Feeling thirsty and wanting to drink is a natural physiological reaction. However, modern people, in the midst of their busy lives, often forget to drink water.
Water to the body is as important as oxygen and sunlight! Giving your body water is the best way to prolong life; giving your body water is the fundamental principle for beautiful skin. For the sake of health and beauty, how can you not drink water?
Every morning when you get to the office, the first thing you do is turn on the computer, then sit down and stare at the screen for hours on end, completely forgetting to pour yourself a drink to water. Some people work for 8 to 10 hours a day and can't even manage to drink 2 glasses of water. It's only when they get sick for a doctor's visit or during a health check-up that they find out they have high uric acid, and the doctor finally has the chance to warn you: "You usually drink too little water!" Drink water even if you're not thirsty.
Life tissues are made up of cells. Cells not only contain a large amount of water internally, but are also surrounded by fluid externally, so water is very important for cellular activity.
Because water is the best solvent, chemical reactions can only proceed easily after substances are dissolved in it. The water in cells also has a slight degree of dissociation, dissociating into H+ and OH-. The concentration of H+ and OH- in the solution determines its pH, which in turn affects the action of enzymes within the cell.
If cells can maintain a circulation and metabolism with "good water," their activity, ability to expel viruses and pollutants, and immunity will be greatly enhanced. If the genetic material DNA in the cells is maintained in a normal state, one will not get sick. It is clear that good water is indeed the best resonant carrier for maintaining the normal stability of the body's organs and cells.
Water also acts like a scavenger in the human body, participating in metabolism and expelling waste. If you don't drink enough water, your body's metabolic processes will slow down and become sluggish. Waste will accumulate in the body, leading to problems like constipation and kidney stones, and it will also make you feel mentally drained and easily tired.
Therefore, drinking water correctly is a great way to maintain health. Even if you don't feel thirsty, you should still drink.
Plan your own drinking schedule
Zhao Sizi, a nutritionist, believes that the secret to health lies in the two words "drink" and "eat." She says that as long as you drink and eat correctly, and don't overdo it with exercise, that's the best way to stay healthy. Her long-standing practice of drinking for health is based on drinking the right water at the right time, not just when she's thirsty.
Zhao Sizi points out that the operation of all the body's meridians is closely related to time. Only by drinking at the right time can the body's detoxification and metabolic effects be maximized. During the day, the best times to drink water are from 7 to 9 AM and from 2 to 5 PM. She fills a thermos with 500cc of hot water the night before and drinks it upon waking. From 2 to 5 PM, it's the time when the bladder meridian is active, which is also the best time for detoxification. She drinks 800-1000CC of water during this period and hardly drinks any water in the evening.
The amount and frequency of water a person drinks in a day should be determined by their excretion volume. But no matter what, you should drink water at least 4 times a day. According to the principles of natural therapy time-energy nutrition, the first time you need to drink water is in the morning after waking up. This is because during about eight hours of sleep, the body's water is depleted through sweating and urine formation, leaving the blood in a dehydrated state. It's best to drink water first. Then, after getting to the office, pour 600cc of water to have on hand and drink it whenever you have a chance, finishing it preferably before lunch. At 4 or 5 PM, replenish your body's fluids again. It's also good to drink water after getting home from work or before bedtime, although children and the elderly should avoid drinking water before bed to avoid affecting their sleep quality. In addition, after exercise or heavy sweating, you must replenish fluids even if you don't feel thirsty, or alternate between water and sports drinks according to personal needs and habits.
But how much water should you actually drink? Zhao Sizi emphasizes that the "eight glasses of water" rule is not universal for everyone. The heavier a person is, the more water they need for metabolism and detoxification. The simplest way to calculate is to multiply your weight by 30, which gives you the amount in CC that your body needs.
If you don't like drinking plain water, Lin Yanqiu, president of Femos International Beauty Institution, who focuses on health, recommends drinking herbal teas: "The effect of drinking tea is similar to aromatherapy with essential oils. Mixing two or three different plants like pine cones, lavender, etc., has a great detoxifying effect!"
You can tell for yourself if the water is good
The timing, quantity, and quality of your water intake must be correct. In fact, you yourself are the best judge of what good water feels like. President Lin Yanqiu says: "Before I drink water, I first rinse my mouth and feel the water rolling in my mouth. If it feels smooth, comfortable, and clean, it's good water. Good water used to make tea is especially refreshing and thirst-quenching."
Professor Cai Renda, a lecturer at the Institute of Natural Medicine at Nanhua University, summarizes several principles for identifying good water: after drinking, saliva increases and becomes sweeter; the tongue and throat are less dry; the eyes feel brighter, or the feeling of fatigue, soreness, and dryness is reduced; at the same time, there is a feeling of improved energy and physical strength.
Everyone knows that drinking water is to replenish the fluids lost from the body through sweat and urination, and to obtain minerals from the water. However, many people don't realize that water is also a source of oxygen for us. If you drink water with high oxygen content, the body will feel more relaxed, pain will be relieved, and inflammatory reactions will also decrease. It's worth mentioning that water with high mineral and oxygen content doesn't look transparent and colorless, but appears slightly misty with carbonated-like oxygen bubbles.
