Benefits of Drinking enough Water

Our bodies are around 60% water, give or take. It is commonly recommended to drink eight glasses of water per day. Although there is little science behind this specific rule, staying hydrated is important.

Here are 7 evidence-based health benefits of drinking plenty of water.

1. Water Helps to Maximize Physical Performance

If we do not stay hydrated, physical performance can suffer.This is particularly important during intense exercise or high heat.

Dehydration can have a noticeable effect if you lose as little as 2% of your body's water content. However, it is not uncommon for athletes to lose up to 6-10% of their water weight via sweat. This can lead to altered body temperature control, reduced motivation, increased fatigue and make exercise feel much more difficult, both physically and mentally.

Optimal hydration has been shown to prevent this from happening, and may even reduce the oxidative stress that occurs during high intensity exercise. This is not surprising when you consider that muscle is about 80% water.

So, if you exercise intensely and tend to sweat, then staying hydrated can help you perform at your absolute best.

2. Hydration Has a Major Effect on Energy Levels and Brain Function

Your brain is strongly influenced by hydration status. Studies show that even mild dehydration (1-3% of body weight) can impair many aspects of brain function.

In a study of young women, fluid loss of 1.36% after exercise impaired both mood and concentration, and increased the frequency of headaches.

Another similar study, this time in young men, showed that fluid loss of 1.59% was detrimental to working memory and increased feelings of anxiety and fatigue.

A 1-3% fluid loss equals about 1.5-4.5 lbs (0.5-2 kg) of body weight loss for a 150 lbs (68 kg) person. This can easily occur through normal daily activities, let alone during exercise or high heat.

Many other studies, ranging from children to the elderly, have shown that mild dehydration can impair mood, memory and brain performance.

Mild dehydration (fluid loss of 1-3%) can impair energy levels and mood, and lead to major reductions in memory and brain performance.

3. Drinking Water May Help to Prevent and Treat Headaches

Dehydration can trigger headaches and migraines in some individuals. Several studies have shown that water can relieve headaches in those who are dehydrated.

However, this appears to depend on the type of headache.

One study of 18 people found that water had no effect on the frequency of headaches, but did reduce the intensity and duration somewhat.

BOTTOMLINE:
Drinking water can sometimes help relieve headache symptoms, especially in people who are dehydrated.

4. Drinking More Water May Help Relieve Constipation

Constipation is a common problem, characterized by infrequent bowel movements and difficulty passing stool. Increasing fluid intake is often recommended as a part of the treatment protocol, and there is some evidence to back this up. 

Low water consumption appears to be a risk factor for constipation in both young and elderly individuals.

Carbonated water shows particularly promising results for constipation relief, although the reason is not entirely understood.

5. Drinking Water May Help Treat Kidney Stones

Urinary stones are painful clumps of mineral crystal that form in the urinary system.

The most common form is kidney stones, which form in the kidneys.

There is limited evidence that water intake can help prevent recurrence in people who have previously gotten kidney stones.

Higher fluid intake increases the volume of urine passing through the kidneys, which dilutes the concentration of minerals, so they are less likely to crystallize and form clumps.

Water may also help prevent the initial formation of stones, but studies are required to confirm this.

6. Water Helps Prevent Hangovers

A hangover refers to the unpleasant symptoms experienced after drinking alcohol. Alcohol is a diuretic, so it makes you lose more water than you take in. This can lead to dehydration.

Although dehydration is not the main cause of hangovers, it can cause symptoms like thirst, fatigue, headache and dry mouth.

A good way to reduce hangovers is to drink a glass of water between drinks, and to have at least one big glass of water before going to bed.

7. Drinking More Water Can Help with Weight Loss

Drinking plenty of water can help you lose weight. This is due to the fact that water can increase satiety and boost your metabolic rate.

In two studies, drinking half a litter of water was shown to increase metabolism by 24-30% for up to 1.5 hours.

This means that drinking 2 litters of water every day can increase your total energy expenditure by up to 96 calories per day. The timing is important too, and drinking water half an hour before meals is the most effective. It can make you feel fuller, so that you eat fewer calories.

In one study, dieters who drank half a litter of water before meals lost 44% more weight, over a period of 12 weeks. It is actually best to drink water cold, because then the body will use additional energy (calories) to heat the water to body temperature.

Credit : https://www.healthline.com

Why right amount of Sleep is essential ?

Getting the right amount of sleep is essential for keeping your body and brain functioning and peak capacity!

The best way to get the right amount of sleep is to practice a good sleep hygiene. You can use these tips to sleep better naturally without investing any money in sleep medication.

1. Helps You Lose Weight

Getting the right amount of sleep is important for weight loss and maintaining a healthy weight.

Sleep deprivation causes your body to release more of the stress hormone cortisol. Among many negative impacts, high levels of cortisol tell your body’s cells to store more fat.

