Three Health Benefits to Drinking Water

By: Marissa Adamo

There are numerous health benefits to drinking water. Water helps with skincare, stomach health, kidney function, body temperature, bone health, oxygen and breathing, heart health, and so on.

Three alarming benefits that got me into drinking water are that water helps improve physical performance, detoxification, and improves brain functionality. All three benefits that I will be sharing that can help benefit students, like me, excel in their performance at school.

First, What is Water?

Water consists of 70% of the earth’s surface, and about 95% is within oceans. All living organisms need water for their metabolic processes, including us. We have about 60% of water by weight in our bodies. Our brains have about 70%, lungs 80%, skin 60%, muscles and kidneys 80%, and bones have roughly 30% of water.

How do you Monitor your Hydration?

Moreover, drinking water is a vital part of keeping our bodies healthy. We need to drink about half of our body weight in ounces each day to upkeep our hydration levels and maintain healthy body function.

The American College of Sports Medicine says a good rule of thumb to check if you are dehydrated is to check your urine color. If your urine is dark yellow, that can signal that you are dehydrated, whereas if your urine is clear, you are hydrated.

Helps Maximize Physical Performance

One main benefit of drinking water is it helps maximize physical performance. If you lose 2% of your body’s water content, dehydration can impact an athlete’s performance. Athletes can lose up to 6–10% of their water weight from sweat, causing dehydration effects.

Dehydration can reduce motivation, increase low body temperature, increased fatigue, and mental weakness. As a student-athlete, I notice that I notice poor coordination, stress, cramps, and exhaustion if I do not drink enough water when I work out.

That is why The American College of Sports Medicine points out you need to drink 17–20 ounces of water before, 7–10 ounces during, and 8 ounces after exercise.

Helps Affect Energy Levels and Brain Function

Drinking water can improve brain function in four ways: faster thinking, boosts concentration, balance mood, and emotions, and improves sleep.

Your Brain Will Work Faster

Studies have shown that if you are only one percent dehydrated, you will likely have a five percent decrease in cognitive function. Further studies have shown that prolonged dehydration causes brain cells to shrink in size and mass.

The brain has no place to store water, so our minds will function at an optimal level when we hydrate. Thus, we can memorize details, infer information, make conclusions, and create long-term memories.

Our brains are significantly dehydrated at night because we spend seven or more hours sleeping-an abundance of time for our bodies to lose water. That is why I always drink a glass of water first thing when I wake up in the morning to keep my brain at optimum capacity.

Water Boosts Your Concentration

Your brain utilizes water as a resource when you are concentrating. Every 45 minutes, without a sip of water, your attention span begins to decline. It becomes more difficult to react as quickly to stimuli as your memory slows down.

Water is essential for delivering nutrients to the brain and for removing toxins. When you drink water, the exchange of nutrients and toxins will be more efficient and improve mental alertness.

That is why I always have a bottle of water next to me during class, and while I study, I make sure to take a few water sips every thirty minutes. Drinking water helps improve my focus and retain valuable information I learn in the classroom.

Water Helps Boosts Mood and Emotions

Drinking water improves your mental health. Hydration balances your chemical processes, allowing your cells to stay active and find the right balance. Water increases the temperature in your brain and gets rid of dead cells.

Drinking a cup or two will not magically change your mood. As long as you keep hydrated by taking little by little each day, you will begin to see improvement with your mental health over time.

Water Helps you Sleep

Water increases blood flow to your brain, boosting your brain’s oxygenation. In more simple terms, it means it reduces stress and calms it down.

As a student-athlete, getting sleep is essential so that my muscles can recover and can refuel my energy for the next day. Since drinking water also reduces stress, I am not restless before bed.

Helps with Weight Loss and with Detoxification

Water is a natural appetite suppressant. Water helps take up space in the stomach, sending signals to the brain that it is full. Many misconceptions we make throughout the day are we think we are hungry, but we are thirsty in reality.

Other research has shown that water increases burning calories. The body cannot properly metabolize stored fat or carbohydrates without it. Drinking water at cold or room temperature increases the body’s resting energy expenditure by heating the water for digestion.

Water helps our bodies flush out excess waste. For instance, hydration allows kidneys to filter out toxins and help the body recover from digestive problems such as diarrhea and ingestion.

Summary

Water has numerous benefits to upkeep our physical and mental health, which can contribute to our performance during the academic year. Drinking water helps me excel with learning material, excel at swim practice, and excel in keeping a positive attitude.

As we live during a global pandemic, we must take care of our bodies. Several devastating events are happening in our world that we cannot control that affect our mental and physical health — but what is in our control is we can take care of ourselves and our personal lives.