Caught in the rush of everyday life, we often tend to forget to drink enough water, which causes us to feel drained of energy, irritated and makes our skin dry. If you ignore these first signals your body gives, the situation may get worse.
Studies have suggested that more than half of American children do not drink enough water, causing them to become dehydrated. This, in turn, often has serious negative effects on their health condition, and even impacts their studying capabilities. Furthermore, it is believed that a quarter of America’s children do not drink water on a daily bases. Which means that they are most likely replacing water with other liquids, such as sodas or energy drinks — which only makes the situation worse.
Dehydration isn’t something that only occurs rarely, when the body is kept without water for extended periods of time — even on a daily basis, if you don’t drink enough water, you will soon realize that you may be feeling extremely tired, staying focused becomes much harder, and you tend to be more irritated.
Lack of focus, irritability, headaches, fever, are only a few of the signals that your body gives you because, in depth, there’s much more to it: metabolic processes become slower, leading to fat accumulation, toxins are eliminated harder, your immunity decreases, the blood becomes thicker, thus increasing the risk of clots, the kidneys work slower, favoring urinary tract infections and stones, digestion is slower, causing nausea, lack of appetite, bloating, intestinal gas. Throughout summer, the risk of becoming dehydrated is even greater, as you tend to sweat more because of the heat.
Fatigue and palpitations
It’s extremely necessary to drink water at the smallest signs of dehydration, such as thirst, dry mouth, tiredness, palpitations, soreness, skin dryness, loss of appetite. Dehydration can also occur as a result of vomiting, diarrhea, fever, sunburn, diabetes. Rehydration is typically done with mineral salts, which restore potassium and sodium concentrations. Having the latter two in low amounts affects the proper functioning of the heart. In more serious situations, such as severe symptoms like fainting, fever over 39 °C, headache, chest, back or abdominal pain, difficulty breathing, the best advice would be to go to the emergency room of a nearby hospital.
Good to know!
Our bodies are made up of around 65% water. We have to make sure we drink enough, as we need water for various physiological and biochemical processes, such as regulating our body temperature, metabolism, eliminating toxins, blood flow, and many others.
Many people seem to ignore the fact that severe dehydration can be a life threatening condition. Even in earlier stages, it can cause a lot of symptoms varying from a simple headache to having chills or feeling fatigued, sometimes misleading us into believing we’re suffering from a very serious condition — when in reality, all we need to do is drink more water.
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