The majority nowadays are confused about the intake of water, ie; how much water one should drink? in health articles, news, television health programs, etc they say one should drink 2 litres of water a day, in some articles daily 4 litres a day, and some other social media posts say one should drink 1 litre in the morning in an empty stomach, like that and so on, the advice really doesn’t have an end. Is that true? So let’s find out the truth.
General Energy required for the proper functioning of our body can be divided into three, they are
1. Air Energy (breathing and through the skin also)
2. Water Energy (drinking, water content from breath and also from food, through the skin also)
3. Food Energy
Before reading further don’t consider our body as a machine, our body has all the intelligence to get its functions done in the proper way.
Everybody accepts only scientific findings so let’s move on to some science behind drinking water, as I mentioned earlier for the proper functioning of our body energy is required, energy is derived from food, water and air. We all know having too much food can cause all sorts of issues but what about the other two intakes (water, and air)?
For easy understanding, consider the case of a car. We usually watch the fuel gauge during our ride right? and if it’s full do we need to worry? no right? but when the gauge level reaches a low limit we fill our car, right? The man-made car has the quality/ability to show/inform the creator(we) that I’m(car) dying out of fuel so please fill in otherwise I will be out of energy(fuel). So when our body loses the energy to maintain an equilibrium does the body informs us of its requirements? Sure, if it needs the energy from food one will feel hunger, if the energy is required from the water we feel thirsty and if it’s from air one will breathe faster (an involuntary process).
Another example, Consider we reached Ooty or some other hill stations during winter or consider a rainy day if you never visited Ooty. Do you feel thirst during this situation as you normally feel? Do you remember those days? If not try to analyze the coming days in your life. One will drink one or two glasses of water for the whole day. But why? If we check the water level of blood it will be normal (according to science). But how does the water/fluid come into blood? As I mentioned at the beginning of the post our body is not a machine, it has intelligence. In the winter/rainy day scenario, our skin and lungs absorb/ acquired enough water content from the air for the proper functioning of the body.
The water excretion in humans – the skin, lungs, and kidneys.
Water is mainly eliminated from the body as:
| urine – mainly with the help of kidneys (Water Energy) |
| sweat – from the sweat glands, mainly with the help of the heart and lungs (Fire energy & Air Energy) |
| water vapour – from the lungs when we exhale (Air energy) |
We cannot voluntarily control the elimination of water by the lungs or skin. For example, in a hot climate, your body sweats to help keep you cool. In the same way, when we breathe out we lose water vapour, and we cannot alter the amount our body eliminates.
Let’s get deeper into our body’s intelligence.
Body temperature is controlled by our life energy. When our body’s intelligence detects that our body is too hot, the response is that the body begins to sweat to try and reduce the temperature back to the correct level. Once the body temperature is back to the correct level, sweating will stop. In the opposite way, if the body is too cold then the response is that the body begins to shiver to try and raise the temperature back to the correct level. Once the body temperature is back to the correct level the shivering will stop.
So when should we drink water? According to science, there are so many findings which support the above-mentioned facts like subfornical organ (SFO neurons), mouth to brain acid-taste receptors actions and so on…, According to the new study by the Biomedicine Discovery Institute at Monash University in Australia published the finding in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Suggests that one should only drink when feeling thirsty, drinking too much water can cause significant harm, it can lead to cerebral edema (excess fluid in the brain), hyponatremia, for example, where blood sodium levels are abnormally low. There have been cases when athletes in marathons were told to load up with water and died, in certain circumstances, because they slavishly followed these recommendations and drank far in excess of need. The researchers say their findings suggest that when it comes to water intake, we may fare better by listening to the body’s needs.
According to ancient Chinese wisdom, too much water in our body can reduce the fire energy and will affect the water-energy (kidney/urinary bladder) of our body which in turn will affect detoxification and which may lead to the formation of kidney stones and also joint pain. Drinking too much water can lead to proteinuria and polyuria. It’s a good thing that our body’s intelligence knows when to tell us when we have had enough to drink.
If we just do what our body demands us to we’ll probably get it right – just drink according to thirst rather than so-called scientific researched-based water intake schedule.
If you want to keep things simple, these guidelines should apply to the majority of people:
- When you’re thirsty, drink.
- When you’re not thirsty anymore, stop.
- That’s it! “Drink according to your thirst “