The market for water beverages is五花八门 (a dazzling array)
"Drink more plain water" is a recommendation affirmed by food and nutrition experts. Since tap water is not suitable for drinking directly, modern people, for convenience, buy ready-made commercial water beverages. In areas with poor water quality, even household drinking water has to be purchased or water purifiers must be used.
Pure water, distilled water, mineral water, maifan stone water, small molecule water, alkaline ion water, etc. The number of commercial water products is innumerable. Companies like Uni-President, Wei Chuan, Yes, Yi Kang, Ching Jing, Kin-Chan, Taishan, Taiwan Sugar, Taiwan Salt, Heysong, and Wei Tan all offer mineral water or water beverages, with prices ranging from 11 to nearly 50 NT dollars. They all compete on purity and also put effort into ingredients and technology. But have you ever carefully researched what the difference is between these waters? Choosing water that is beneficial for the modern constitution seems simple, but it requires first getting to know the contents of various types of drinking water!
Wang Zhiyuan, an expert in water purification material research, points out that most people have only a superficial understanding of the different types of drinking water. For example, many people think that distilled pure water is the cleanest and can be drunk with peace of mind, but they don't realize that while filtering out heavy metals and other impurities, it may also completely remove beneficial natural minerals (like calcium and magnesium), and long-term consumption is not good for your health.
Characteristics of good water: Slightly alkaline, small molecules
Due to refined diets and eating out, modern people suffer from a severe deficiency of vitamins and minerals. Therefore, the nutrition community constantly reminds us that it's best to drink slightly alkaline mineral water to supplement the minerals the body needs and balance the body's pH levels.
Why is slightly alkaline better? Wang Zhiyuan explains that because the water molecule clusters become smaller, they can easily enter and exit cells, dissolve metabolic waste, have higher energy, and strong thermal conductivity, which helps extract effective nutrients from food. It contains highly ionized minerals, which make water molecules extremely small, rearranged neatly, and activated. Acidic molecules cannot bind with elements like hydrogen and sulfur, so the water molecules present as natural mineral alkalinity. When drinking alkaline water, you won't ingest carcinogenic substances like trihalomethanes, and it retains the useful minerals in the water, supplying the body with various minerals it needs (such as potassium, sodium, calcium, etc.). Alkaline water can also eliminate over 70% of abnormally generated free radicals in the blood, which is much stronger than any current antioxidant, making it the best defense weapon against the many chronic diseases caused by environmental pollution for modern people.
Another often-emphasized characteristic of good water is "small molecules." Wang Zhiyuan states that 80% of the blood is water. If the blood's energy is low, the water molecules in the blood cluster into inert water (four hydrogen molecules and one oxygen molecule combined), which cannot pass through the cell membrane. Activated small molecule water is independent water molecules (two hydrogen molecules and one oxygen molecule combined), which increases the body's oxygen content, allowing cells to regain vitality, making one feel more energetic and mentally sharp, thereby improving the body's ability to resist disease and slow down aging. At the same time, independent water molecules can move freely between cells, and through resonance, are converted into heat, causing the temperature of the deep subcutaneous layer to rise slightly, improving the microcirculatory system, which is more conducive to excreting the waste produced by metabolism and reducing the burden on the liver and kidneys.
As for some advertisements that say water with osmotic pressure equal to the body's fluids is easier to absorb, Dr. Lin Jie-liang from the Department of Toxicology at Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital explains: when the body loses water, the internal osmotic pressure rises, stimulating the hypothalamus's osmoreceptor in the brain, which controls thirst, causing the sensation of thirst. At this point, supplementing with low osmotic pressure water (like pure water) will balance the system and quench thirst. If you drink water with the same osmotic pressure, the thirst-quenching effect is actually less noticeable.
How to drink water
Don't wait until you're thirsty to drink. This is a warning signal, like a machine running out of oil and parts wearing out (toxins have already formed in the body). People who forget to drink or don't like to drink should limit themselves to drinking at least 4-6 times of water a day, each time 300-500cc.
Hold each sip in your mouth before swallowing, preferably letting it wet the entire mouth. This can use a biofeedback mechanism to communicate with the thirst center, letting the body's cells know that water is about to enter the body so they can absorb it fully.
Drink slowly and in small, unhurried sips. The body is like a furnace; if you pour water on it, smoke (toxins) will immediately rise. This gives the body plenty of time for good metabolism to expel toxins.
Warm water is more thirst-quenching than ice water. Warm water is less irritating to the body, and the body doesn't need an extra reaction to complete a better biofeedback response to the thirst center, so it helps with absorption and utilization, making it more thirst-quenching.
Unless you have special health issues, try not to use the water content from other beverages to replace plain water. The water from other beverages is used to supplement the body's insensible water loss (such as from breathing, skin evaporation, etc.).