Hydrate Hydrate Hydrate

Stress can manifest in many ways.  And it wreaks havoc to our body.  One common one is dehydration.  Whether it is from forgetting to drink water, consuming high levels of caffeine instead, poor diet or a combination of all the above, dehydration can do serious damage to your body. 

Some basic symptoms of dehydration that you might experience include:

·         Constipation

·         Dark urine

·         Headaches

·         Irritability

·         Insomnia

·         Thirst

·         Dry skin, dry eyes, dry mouth

·         Bad breath

·         Indigestion

·         Elevated heartrate

·         UTIs

However, here are the signs of dehydration that I didn’t know about and suffered from for a long time:

·         Chronic fatigue syndrome – so this is a big one.  Feeling tired and lethargic to the point that you struggle in normal tasks.  I went to several doctors trying to figure out why I was always tired.  Their answer – you’re a mom.  Not good enough!  I was getting enough sleep at night, I was eating well, and exercising.  How could I still always be tired?  Then I started focusing on my water intake.  GAME CHANGER.  I had no idea how much this truly impacted me.  I no longer feel the desire to nap everyday and have much more focus and clarity in the day.

·         Brain Fog – similar to the fatigue, I chalked this up to ‘mom brain.’  I would have a hard time finding motivation and truly struggled to concentrate at times.  Turns out, this wasn’t mom brain, again I was dehydrated.  Adding in more water helped my focus at work immensely. 

·         Cramps – I was getting terrible muscle cramps in the middle of the night especially.  All my joints felt achy too.  I was chalking it up to how much I exercise, but it had much more to do with not lubricating my muscles enough vs. over working them. 

·         Difficulty losing weight – I always had a misconception here because of the term ‘water weight.’  The more dehydrated you are the more you end up retaining in your system because your body is going into a ‘starvation’ mode.  But if you increase your water intake, not only do you tend to get full faster, but is also helps curve cravings while truly improving your appearance to your skin.

So, what do you do to cure it?  Drink more water, duh!  But seriously… I thought I drank plenty of water as it was.  Turns out, I was fooling myself.  I purchased this bad boy from Amazon and I fill it up every night before I go to bed and make sure I drink the whole thing throughout the day the following day.  If you want to drink the right amount of water, it must be a focus for you.  For me – I need to make it clear with a visual like this to keep me on track.  Don’t stay thirsty my friends.  Drink up!