- Category: Water Articles
You depend on water for survival. Water makes up over 70% of your body. Every single cell, membrane, and organ requires water to function properly. You use water to create blood plasma, transfer chemicals to where they are needed, as a catalyst for various functions, to control body temperature, eliminate wastes and toxins, and a plethora of other functions
After water is used, it leaves the body through various means and processes. If not replaced, you will become dehydrated, which means your body does not have enough water to function at an optimal level. If the situation is not corrected, eventually, your systems will begin to shut down, and your body will accumulate toxins. At this point, if hydration is not begun quickly, death will soon result. Most people will never experience that level of dehydration, unless they become stranded in someplace without any drinkable water for a long enough period of time. Three days without water is enough to cause very serious health issues, and five days for most people would be fatal, or very close to it.
There are different schools of thought about how much water you should drink every day. Most recommendations are for a minimum of 8-10 glasses of water daily. If in doubt, err on the side of caution under normal circumstances, you cannot drink enough water to cause any health problems. As long as you don't try to drink five gallons of water all at once, you are in little danger, so drink plenty of water.
Just to be on the safe side, you should make sure your electrolytes stay in balance. Normally this is done adequately by the sodium in our diet, in the form of salt, but in extreme circumstances, such as profuse sweating over a period of time, as in bicycling, or running, large amounts of water consumed quickly can cause the cells to lose sodium. That's why salt tablets help in very hot weather. That's also why persons who are dehydrated need to drink slowly, and sip the water over a period of time, to avoid sodium loss.
The type of water you drink can be as important to long-term health as the amount. Pure water is not good for you. It does not exist in nature, or in your body. Water can have different qualities depending on how the molecules bind to each other. This can also affect the pH. The ideal structure is a 6-sided hexagonal liquid crystalline form known as structured water. This is created in nature by the action of fresh water flowing over rocks and soils, and being exposed to sunlight, as in streams. This is the type of water your body is designed to use. Any other type of water will be processed into this type of water, using up valuable, and limited bodily resources. Structured water is at the correct pH, in other words, alkaline, just like your body, and the molecular structures are small enough to easily pass through cell membranes. It also contains the correct amount of trace minerals for proper hydration.