Drink plenty of water during the day & night

By Dr harold Gunatillake-health writer

Drink a glass of water every few hours a day. When you get up in the morning drinking a glass or two of cool water with lemon slice in it helps you to wake up and refresh you for the rest of the day. Hydrating your self has many advantages. Water is life, after all life begins in water. You not only tone your body with hydration, it helps digestion of food and corrects many other metabolic issues. Remember, always when you go for your routine blood tests drink plenty of water to hydrate the blood stream.

Drinking a glass of water before meals dilutes your gastric juice, and minimises cravings and hunger crashes. You tend to eat less and can help weight loss. It aids fat mobilisation and less fat is absorbed.

Water helps to regulate your body temperature. On hot days you sweat and you need to replenish the losses by drinking plenty of water. If your tongue is dry that would be a good sign that you need to drink lot of water. If you do not pass enough urine on a hot day- drink plenty of water to flush your kidneys.
To avoid a heat stroke on a hot day start drinking water from the early hours right through the day. Heat strokes can kill you unless you keep yourself cool and well hydrated.

Keep a bottle of water beside your bed and drink it every time you wake up in the night. Most people sleep with their mouths open, and the mouth including the tongue becomes dry. Drinking plenty of water is the solution to avoid this most uncomfortable situation. Eating low fat unsweetened yogurt (Greek) also comforts you when you have a dry mouth.

Some are more comfortable by drinking warm water. Some say that the Japanese drink warm water with food. I checked up from a Japanese couple on a recent cruise whether that is true. They were quite surprised and I saw them drinking cool water.

Cool water warms up in your stomach and helps you to lose a few calories and warm water will not do that. Chinese do drink warm green tea whilst they eat their food. It is more traditional rather than for any health reason.

Drinking excessively large quantities of water has its side effects Brain oedema is a dangerous side effect. So long as the kidneys function well the excess water you drink may be sent out.
There is a myth going round that you should drink eight glasses of water a day. A sedentary person loses only about 1,500mls of water per day through skin evaporation and excretion. To replenish, that amount of water needs to be consumed. Remember, the food you eat adds about 300 mls of water into your body. Drinking eight glasses of water may send you to the toilet more often.

Alkaline water
Alkaline water is less acidic than tap water and has a pH over seven. It benefits those who suffer from acid reflux syndrome. Other than that the benefits are fictitious, because the body has a mechanism to keep the pH at 7.4

Most popular bottled waters are highly acidic. The body needs to work hard to maintain the normal pH level and the body may have to borrow calcium from the bones to help balance your pH.

Remember the sodas you buy and drink are very acidic. You may have to drink 32 glasses of neutral tap water to neutralize the acidity. It is advisable to stop drinking soda
Sports energy drinks are no better than sodas

Those suffering from heart failure, cirrhosis of the liver and chronic terminal kidney failure need to restrict drinking water. There is water logging in the body and your doctor may have to prescribe a diuretic like Lasix.
Those who are on kidney dialysis may need to restrict drinking water up to a maximum of one litre only to prevent burdening with extra loading the dialyser.

Conclusion: Do not stick to mythical ideas. Just drink the neutral Adam’s Ale as much as you like and do not go to the extreme of consuming 8 or more glasses a day. In most countries tap water is drinkable and that would be the best.