Think Clearly, Lead Better: The Critical Role of Water Intake
If there were ever a time the world needs people thinking clearly and full of energy, it’s now. Did you know that your brain literally shrinks at as little as 2 to 3% dehydration? That’s enough to shift more attention to water intake, don’t you think? Be forewarned, it’s a fine rabbit hole—there so much more than just quantity involved. Here are a few things we all can benefit from knowing to stay in a good mood, maintain cognitive and motor skills, feel less pain, and remember more—some of the many benefits of good hydration.
We are energy machines, with anywhere from 750 to 1000 mitochondria in every one of our 15 to 70 trillion cells in the body cranking out the power. Our power.
Those cells need water to channel in nutrients and shuttle out waste. The mitochondria need fuel and oxygen, which comes from the air you breath and the water you drink—it is H2O after all. O being oxygen.
In a word, not enough water results in less energy. That and a crap mood, forgotten words, and an achy body. You get prone to distraction and your reaction times drop. In fact, driving dehydrated is just like driving drunk.
Water—the vector of life itself, involved in every basic cell function—turns out to be much more complicated than anyone ever thought. First, it’s got four phases—solid, liquid, gas, and a gel-like newly discovered structured phase that just happens to occur in and around our cells. Furthermore, water can be deuterium rich or depleted, hydrogen rich or not, full of impurities—that’s the polite word—or filtered. So, there’s more to the topic than drinking 8 glasses of water a day—even that number depends on who you are, what you are doing, and your environment.
What We Have in Common with Cacti
Water makes up roughly two-thirds of our body volume (depending on age, gender, etc.). Get this, in terms of number of molecules, it accounts for 99%. That’s because water molecules are very small, tiny in fact, compared to other body molecules.
Dr. Gerald Pollack, who wrote The Fourth Phase of Water and Cells, Gels, and the Engines of Life, uncovered that not all water molecules are randomly scattered around. In and around the cells, he says, the charges on the protein surfaces organize nearby water molecules so they stack up. And the way the water gets lined up plays a role in everything your cells do.
This “structured” water is slightly thicker than regular water. It’s also found in desert plants like cactus, and in waterfalls, among other places.
So What?
It turns out hydration is not about drinking the right quantity of water, but rather about getting that water inside your cells where it can gel. To do that, it helps when you improve the electrical charges across your cell membranes. I don’t mean sticking your fingers into a socket. Strategies include increasing electrolyte intake, boosting your fiber intake—and intaking gel-water directly.
Eat Your Water
Drinking too much water can flush out vital nutrients and electrolytes. This is where “gel water” comes in. Our bodies find it easy to absorb water from plants such as cucumber, berries, and aloe into the cells. This is why desert populations have always stayed hydrated with gel-water-rich plants, such as eating cactus or mixing chia seeds with water.
Keep the Charge
If you follow the rule of thumb of 28.5 ml (an ounce) of water per kilogram (2 pounds) of body weight, you want to make sure you get some electrolyte-rich water in the mix. You can do this by adding mineral-rich salt, special electrolyte mixtures, or supplementing with something like Quinton water, which comes from the sea and has a broad spectrum of minerals.
Roughage
"Fiber is one of the most important mechanisms by which your fruits, vegetables and, ultimately, your body, are going to manage water," Dr. Zach Bush says. So, eat fruits and vegetables. They also contain other valuable micronutrients, including silica, which not only benefits your gut microbiome, but also helps improve hydration inside your cells. Just so you know, it’s best to get your silica from plant matter. Mineral silica promotes oxidation and dehydrates.
Fat and Water
You guessed it, eat healthy fat (I hear you saying, “there she goes again.”). “Water enters cells through an oil-guarded membrane,” Dr. Dana Cohen, author of Quench, says. “Good fats, especially omega-3s, keep membranes supple, increasing absorption.”
Move More
Another concept dear to my heart. Cohen also introduces the idea of using micro-movements throughout the day to move water through your fascia, the connective tissue responsible for hydrating our bodies. You will experience more energy, focus, and better digestion.
Hydration Hacks
Front load your water like the desert-living Bedouins—start the day with a good 250 to 500 ml of water with electrolytes, which means you add a pinch of mineral-rich sea salt.
Eat water-rich foods throughout the day in addition to jugging some agua.
Give plain water a gel upgrade by adding citrus fruit or by sipping it with foods that are rich in potassium (such as bananas and broccoli) or magnesium (avocado and dark chocolate—another excuse to have dark chocolate).
Fidget throughout the day—twist and turn when you can, tap your fingers, stretch and wriggle your legs, roll your shoulders on a regular basis throughout the day—to keep the water circulating.
Never drink from plastic. There’s no room here to go into the problems of endocrine disrupters. Take my word for it.
Drink filtered water. Drinking water is good for you unless it’s full of heavy metals, toxins, hormone residues, and whatever else seeps into tap water. At minimum, carbon-filter your tap water.
Toss some ground chia seeds into a daily smoothie.
Worried about waking up at night? For bladder-encouraged frequent night-risers: intake your liquids before 7 pm, and then, when you need to get up to pee, just don’t. Use mind over matter for three days straight. If it’s just a habit, that’s all you need to break it.
Buzz Words
Hydrogen-rich water. When you add molecular hydrogen (H2) to the water you drink, it roams the body looking for free radicals from oxidative stress, they bind, and you end up with H2O. There’s tons of research demonstrating the health benefits of hydrogen-rich water, including the energy boost.
Deuterium-depleted water. Some water has hydrogen atoms that are variants of hydrogen (isotopes) called deuterium—it makes them large and heavy. The theory is that if we have too much of this kind of water, we have a hard time getting rid of it, it ends up in our cells and damages the mitochondria. The body does have deuterium-depleting processes of its own. You can buy deuterium-depleted water. What you need to know: if you drink too much water, when you don’t feel thirsty, you can increase deuterium dramatically exceeding the capacity of the filtering processes.
“If we could stay perfectly hydrated in the intracellular environment, our aging would slow down if not reverse. ”