.5 and 15.5 cups of fluid every day (including tea, juice, and water). On the other hand, a study from Harvard suggests that 4 to 6 cups of fluid each day should be sufficient.
While 8 cups of water a day is the widely accepted number, the lack of consensus can be explained by the fact that the amount of water you need every day depends on many different factors, including:
Your Location
If you live in a hot and dry area, you’ll need more water as your body will tend to sweat more. And the same thing applies if you live at a high altitude as your respiration rate goes up, making you lose water faster than at sea level.
Your Diet
If your diet is rich in salt and sugar and poor in hydrating foods such as vegetables, you’ll need to increase your water intake to manage your glucose levels and prevent dehydration from salt intake. What’s more, if you’re a coffee aficionado and drink coffee throughout the day, chances are you’re urinating more than usual and need to replenish with water.
The Temperature
This one is pretty self-explanatory. If you live in warmer places or in summer, your body will lose more water through perspiration. Therefore, you’ll need to drink more than the average recommended water intake.
Your Level of Exercise
A high level of physical activity will lead to perspiration, meaning that you’ll need to compensate for the loss of water and drink more than usual to replenish your original levels.
Your Health
Certain health issues like diarrhea or an infection or conditions such as Diabetes can make you lose water. If you’re sick or have a specific condition leading to fluid loss, you’ll need to drink more than the average person.
How to Make Sure Your Drinking Water is Safe?
While over 286 million Americans drink tap water every day, 60 million might be drinking unsafe tap water due to contaminated water supplies.
So, the best way to ensure that the water you and your family are drinking is safe is to purchase a water filter.
Bottle Water Filters
Bottle water filters are ideal for removing chlorine, bad taste, or smell from your water. They’re inexpensive and a great option to keep hydrated with safe drinking water on the go, but they’re not as efficient as other filters.
Water Filter Jugs
If you’re looking for a budget-friendly way to purify your water indoors or out, a water filter jug might just be what you need. Water filter jugs efficiently remove contaminants such as bacteria, harmful chemicals like chlorine, fluoride, and heavy metals, as well as organic compounds that can affect the taste or smell of your water. However, these types of filters don’t remove harmful compounds such as giardia and cryptosporidium.
Water Filter Systems
Water filter systems come in different types, including easy-to-install faucet attachments, under-the-sink mounts, and countertop. They usually feature carbon filters that are highly efficient at removing harmful contaminants such as chlorine, or pesticides but they won’t remove nitrates or sodium.
Reverse Osmosis Water Filters
Reverse osmosis water filters are the most efficient way to purify your water and ensure that you’re drinking safe drinking water. Reverse osmosis is a water filtration technology using a semi-permeable membrane to remove up to 99% of dangerous contaminants from your drinking water. A RO system can be installed under the sink or in a utility room such as the garage.
Wondering what the best brands for water filtration systems on the market are?
At Filtersmart, we provide our clients with affordable, high-quality water filtration systems made in the USA. For more information on Water filters, don’t hesitate to check out our latest article on Five Best Water Filtration Systems for Higher Quality Tap Water.
