10 Tips for Drinking More Water
Water is vital for life sustainability
This blog post, 10 Tips for Drinking More Water, is going to conclude our series of posts on water and its benefits.
This might come across as a bold statement, but water and its importance is often taken for granted, especially in the more economically developed countries. Water is vital for life sustainability. We wanted to share this message by writing this series of blog posts on the subject.
We kicked off the series on water with Water: The Substance of Life, where we explained why water is so important to living organisms and the role that water plays in human physiology.
Top 10 benefits of drinking water followed. Drinking water has almost got an infinite number of benefits, but for the purposes of this post we highlighted the top 10 benefits of drinking water. However, how much water should you be drinking in order to reap these benefits? We explored this question in the blog post that followed next How much water should we drink?
So, we have seen that water is important to our body and we know how much water we should be drinking to keep our body healthy. However, how do we go about making sure that we drink enough water?
10 tips for drinking more water
Sometimes drinking the daily amount of water required by our body can be a real challenge. Research shows that nearly half of us are dehydrated. That might be due to the nature of our work, our lifestyle and daily habits or simply that we forget to drink water.
Here are 10 simple ways to help you make sure you drink enough water to keep your body hydrated, healthy and functioning properly. Before you know it you can transform yourself into a H2O guzzling machine.
- Make it a ritual – drink a glass of water first thing in the morning. As soon as you wake up in the morning, instead of going straight for the coffee or tea, drink a nice and refreshing glass of water. Water, first thing in the morning, will rehydrate you and will help activate your internal organs.
- Do a hydration check. What colour is your urine? Looking at the colour of your urine is the easiest way to monitor your hydration. Do a mid-day urine check – if your urine is a dark colour, you are dehydrated. If your urine isn’t clear make sure you immediately drink a glass of water and work to hydrate better for the rest of the day. Make it your daily goal to have clear urine by mid-afternoon.
- Make it convenient. Keep a re-fillable water bottle at work. It makes it more convenient. Having a water bottle literally at your fingertips would also work as a reminder to take a sip and you might find yourself unconsciously drinking more water throughout the day. If you prefer to drink from a glass, get a glass you love. Whatever method you choose, do not forget to refill it as soon as it is empty.
- Sip up. Gulping a lot of water can seem daunting as well as generally not being advisable. It’s better to drink small quantities of water. You could get a package of straw to slowly sip it with instead. You can even buy a bottle with a built-in straw. I personally own a couple of CamelBak eddy™
- Keep a water bottle with you at all times. To stay hydrated, keep a small bottle with you at all times. I mentioned in tip #4 that I own two CamelBak eddy™ water bottles. One “lives” in the office whilst I take the other one with me at all times (whenever possible, obviously).
- Spice it up. Make water more interesting by spicing it up. Try adding a squeeze of orange, lemon or lime to your water. Alternatively, freeze peeled pieces of lemons, limes, and oranges or other tasty fruit and use them instead of ice cubes – it is refreshing and helps get in a serving or two of fruit! You can even experiment by adding fresh mint leaves to plain water.
- Set a reminder. It is easy to forget to hydrate until you feel thirsty. By the time you feel thirsty you are already dehydrated. Until it becomes a daily habit, use your smartphone to set a reminder a few times throughout the day. It won’t take long for you to get used to drinking water.
- Combine habits. Get in the habit of drinking a glass of water when you do other things in your daily routine. This is especially useful if you are a coffee or tea drinker. Whilst you are waiting for the kettle to boil make sure, you have a glass of water – coffee and tea are diuretic beverages.
- Drink water with each meal. Before, during and after each meal, make sure you drink at least one glass of water. As well as helping you to stay hydrated, a glass of water before a meal will help jump start your metabolism and aid your digestion. Also, a glass of water gives satiety and can help prevent overeating.
- Finish your day with water. Before you go to bed, drink a glass of water to stay hydrated overnight. If you prefer a hot beverage try hot water with lemon and honey, it is surprisingly tasty.
So raise a glass of water and start conquering your water goals… these are the first steps on the road towards a life of well-being. Start your “wellness” journey today…
