Staying hydrated is key to a healthy life. Water affects every aspect of a human being’s functionality. Drinking enough water is sometimes difficult, however. For some people, it is enough to simply drink when they are thirsty, but that’s not always enough.
A variety of factors go into maintaining hydration throughout your day. This leads many people to ask, “How many bottles of water should I drink a day?” The answer isn’t as simple as you might think. Find out more about the health benefits of drinking water and how much you should be drinking daily below.
What Are the Health Benefits of Drinking Water?
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Water is one of the main necessities of human function. It affects every aspect of our lives and is essential to survival. Occasionally drinking water is not enough to live a full and healthy life. You must stay hydrated to see all of the potential health benefits reflected in your body.
Besides keeping you alive, drinking water has many other benefits. The main and most obvious benefit is how hydration affects our physical body. Water fuels your body and staying hydrated improves your physical performance.
Physical performance is of course important if you are an athlete or you exert yourself often. That’s not the only reason you want good physical performance. It is also important to get through daily tasks with minimal movement as it helps regulate body temperature and fights off fatigue.
The often-forgotten benefit of hydration is how it affects our mind. Dehydration increases exhaustion levels and reduces motivation. It also impairs your brain function, affecting mood and concentration. A negative impact on your sleep and memory is also common.
By drinking enough water, you ensure that your mind works as it should. Consistently drinking the right amount of water every day ensures that your brain is at peak performance and can keep up with your demands.
Water has a lot of other benefits as well. It keeps your joints lubricated, which reduces the risk of joint pain and damage. Water also keeps your skin healthy, reducing wrinkling, and acne, and protects against some skin disorders.
With enough water in your system, you’re less likely to succumb to heat stroke, and your blood pressure remains stable. Water also helps your body to absorb nutrients, increase airflow in your lungs, flush waste, and cushion important organs, including the brain.
To put it simply, water is essential for the entire regulation of our body. When you’re chronically dehydrated, you feel and look worse, and you’re putting your joints and organs in danger. For all of these reasons, it’s important to stay hydrated.
How Many Bottles of Water Should I Drink a Day?
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How many bottles of water you should drink per day depends on a variety of factors. It may seem like a simple question, but there is no easy answer. There are several factors you should take into consideration.
These factors include gender, weight, activity levels, environment, and overall health. Each of these helps to create an idea as to the amount of water you should drink. As you might imagine, this makes the calculation complex.
In general, men should drink more than women. Those who weigh more, are more active or have worse health should also drink more water than the average. If you are in a dry climate, you should also consider that and drink more water to stay hydrated.
When you factor all of these things together, you get a more concrete answer. The baseline for hydration would be about eight cups (64 ounces) of water per day for the average person to stay hydrated.
This is only the baseline, though. In reality, most men need roughly 15.5 cups (125 ounces) and women need 11.5 cups (91 ounces). However, remember to take into consideration all of the other things that affect your daily life as listed above, and adjust your water intake as needed.
It’s also important to note that while there is a chance of drinking too much water, it’s very rare for the average person. In general, you don’t want to drink more than three cups (24 ounces) of water in an hour. You definitely don’t want to drink more than 84.5 cups (676 ounces) in a day, even with heavy exercise.
As you can see, there’s a large difference between 15.5 cups and 84.5 cups. So unless you’re drinking water constantly all day, you’re likely never going to hit that number. This is true even if you account for the water in your food.
Don’t worry about drinking too much water for now. Instead, focus on drinking enough water to keep your body hydrated and feeling better.