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Sunday, November 15, 2009

What is the health benefit of water?


What is the health benefit of water?

All my life, I heard that "your body is about 70% water". Why should you be drinking water for your health? Water is the second most important thing that our bodies need to survive, oxygen being the first. The body could survive for some time without food, but deprive it of water and it would only last a few days. Virtually every job that the body performs requires water. It would seem then, pretty logical that a health benefit of water would be to drink it!

Here are only a few of the health benefits of water:

* Water is required for digestion and absorption of food
* Water is needed to regulate body temperature and blood circulation
* Water in the bloodstream carries nutrients and oxygen to cells
* Water is necessary for the kidneys to remove toxins and other wastes

Have some water to improve your health! The health benefit of water is very powerful, but for a long time has been undervalued. Unfortunately, we generally haven't been very well educated about it. The main point of this article is to offer a basic understanding of why it's vital to be drinking water for your health.

What is dehydration?
The body uses about 10 - 12 cups of water a day, through such things as breathing, digestion, elimination and perspiration. So we need to replenish it daily or our bodies will become dehydrated.

"Dehydrate" means "to lose water, become dry."

I always thought I was dehydrated only when my lips started cracking and my mouth was super dry. Wrong answer! Those are signs that your body is extremely dehydrated. It only takes a small deficiency of water to throw the body into "dehydration mode."

"Dehydration mode" makes it necessary for the body to ration an insufficient amount of water to run properly. The body must economize on its use of water to prevent it from being lost. Dehydration can definitely aggravate many health conditions.

A health benefit of water would be the improvement of many conditions by drinking water for your health, such as:

* Exhaustion
* Constipation
* Asthma
* Headaches
* Diabetes - blood sugar level management
* Heartburn
* Angina (chest pain)
* Hypertension (high blood pressure)
* Joint and muscle pain
* Immune diseases
* Depression can be helped by ensuring that you drink enough water for your health.

I've had (or have) several of the health conditions listed above and from my personal experience and observation, all of them have been improved or alleviated when I drink enough water. Angina (chest pain) is at least partially caused by dehydration. Drink some water the next time you experience mild angina. The chest pain may subside and eventually vanish rather quickly!

Drugs and drinking water for health
If you take prescription and/or over-the-counter drugs, it's even more essential to drink enough water for your health. Not only are many drugs dehydrating but all drugs, no matter how well they appear to work, are toxic to the body. Your kidneys need plenty of water to help them flush out toxins, especially when it's getting overloaded with them.

The secret to fat metabolism
Another health benefit of water is its role in fat metabolism. The secret to fat metabolism is to drink adequate amounts of water! Why? The kidneys need water to filter out waste and toxins from our bodies. If we don't give our bodies the water it needs, the kidneys "dump" some of their workload on the liver.

One of the liver's jobs is to assist in fat metabolism. If the kidneys can't do their job due to insufficient water (dehydration), some of their work is given to the liver. You may know what it's like if you have to do someone else's work. You can't do all of your own! When the liver is doing some of the kidney's job, the liver can't do its own job of metabolizing fat very well.

So one specific health benefit of water, specifically Sxinney water is that you will have more energy from fat being metabolized or "burned" - and a lot of people would like some spare fat metabolized!

Increasing your water intake gradually
If you gradually increase the amount of water you drink every day, it's a lot more realistic than trying to "shoot for the moon" and go from a little bit of daily water consumption to at least 64 ounces (in other words, 2 quarts or half a gallon or about 2 liters). That's the minimum amount we're advised to drink per day. If you are overweight, your body needs more than that in order to "burn fat" and flush out the additional toxins from fat metabolism.

The actual amount of water each person needs does vary and there is some dispute about it. Here's a simple check. If your urine is very light or clear, that's a good sign that you are drinking sufficient water.

It takes a little bit of determination to increase your water intake if you're not used to it. However, discovering the health benefits of water is totally worth it!

Things that stop us from drinking water for health
It helps if you can take a look at what ideas you have that might be getting in your way of drinking plenty of water. For example, one of my friends said that she "hated water." That would get in your way!

Actually, when you are dehydrated, you lose your natural sense of thirst. As you get your body more and more hydrated, your "natural thirst" will return.

Not all water is the same. Tap water from the faucet contains all kinds of stuff that makes it not quite enjoyable to drink. Tap water can also defeat the purpose of drinking water for your health due to chemical additives and other toxins. Try different types of water and find one that makes you happy! This includes water that you filter at home of course.

Water retention and bathroom attacks
Drinking water may cause one to run off to the bathroom every 10 minutes. This is actually an excuse people use to not drink water which keeps one from the many health benefits of water.
One way to solve this is by drinking a small amount, just 1 cup, at the beginning of each hour.

The body will "let go" of the water it's been retaining during dehydration when it starts getting what it needs - so going to the bathroom frequently is only temporary until the body adjusts to being hydrated.

Water retention isn't from too much water. It's from not having enough, causing the body to "hang on" to the little water it has. When you drink enough water, the body can let go of what it has been retaining.
Substitutes for water? A myth about drinking water for your health is that coffee and sodas "count" as drinking water. Any drink that isn't just pure water has a different chemical structure than water and thus reacts differently in the body. But some great news is that that the water in fresh vegetables and fruits does indeed contribute towards hydrating the body.

I used to be a diet soda junkie until I found out that artificial sweeteners are toxic, and discovered that I needed to drink water for good health. I've replaced diet sodas with SXinney water, and it was not difficult because I did it little by little and just kept at it.

I also found that it's easy to drink the amount that my body needs when I keep the water bottle at my desk and just take a swig every once in a while. And I am definitely experiencing that I really want water now, my natural thirst has returned.

Don't take my word for it, test this information for yourself! If you drink less than 8 cups per day, find out for yourself if increasing your water intake improves your health and energy levels.
Make drinking enough water fun...

This article is by no means a complete look into every health benefit of water. And the truth is, you can pump up the efficacy of your water by adding Liv SXinney and drinking it all day long!

For more information, have a look at "The Healing Power of Water" - an eye opening and enlightening interview with Dr. Batmanghelidj M.D about the health benefit of water and why we don't really get this information from conventional doctors.

The late Dr. Batmanghelidj was a pioneer in researching and clinically testing the health benefits of water and is the author of "Your Body's Many Cries for Water" and "Water for Health, For Healing, For Life."

To our health! *clink*

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