Water Relieves Stress

There are many important ways in which water relieves stress.

• Second to air, water is your body’s most vital substance. Without water, your body becomes dehydrated. It reacts by producing powerful hormones such as adrenalin and cortisone. These are the hormones produced in fight/flight situations. As you can imagine, to have these hormones flowing through your body on a continuous basis is very stress inducing. Therefore, drinking water relieves stress.

• When you are dehydrated it affects many bodily functions. Your body is 75% water, so it can only work properly if it has enough water. Water is to the body what oil is to a car. If you put no oil in your car, eventually the engine will completely seize up and stop working. If you do not put water in your body, it will also eventually seize up and stop working. Fortunately for us, our bodies are more forgiving than our cars and will continue working for a long period of time without enough water. But without enough water, your body will be under stress and, therefore, so will you and your children.

• Other drinks do not work in the body like water does. Water is the only substance you can put in your body that does not have to go through the digestive process. When you drink a glass or water it passes straight through your stomach and then into your small intestine where most of it goes through the walls of your intestines and into your blood stream. Any other drink has to be digested so that the water can be separated from the other substances in the drink. By the time the water has been separated it is much further down your digestive system before it enters the blood stream and less of it is left for hydrating your body. Some drinks like tea and coffee, actually dehydrate you because your body has to use all the water in the drink to process the caffeine and other chemicals in it. Sugary drinks will send your blood sugar very high and this makes your body use a lot of water to help bring your blood sugar down to a safe level. Children are particularly affected as their bodies are smaller and they are more inclined to drink a lot of sugary drinks.

• If you do not drink enough water, your body will lose its natural thirst signal. Instead knowing that you are thirsty, you are more likely to think that you are hungry. As a result, you will end up eating when you need to drink. As digesting food uses up lots of water you will end up even more dehydrated. This is also one of the reasons why being dehydrated can make you put on weight.

• When your body is dehydrated your cells can lose more than 28% of their water. Even though this is happening, it is not obvious. In fact, in order to conserve what water yu do have your body may begin to retain water, leaving you with swollen ankles and legs, and a puffy face. Also, your kidneys may hold onto water, which could result in a build up of harmful waste products.

• Lack of water in your body will also result in increased pain. When you are dehydrated your brain will send the water to where it is most needed for your survival. To do this it uses a neurotransmitter called histamine. When histamine comes into contact with your pain sensing nerves it will trigger strong pain sensations. So here is a clear situation in which drinking water relieves stress.

• Most important of all is your brain. Your brain has a greater need of water than any other part of your body. Brain cells are about 85% water. In order to work well, the brain needs water which it uses to create energy within its cells along with glucose. Lack of water in the brain can lead to not being able to think clearly, anxiety, anger and even depression. You can imagine how badly this can affect your children’s ability to learn effectively. Drinking water relieves stress in your child's brain.

I think it is clear from the above that drinking water relieves stress but…..

What kind of water should you drink?

It is important for your family’s health to drink the purest water you can. Most of the water that comes out of the tap is heavily chlorinated. In fact, sometimes there is so much chlorine in it that you can smell it. Water that has either been purified through filtration, reverse osmosis or distillation is the best for you.

Filtration Using a jug filter, such as a Brita water filter, will remove the chlorine from your water. Make sure that you change the filter in these jugs regularly because otherwise toxins will overwhelm the filter and end up back in the water. You can also get water filters that can be fitted under your sink.

Reverse Osmosis tends to be a bit more efficient than filtration. A good system will remove 99.9% of all contaminants in the water.

Distillation is the process of turning water into steam and then back into water. Doing this completely purifies the water but leaves none of the natural minerals in it. However, you can add just a few grains or brown basmati rice to the water and leave them to soak and this, amazingly enough, will add lots of minerals to the water.

Another quick and easy way of getting rid of chlorine from your water is to add vitamin C. 1 gram of Vitamins C per 100 gallons of water will do the job. Which is useful if you want to get rid of the chlorine in your bath water!

Rehydrate slowly

If you have not been drinking plenty of water already, then it is important to start slowly and not launch straight into drinking a liter and a half a day. If you start drinking more than your kidneys can cope with then the overload can cause serious problems. The idea is that water relieves stress rather than causing it!! Make sure you follow the guidelines below:

1. Add one glass of water per day to the amount you usually drink.

2. Make sure you are urinating more often as you drink more.

3. If not then reduce the amount you introduce to half a glass a day.

4. Also, if you notice any swelling in your ankles or around your eyes reduce the amount of water you are drinking and add in a small amount more each day.

5. Increasing the amount of water you drink will enable your body to remove excess salt. Therefore, after a couple of weeks of increased water it is a good idea to start adding a little unrefined (sea salt) to your diet.

Try drinking more water to prove to yourself that water relieves stress.

Source: family-stress-relief-guide.com

Collected by Nhu-Vu SAPUWA