Are You Chronically Dehydrated & Don't Know It?

Throughout each day, your body loses water through your urine and sweat glands, even when you’ don’t feel yourself sweating. You therefore need to constantly replenish this fluid. Coffee and soda do not do the job of rehydrating the body.

Coffee and soda are typically high in caffeine, which acts as a diuretic that can dehydrate you. Sodas, fruit juices and other sweetened beverages are primary sources of fructose, which will only deteriorate your health.
The key is to drink pure water. But just how much water do you need each day? You may have heard the repeated guideline of eight glasses of water a day, but that amount may be too much for some and not enough for others.

Your water requirement can also vary wildly from day to day depending on a number of factors, such as your activity level and weather conditions.
Fortunately, your body is equipped with a mechanism that tells you when you need to replenish your water supply. It’s called thirst. And there’s also a simple way to gauge whether or not you need to drink more water even though you may not be feeling thirsty.

How to Read the Signs for Your Body’s Water Needs:

Once your body has lost between 1 - 2% of its total water content, it will signal its needs by making you feel thirsty. Using thirst as a guide to how much water you need to drink is a good way to ensure your individual needs are met, day-by-day.

However, by the time your thirst mechanism kicks in you may already be a bit dehydrated. Most studies show that about 2/3 of us are dehydrated and need to drink more water.

This is particularly true for the elderly. Therefore, it’s also wise to learn some of the other, more subtle, signals your body sends.

Indications that you need to drink more water:

1. Fatigue and/or mood swings
2. Hunger even though you’ve recently eaten
3. Back or joint aches
4. Dull, dry skin and/or pronounced wrinkles
5. Infrequent urination; dark, concentrated urine and/or constipation

The Color of Your Urine Is an Important Marker:

Besides listening to your thirst, a good rule of thumb is to look at the color of your urine. You should be drinking enough water to turn your urine a light-colored yellow.

Dark-colored urine is a sign that your kidneys are retaining fluids in order to maintain your bodily functions, which includes detoxification. As a result, your urine will seem highly concentrated and dark in color. You may also urinate less frequently, for the same reason.

Since your thirst mechanism tends to become less efficient with age, older adults need to pay more careful attention to the color of their urine to ensure adequate water intake.

Bear in mind that riboflavin, vitamin B2, which is also found in most multi-vitamins, will turn your urine a bright, almost fluorescent yellow. So if you’re taking supplements containing B2, it may be more difficult to judge by the color of your urine.

Symptoms of Chronic Dehydration:

The primary symptoms of dehydration are: thirst, dry skin, dark colored urine and fatigue. But there are also a number of commonly overlooked symptoms that may suggest you’re suffering from more or less chronic dehydration.

Symptoms of chronic dehydration include:

1. Digestive disturbances such as heartburn and constipation
2. Confusion and/or anxiety
3. Urinary tract infections
4. Premature aging
5. High cholesterol

Where can you find good quality water? Tap water contains many pollutants and bottled water can have high levels of BPA, which is an estrogen mimicker. Pure mountain stream water is great, but it isn’t that easy to come by, so how can you get pure water easily and inexpensively?. Pure and inexpensive water can be obtained by using a good quality reverse osmosis filtration system and then adding back the lost minerals with a product such as this ionic mineral and pH booster, which not only adds ionic minerals, but also oxygenates and alkalizes the water too.

A good source

This is much less expensive than buying bottled water and much healthier for you too.

Remember to listen to your body. Thirst is an obvious signal that it’s high time to replenish your fluids. Fatigue and moodiness can also indicate you need to drink more water. Probably the best way to gauge your water needs however, is to observe the color of your urine and how frequently you urinate. On average, a healthy number of bathroom visits is around seven or eight per day, and you want the color of your urine to be a light, pale yellow.

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