Hydration

Water is vital for life. It is a natural resource that is required by every person to help satisfy our health requirements such as our body composition, mental focus, sleep and recovery.

Water makes up about 75% of your body and 85% of brain tissue so it makes good sense to stay hydrated with good quality drinking water. Every enzyme action and chemical reaction in your body is reliant upon water. Water also plays a key role to maintain a stable environment inside and around our cells allowing us to acquire sufficient nutrition and aiding elimination of waste in our cells.

Water regulates internal body temperature and through the process of sweat production and evaporation, the body can avoid overheating. The blood on the skin surface is cooled and it carries this cooling effect to the body’s interior. Water also lubricates joints and cushions vital organs.

Water helps energize your muscles. Cells that don't maintain their balance of fluids and electrolytes shrivel, which can result in muscle fatigue. When muscle cells don't have adequate water, they don't work as well and performance can suffer.

Your brain is sensitive to water loss and the brain shows signs of malfunction with as little as 1% loss of water. Having a dry mouth is one of the key signs of dehydration. When you are dehydrated your body is already under stress.

To maintain optimal body weight, performance and energy levels you must drink 1litre of water for every 30 kilograms of your body weight each day. If you weigh 60kg then drinking 2 litres of water per day is ideal.

Water should be filtered by either using a house filtration system or by merely buying a jug with a water filter. Brita (www.brita.com.au) offer a number of easy options for filtering water. Filtering your water will minimize heavy metals, chlorine and other waterborne toxins. I am sure you will find the taste much better.

Water should ideally have  hardness factor of 170mg/l or greater and a Total Dissolved Solids of 300. A very simple way of improving the hardness of your water within an acceptable range is to add a pinch of unprocessed sea salt or a bit of clay to your water.  A pinch of unprocessed sea salt added to each litre of water also provides electrolytes and balances water levels inside and outside the cells.