Additionally, a lack of sleep affects the release of the hormones which control our appetite: Ghrelin and leptin. These changes lead to us feeling hungrier more often, and less satisfied after consuming a meal.

Being overtired also weakens your resolve to stick to a diet. When you’re exhausted, you’re more likely to feel justified in “cheating” in order to improve your mood and boost your energy levels with sugary snacks.

2. Regulates Mood, Improve Social Interaction

Changes to our mood is one of the most apparent side-effects of suboptimal sleep, and many of us have firsthand experience with irritability, increased frustration, and even symptoms of depression when overtired.

Sleep plays an important role in our capacity to regulate positive and negative emotions and increases impulsivity. In fact, sleep deprivation actually lowers our responsiveness to emotional stimuli.

Science has shown that being sleep deprived actually reduces our ability to pick up on important social cues and respond appropriately to them — such as recognizing facial expressions.

Together, all these impairments make it difficult to navigate our social world.

3. Enhances Memory & Performance

Sleep is absolutely essential for your brain to be able to function at an optimal level: Affecting everything from your ability to concentrate and solve problems, to your recall of important information.

Memory consolidation — the process of moving information from our fleeting short-term memory to our long-term memory stores — takes place while we are asleep. Different types of memories are consolidated during different stages of our sleep cycle: Non-REM sleep tackles declarative memory (what), while REM sleep is responsible for procedural (how) memories.

Even moderate sleep deprivation can reduce performance in a similar manner to alcohol intoxication, and increases the amount of errors we make.

4. Reduces Risk of Type II Diabetes

Chronically under-sleeping raises your risk of developing Type II diabetes by affecting how your body processes sugar.

Research participants who were only permitted to sleep 4 hours per night for five nights experienced a 40% decrease in their levels of insulin — the hormone which regulates your body’s use of sugar.

Other studies have shown that sleep deprivation negatively impacts glucose metabolism, while reduces insulin sensitivity, resulting in high blood sugar.

5. Reduces Inflammation

Not getting enough sleep increasing the amount of inflammation you experience: Raising your risk for developing heart disease and diabetes, and exacerbating symptoms of inflammatory conditions such as arthritis.

This increase in inflammation is due to a surge in your body’s production of inflammatory cytokines, alongside a reduction in inflammation-fighting proteins.

6. Improves Athletic Performance

It turns out that the amount of sleep you get has just as much impact on sports performance as diet.

Stanford researchers examined the effect of sleep on a group of Basketball players. The study showed that receiving adequate amounts of sleep improved the players’ speed, accuracy, reaction time and general feelings of well-being.

In addition, sleep deprivation negatively impacts our metabolism — which will not only hinder your attempts to lose weight through exercise, but actually reduces your body’s ability to use glucose as energy to fuel your workouts.

7. Clears Waste from The Brain

While we sleep — and only while we sleep — our brains are literally flushed with fluid in order to remove waste products that build up throughout the day. These substances include beta-amyloid plaques which are infamously implicated in the development of neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer’s.

This cerebrospinal fluid only performs this flushing action while the brain is asleep, with barely any entering the brain tissue while we are awake. This is why many sleep experts believe this cleaning function is the primary purpose of sleep.

8. Boosts Your Immune System

Sleep is essential for our immune system to be able to fight off infections. Even partial sleep loss can greatly reduce the functioning of your immune system: Reducing your natural immune response, and lowering blood levels of infection fighting cells.

Compared with people who have restricted sleep, those who received a full night’s rest had higher antibody counts in response to vaccination. And the effect was not reserved for a full 8-hours of sleep: the level of antibodies increased 56% for every additional hour of sleep received.

9. Helps Maintain A Healthy Heart

Both under-sleeping and oversleeping have been shown to negatively impact heart health. Chronic short sleepers are 48% more likely to develop or die from coronary heart disease. Meanwhile, those who spend too much time sleeping have a 38% increase in this risk.

The Harvard Nurses’ Health Study revealed a link between working night shifts and an increased risk for developing coronary heart disease. It’s believed that this is due to a disruption of the natural circadian rhythms causing issues with biorhythms, as well as chronic high levels of stress hormones. ​

10. Makes You Live Longer

All of the things we’ve covered above contribute to increasing lifespan — but even independent of these factors, getting the right amount of sleep has been shown to improve longevity.

A meta-analysis of sleep studies looked at the effect of hours of sleep on lifespan. This research revealed that sleeping less than 6 hours per night makes you 12% more likely to suffer a premature death; while sleeping more than 9 hours comes with a 30% increase in premature death.

Lack of sleep can also impact longevity by making increasing the likelihood that you will suffer a fatal accident. Remember, sleep deprivation has a similar effect of alcohol intoxication on reaction time and concentration.

Neglecting your sleep is not serving you, and — as evidenced above — may actually be holding you back from attaining your health goals. ​

Article Credit : Nestmaven