Why is it so critical that we all do everything in our power to avoid getting dehydrated? Simple, we need to remain fully hydrated at all times because not doing so will negatively affect our mental and physical health.
It is important therefore to ensure that we do not get dehydrated, and this is relatively simple to do in the following easy ways:
- Do Not Allow Yourself to Get Thirsty
Thirst is the best indicator that you need to drink water, but thirst is actually also a symptom of dehydration – by the time you feel thirst you are actually already around 2% dehydrated. This means that dehydration is already starting to impact how your mind and body are performing.
Dehydration affects everyone at some stage or the other, and staying properly hydrated is just as critical for those who work behind a computer all day as it is for athletes, who can lose up to 8 % of their body weight in sweat during sustained physical exercise.
Thirst is your body’s way of telling you that you are dehydrated. Other signs of dehydration include dry eyes, headaches or dizziness, altered mood, muscle cramping, fever or lack of sweat.
- Check the Colour of Your Urine
The best way to tell if you are sufficiently hydrated or not is the colour of your urine. Colourless or pale yellow urine is signifies that you are drinking sufficient water, but if your urine is dark yellow to a brownish colour you are dehydrated and need to urgently drink some water.
Basically, the paler your urine the better and the darker your urine the more dehydrated you are.
- Consume Foods with High Water Content
There is good news for those of you who do not really like drinking water and struggle to drink sufficient on a daily basis – not all your liquid needs to come from drinking water.
Around 20% of our water already comes from the food that we eat, but if you want to increase this percentage, you need to eat more fruit and veg that has a high water content. Some fruits and vegetables contain more than 90% water.
Make sure that you eat lots of tomatoes, lettuce, celery, radishes, green peppers, cauliflower, watermelon, spinach, star fruit, strawberries, and broccoli.
