By: Alyson Lundstrom
(Originally published for Gladly Wellness)
“Where there's water on Earth, you find life as we know it”
-Neil deGrasse Tyson
Quick: give your skin a pinch!
Did your skin stand at attention like a tent? Or did it quickly snap back to its resting place? We’ve all heard our wellness community (and our moms! ) pleas to “Drink more water!” If your skin stayed standing, your mom might just be right.
We know we need it, but we might not realize how much water and the lack thereof drastically affects every organ, tissue, and cell in our body. Research has shown that the water that makes up to 60% of our body weight plays a crucial role in:
Creating saliva
Lubricating our joints
Regulating our temperature
Balances your body’s neurochemicals
Creating digestive juices
Most people equate dehydration with vigorous activity, but the truth is water is constantly leaving your body via sweat, urine, and even the simple act of talking and breathing. As a result, dehydration is a sneaky nemesis to our daily wellbeing. Losing even just 1.5% of your body's water can trigger dehydration symptoms like poor concentration, fatigue, headache, and heatstroke.
The mission to stay hydrated is real! Below we break down the top five sneaky dehydrators and how to remedy them.
1. Caffeine
Caffeine is the king of sneaky dehydrators hiding in sodas, tea, energy drinks, supplements, and what some call life itself: coffee.
Caffeine from all of these sources can cause a diuretic effect triggering your kidneys to get rid of excess sodium and water. The tricky part is this can lead to thirst and a craving to drink more of these dehydration offenders.
The Gladly Remedy: Cut the caffeine and temptation to reach for beverages that give organic energy without the caffeine, like Gladly Pineapple Ginger Juice. You're welcome!
2. A Protein Heavy Diet
Protein-heavy diets can work against your hydration goals. Protein-rich foods like red meat, shellfish, and dairy naturally contain a lot of nitrogen. Your body will try to remedy a nitrogen imbalance by getting your kidneys to flush it with water and electrolytes.
Gladly Remedy: Crowd out your protein-heavy plate with other vegetables, grains, and fruits to get your portions back on track.
3. Humidity
Humidity might seem like it's giving you a little moisture life from the outside, is actually causing you to sweat and lose liquids rapidly. This one is sneaky because you might be unable to tell what’s making you feel like a damp rag; the weather or the perspiration!
The Gladly Remedy: Be prepared! Gladly Watermelon is a great light, refreshing way to maintain your fluids and electrolytes while you enjoy the great outdoors!
4. Travel
You're frantically running out the door while mentally cross-checking your packing list, grabbing your coffee, and thinking about everything but your water bottle. Whether its a few hour flight or a weeklong road trip, travel has a way of distracting us from good hydration habits.
Research shows that the human body can lose 1.5-2 liters of water over a 10-hour flight. Not only does air travel involve hours of dry air in the cabin devoid of moisture, but altitude also causes changes in our circularity system, causing dehydration. All of this can be compounded by inflight alcohol and salty snacks, which don’t help hydration goals.
Gladly Remedy: Don’t worry, we’re not going to ask you to cut down on travel! Instead, just be aware that dehydration comes with the territory and set yourself a timer on your smartphone to grab the water and drink up every hour to combat the hydration perils of a long-haul flight.
5. Stress
Stress might just be the sneakiest dehydrator of all, and no, it’s not from the loss of water from the tears you cried at the end of a hard day at work. Instead, stress affects every system in your body. You might find certain injuries start to show up again, a good night's sleep is elusive, and your eating habits are off track. Not only that but remembering to drink eight glasses of water a day might just be the last thing on your mind.
Gladly Remedy: Rest, reset, lean into nature. Grounding is the act of walking in nature barefoot, without a barrier between you and the earth, and has been proven to reduce stress levels.
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