Water! Water makes up more than 70 percent of your body’s tissues and plays a role in nearly every body function from regulating temperature and cushioning joints to bringing oxygen to the cells and removing waste from the body.  Therefore, it’s vital to pay attention to how much and what you drink.

Lesson 1: Drink Half Your Body Weight in Ounce a day

Drinking enough water is one of the most simple, basic, and important health steps you can take. Your body needs half your body weight in ounces a day to function at an optimal level. If you normally don’t drink enough water, you’ll have to build up your water intake gradually to prevent running to the bathroom every few minutes.

Your bladder will adjust to this level after a short period of time, and you can keep increasing your water intake until you reach optimal levels.  Try increasing your intake on this schedule:

There’s a lot more to dehydration than simply feeling thirsty. Signs of dehydration can also include spasms, tension in your neck or jaw, constipation, vomiting, and heart problems. Many people who experience symptoms like trouble concentrating or lingering muscle pains have no idea that they’re really suffering from preventable dehydration symptoms.

Here some other common symptoms of dehydration:

• Fatigue
• Dry skin
• Headaches
• Constipation
• Sleepiness
• Thirst
• Decreased urination
• Muscle weakness
• Dizziness
• Digestive issues

Lesson 2: Drink your water at the right pace.

It’s important to sip water all day long. Depending on your size, your body can only process a bit more than a glass of water per hour.  If you drink much more than this at one sitting, the extra water will not be used, but merely flushed down the toilet bowl.  Keep your water bottle with you all day long.  This way you can confirm precisely how much water you are drinking.

Lesson 3: Drink healthy water.

Healthy water? I bet you thought all water was healthy! Don’t be tricked! Healthy water is only water that has been treated to avoid contamination.  Nearly all municipal water supplies have chlorine and fluoride added.  Europeans have known for many years that fluoride is toxic and have long since removed it from their water supplies. Be sure and obtain a filter to avoid chlorine and fluoride. Unhealthy arsenic levels are in about 5 percent of the water supplies and can cause you health problems. Additionally, thousands of tons of drugs are flushed down the toilet every year, and many wind up in your water supply, as most filtration plants aren’t designed to remove.