Humans need water. You can survive weeks without food, as long as you’re hydrated, but deny a body water and it’ll be lucky to last 72 hours. Not surprising, really, since we’re pretty much made of the stuff – but what’s the optimal amount to keep you feeling and performing your best? When is best to drink your fluids, and what form is best? Here’s all the info you need on staying hydrated.
The pee test reigns supreme
The NHS recommends drinking six to eight glasses of water (1.5-2 litres) each day, but in truth there’s no absolute rule for how much you should drink. People are different, as are their environments and what they do on any given day – so if you do anything that dehydrates you, like exercise, you’ll need more.
You also can’t necessarily just rely on your thirst to guide you, as studies have shown that mild dehydration affects both physical and mental performance and occurs when your body water is just 1-2% below a normal volume, which can be before you start to feel thirsty.
The one firm guideline that does stand out is to check your pee. If you’re going every two to three hours throughout the day, and your urine is a pale straw colour, your hydration is fine. If you’re going longer between toilet trips, or your pee turns dark and starts to whiff, you need to grab a glass of water.
Electrolytes matter
Unfortunately, it isn’t as simple as glugging down as much water as possible. You also need to keep an eye on your electrolyte levels – especially your sodium – when undertaking physically demanding activities, which cause you to lose these minerals through sweat.
Those doing heavy levels of activity - a good rule of thumb is anything over an hour - might also find that water alone isn’t enough to hydrate fully. Sports drinks and sodium supplements will help top up your electrolytes, or you can try adding unrefined salt (like Himalayan pink salt or sea salt, both of which contain more trace minerals than table salt) to water to create your own hydrating drink.
It’s also important to realise that people sweat differently. The average person loses about 920mg of sodium per litre of sweat, but about 20% lose over 1,200mg, and especially salty sweaters need to replace more of their body’s sodium. You can tell if that’s you via a dedicated sweat test – but also if you notice white marks on your clothes and skin after physical activity, where water has evaporated leaving the salt behind.
Tea and coffee go towards your total (sort of)
If you’re only ever going to drink one liquid, water is the undoubted king of hydration – but who only drinks one liquid? Don’t worry, though – your morning coffee, afternoon tea and even bedtime milk all count when tallying up your daily fluid intake.
In fact, all non-alcoholic drinks count towards your water intake. That includes milk, fruit juices and fizzy drinks (although the sugar they also contain remains bad for you) and caffeinated beverages. Studies have shown that tea and coffee can have a mild diuretic effect (as in, they make you pee more) if you suddenly drink a load of them having not been exposed to caffeine for a while, but in everyday use, any diuretic effect doesn’t cancel out the hydration they provide.
This isn’t the case with alcohol. It does contribute water, but the diuretic effect is so great that it ends up dehydrating you. That’s one of the reasons you feel so bad the next day.
Food definitely counts
It’s not only liquids that hydrate your body – food also contributes. In fact, water from food should make up 20-30% of your daily fluid intake, according to the European Food Safety Authority.
That makes sense when you consider foods like lettuce, cabbage and the aptly named watermelon – water can be 90-99% of their make-up. But there’s also lots of water in less obvious places: chicken breasts, pasta and salmon all have a water content of 60-69%.
Let tech be your guide
Food and almost all drinks count towards your daily fluid intake, but you should still make sure you’re drinking water frequently as the best source of hydration. Fortunately, the magic of technology has made this far easier.
The simplest solution is to set regular reminders to drink water on your phone (maybe tie them in with one that gets you to stand up from your desk at least once an hour). One step up is a dedicated app like Streaks, which encourages healthy habits by letting you record how many days in a row you’ve hit a goal like drinking a set amount of water, as well as encouraging you to meet those targets.
If that’s not enough to make you drink water, you can even try “gamification” with an app like Plant Nanny, where the water you drink helps virtual plants grow. You don’t want your virtual plants to wither and die, now do you?
Make water a treat
If the reason you fail to meet your daily hydration targets is that you can’t abide the taste of tap water, the solution is an easy one. Filtering water will make it more palatable, or you can go a step further and add fruits such as lemon, strawberries or whatever else you fancy to add some flavour to your H2O.
Next, find out why it’s probably time to buy a water filter
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