What we drink and how many times we drink is the key to a healthy and happy life. Too often, though, many of us think of only two elements as we go through our daily challenges in work or at home: food and fitness. It does not matter how many diet plans we missed or exercise regimens that we did not complete; at the back of our minds, we believe that it is essential to eat the right foods and perform physical activities regularly if we are to meet the demands in our personal and professional spheres.
All this is well and good, but it still lacks the third, and unfortunately often-ignored, aspect that is also important to our physical and mental well-being: hydration. In the medical sense, hydration means “adding water to our body.” To many of us, this means following the age-old rule taught to us since childhood that is to drink eight glasses of water a day. It is a healthy advice that we try to follow but often overlook. How many of us do make it a point to take that much amount of water intake?
The only time we do become aware of the need to fill up our body with fluid is when we engage in physical activity. Thirty minutes of pounding the treadmill at the gym, whipping up a storm in dance class, or just a brisk walk around the neighborhood – the minute sweat breaks out of our body and the pangs of thirst set in, that’s when we tend to look for the nearest water cooler or, if we are smart, grab the thermos we brought with us.