It’s surprisingly easy to forget about proper hydration when it comes to keeping your body healthy and fit. A glance at your dinner plate can tell you whether or not what you’re eating is good for your body, and when you pencil in time for a workout you already know you’re doing what’s right for your body.
But simple habits such as drinking the right amount of water, at the right times, can be easily overlooked. That’s especially true when your daily habits of drinking coffee, tea, soda, and energy drinks may leave you feeling like you’re better hydrated than you actually are. (Here’s a hint: you’re not.)
It’s a pretty safe bet that you’ve already heard how important staying hydrated is time and time again, for your daily life as well as your fitness regimen. But do you really know why hydration is so important? Here are four ways that staying hydrated can have a tremendous impact on your health.
1. Improved Joint Health
We’ll start off our list with a fact that might be a little surprising to you. Staying hydrated has a tremendous impact on the health of your joints, keeping them more flexible, better lubricated, and helping to vastly decrease joint pain. Staying hydrated will not only protect your joints and ease discomfort right now, but it will keep your joints from degenerating as you age, helping you to stay fit and more active in the long run.
2. Better Mental Health
Dehydration can have plenty of unsavory effects on your mental health. It can leave you feeling foggy, it can negatively affect your ability to concentrate, and it can make it harder for you to retain information. At worst, it can have a tremendous impact on your mood, even leading to feelings of irritability and depression. Remember, better mental health leads naturally to better physical health.
3. Keeping Cool
An intense workout can leave anybody feeling the heat, but staying hydrated makes it easier for your body to keep cool. That’s because when you’re dehydrated, it takes a higher environmental temperature to open the blood vessels near your skin that regulate heat and cool you down. Staying hydrated makes for a more comfortable workout as well as a faster recovery time afterwards.
4. Cardiovascular Health
There are lots of things you should be doing to keep your heart healthy – staying hydrated is one of them. Poor hydration can have a negative effect on your blood pressure, and it forces your heart to work overtime just to keep up with your body. Hydration is crucial for both the short term and long term health of your cardiovascular system.
The good news is that staying hydrated is as easy as replacing bad habits with good habits. Instead of coffee, soda, and – yes – sports drinks, making water your go-to source for hydration is a simple solution that will have a tremendous impact on your health.
