The Water Series: Part Two

The Importance of Proper Hydration 💧

Thank you for joining The Holistic Alternative, a holistic health community geared towards providing you with applicable tools for your health and well-being 💪. This bi-weekly newsletter will provide you with resources and information that you can use to positively impact your overall health 🙌

On “The Water Series: Part One”, we talked about tap water, water quality and the importance of drinking clean water.

In part two of this series, we will further discuss the importance of this vital nutrient and how to properly hydrate 🤗

Did you know 😲: Mild to moderate dehydration is one of the most widespread medical conditions. Despite being preventable, it affects millions of individuals in the United States alone. While severe dehydration can be life-threatening, our focus here is on the milder forms often encountered in our daily routines. Below, we dive into surprising facts about dehydration 🤯.

1. About 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated: Most Americans fall short of meeting the recommended hydration levels, typically consuming only about 2.5 cups of water daily. It’s very important to note that not all fluids are created equally; beverages like sodas, coffees, and other commonly consumed beverages do not contribute to rehydration, and many options high in sugar and natural flavors may actually exacerbate dehydration 😳.

2. Dehydration causes fatigue 🥱: We know this may be common sense, but we feel that it is important to mention that chronic fatigue is one of the main symptom of mild to moderate dehydration. As a hard-working society, many of us are guilty of over-caffeinating before properly hydrating, especially in the morning! Check out our pro-health tips below to flip this switch! 👇

3. Dehydration means reduced cognitive function 🧠 🫠

   Mild to moderate dehydration in our bodies causes stress and reduced cognitive functioning, especially in vulnerable populations like children and the elderly population. According to this study, being dehydrated by just 2% impairs performance in tasks that require attention, psychomotor, and immediate memory skills. Moreover, this study here observed the negative effects of dehydration on measures of spatial planning, response inhibition, attention, and noted that after adequate rehydration, cognitive impairment in choice reaction time appears to be no longer present 🤯.

4. Dehydration slows down your metabolism 🧬: Water not only hydrates every cell of our body, but it also plays a crucial role in supporting the lymphatic system, which is responsible for carrying out many toxins within our bodies. The lymphatic system relies on adequate hydration to function optimally. Water helps maintain the volume and composition of lymph fluid, which is essential for immune function, toxin removal, and waste elimination. Staying hydrated ensures that lymphatic vessels can efficiently transport lymph throughout the body, aiding in the removal of cellular waste and supporting overall health 💪.

How to properly Hydrate?

• So, do we all just start drinking a gallon a day 🧐? No! A general rule of thumb as mentioned by Paul Chek is his book How to Eat, Move and Be Healthy is to drink half of your body weight (in pounds) in ounces. For example, if you weigh 200 lbs, you should drink about 100 ounces of water a day. There isn’t a hard set rule for how much water everyone should be drinking, it is personalized to your individual needs! 😄

• Moreover, to align hydration with the body’s circadian rhythm (for more details, check out our recent newsletter on sleep 😁), Dr. Andrew Huberman suggest drinking 8 ounces (one cup) of fluids per hour for the initial 10 hours of your day. This method can help most people combat dehydration by achieving an intake of 80 ounces within the first 10 hours. However, these are averages, so it’s unnecessary to rigidly adhere to consuming exactly 8 ounces every hour. Instead, consider starting with 16 ounces upon waking, followed by 8 ounces a few hours later, another 32 ounces later on, and so forth.

The Holistic Alternative Pro Health Tip 💪

While we sleep, our bodies undergo a fasting period, abstaining from both food and water. Replenishing fluids upon waking is crucial for supporting vital functions. We recommend beginning your day with a refreshing blend of clean, filtered water at either hot or room temperature, combined with high-quality sea salt and lemon juice. This concoction provides essential minerals from the sea salt, which support vital bodily processes, while the addition of lemon juice aids in hydration and digestion. We recommend about half a lemon squeezed with a pinch of sea salt in about 8-16 ounces of water.

• For our Athletes 🏋️‍♀️: A mere 1 to 2 percent loss of fluid in the body may lead to mild dehydration, which can happen very quickly if one participates in moderate to rigorous exercise. Before reaching for gatorade or another widely consumed performance drink, please take a moment to read the ingredients to see what you’re putting in your body. You might be shocked to find additives like Blue 1, Red 40 or Yellow 5 😳! Nature provides us with simple and beneficial ingredients that we can combine to craft our own “natural gatorade”. There are an abundance of excellent concoctions available, one simple option we recommend is: 8 ounces of water, 8 ounces of coconut water 🥥, the juice of ½ lemon 🍋, ½ juiced pineapple 🍍 or 1 orange 🍊, 3 juiced kiwis 🥝 

Support Local Business and Resources

• With Farmers Market peak season upon us, we recommend getting as many things for your kitchen as you can from your local market! Here you can find local farmers markets by your specific area, and you can find local organic goods to use to help hydrate yourself and your family 🙌

• Find A Spring - Use Find A Spring to visit the best cold and hot springsFind A Spring is a user-generated map of cold and hot springs. We provide locations, photos, reviews, water test results, comments and more! findaspring.org

• We highly recommend filtering your water through reverse osmosis or water distillation. Freedrinkingwater.com has an abundance of water filtration options to ensure you are drinking high quality, chemical free water!

DISCLAIMER: The Holistic Alternative Newsletter is for general educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of giving medical advice, and no nurse/patient relationship is formed. The content of this newsletter is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical condition they may have and should seek the assistance of their health care professionals for any such conditions.