Water is Essential for Healing

Water is Essential for Healing

Your body goes down fast without water/ Water is second only to oxygen in importance for health and just a few short days without water can be fatal! Making up almost three-fourths of the body, every cell is regulated, monitored and dependent on an efficient flow of water. Messages in the brain cells are transported on "water-ways" to the nerve endings. Water transports minerals, vitamins, proteins and sugars around the body for assimilation. Water maintains your body’s equilibrium and temperature, lubricates tissues, flushes wastes and toxins, hydrates the skin, acts as a shock absorber for joints, bones and muscles, and adds needed minerals.

When you body gets enough water, it works at its peak. Fluid retention decreases, gland and hormone functions improve, the liver breaks down and releases more fat, and hunger is curtailed. Dehydration plays a role in elimination ailments like chronic constipation and urinary tract infections, peripheral vascular problems like hemorrhoids and varicose veins, kidney stones, even many degenerative diseases like arthritis.

Experts tell us that thirst is an evolutionary development designed to indicate severe dehydration. Drinking only if you are thirsty may not be enough to keep your skin moist and supple, your brain sharp or elimination systems regular. There’s another side to the body water story. Many North Americans have reduced their intake of fats (including the good Omega-3 fats and other essential fatty acids) to the point that their bodies don’t hold and use the water they do take in. It’s one of the reasons I regularly recommend adding sea greens to your diet for moister skin, shining eyes and lustrous hair… a quality of sea plants known since ancient Greek times.

Water quality is poor in many areas of the world. Most tap water is chlorinated, fluoridated, and treated to the point where it can be an irritating, disagreeable fluid instead of a healthful drink. City tap water may contain as many as 500 different disease-causing bacteria, viruses and parasites. Fluoridated water increases absorption of aluminum from deodorants, pots and pans, etc. by 600%, a possible concern for Alzheimer’s dementia. Chemicals used by industry and agriculture find their way into our ground water, adding more pollutants. Som8e tap water is so bad that without the enormous effort our bodies exert to dispose of these chemicals, we would have ingested enough of them to turn us to stone by the time we were thirty! These concerns keep many people from drinking tap water. Keep plenty of bottled water at hand. Purifiers or a purifier hooked to your fridge will make your tape water more drinkable.

Should you drink more water?< Here’s how your body uses it up every day. Your kidneys receive and filter

your entire blood supply 15 times each hour! If you become overheated, your 2 million sweat glands perspire to cool your skin and keep your internal organs at a constant temperature, using 99% water. You use a small amount of water during breathing and through tear ducts that lubricate the upper eyelids 25 times per minute. Crying and hearty laughter release water from your eyes and nose. Even normal activity uses up at least 3 quarts of replacement water each day. Strenuous activity, a hot climate or a high salt diet increases this requirement.

What happens when you don’t get enough water? A chain reaction begins:

1. a water shortage message is sent from your brain;
2. your kidneys conserve water by urinating less (constipation and bloating occur);
3. a 4 percent water depletion, muscle endurance diminishes – you start to get dizzy;
4. at 5 percent water loss, headaches from mild to severe begin – you get drowsy, lose the ability to concentrate and get unreasonably impatient;
5. at 6 percent water loss, body temperature is impaired – your heart begins to race;
6. at 7 percent body water depletion, there is a good possibility of collapse.

To tell whether or not you are drinking enough water, check your urine. The color should be a pale straw and you should urinate every few hours. If your urine color is dark yellow, start drinking more water!
Other common signs that you might be dehydrated:

* unexplained headaches (mild to severe), usually with some dizziness.
* unexplained irritability, impatience, restlessness and difficulty sleeping.
* unexplained dry skin and loss of appetite along with constipation
* unexplained weight gain and swollen hands and-or feet (from water retention)

Gradual loss of body water is an aging factor. It is a major complication in illness. Dehydration is reportedly one of the top 10 causes of hospital stays among the elderly. Some studies show thirst-impaired seniors do not even seek water when they need it because their senses of thirst is so impaired. For many elderly people, fear of urinary incontinence makes them drink less liquid – doubly unfortunate because water hydration at all levels, from the body cleansing to skin beauty is a protection against accelerated aging.

Water is critical for an effective detoxification program because it dilutes and eliminates toxin accumulations in the bloodstream, and cleanses the kidneys. Add half a squeezed lemon to each glass of water for the best cleansing effects. The best time to detoxify is at night, while you sleep.

Water is your most important catalyst in losing weight and keeping it off. It naturally suppresses appetite and helps your body metabolize stored fat. Low water intake causes fat deposits to increase – more water intake actually reduces fat deposits. If you are overweight, the more body fat you have, the less system water you have. Larger people have larger metabolic loads – they need more water.

Thirst is not a reliable signal that your body needs water. By the time your feel thirsty, you are probably already suffering from some degree of dehydration. Thirst is an evolutionary development, controlled by a part of the fore-brain called the hypothalamus, (which also controls sleep, appetite, satiety, and sexual response) designed to alert us to severe dehydration. So you can easily lose a quart of water during activity before thirst is even recognized. Solving the dehydration problem: Human bodies have some strange anomalies. We have to plan for our water supply. From an early adult age our thirst sensation begins to fail, putting us inexplicably at risk for dehydration. Even more strange, our thirst signal shuts off before we have enough for well-being.
Where does your body get its daily replacement water?

Plain cool water is the best way to replace body fluids.

Remember: - Alcohol and caffeine drinks are counter-productive for water replacement because they are diuretic.

- Drinks loaded with dissolved sugars or milk increase water needs instead of satisfying them.

- Commercial sodas leach several important minerals from your body.

Even though most of us don’t get enough water today, drinking too much water can have some adverse health effects. It can severely depress electrolytes, imperative to vibrant energy, pH balance and mineral uptake. Purified water, such as distilled or reverse osmosis techniques compound the problem.

It sounds like a lot, but eight to ten 8-ounce glasses of water daily intake< is a sufficient amount. If you are physically active or working under hot weather conditions, you’ll need more. Replace lost electrolytes with electrolyte drinks like Electric "C" or an excellent supplement on the market is Bragg’s Liquid Aminos (A.K.A. Bragg's All Purpose Seasoning).