Hello. My name is Dr. Sarah Logan and I’m an aquaholic.

Yup, that’s right, I love my water! 

We all hear the phrase that we “should drink more water”, but how many of us actually do it? How many of us realize and can grasp the importance of hydration? For me personally, it wasn’t until chiropractic school that I started taking my hydration seriously. Once I started properly hydrating myself, I noticed a vast difference not only in my physical performance, but also my mental capacity and cognitive function. I wasn’t as sleepy, I had better focus for my exams, and less urges to drink other beverages. 

“Water is the driving force of all nature.” Without water, no flowers, no trees, no fish, or no humans could exist. The amount of water in our bodies and cells is directly proportional to our survival and functioning as a human. Think about that. Let it sink in. Now think about how your life could improve if you gave your body the opportunity to function at a fully hydrated state? Your brain is composed of roughly 75% water. Even with minimal levels of dehydration, this can cause a decrease in memory retention, delayed reaction time, and overall energy.

Now that you have a better understanding of the importance of water in our bodies, what are you going to do about it? What if you don’t like the taste of water? Is some water better than others? What about electrolytes? What if I don’t want to have to pee every hour? Drinking the proper amount of water can seem like a lot at first, but with these simple tricks, the pathways to getting fully hydrated will be easy!

Step 1: how much water should you REALLY be drinking? 

A good general rule of thumb is take your body weight in pounds, divide it by 2, and that is how many ounces of water you should be drinking. For example, I weight 135 lbs, divide that by 2 and you get 67.5. So I should be drinking at least 67.5 oz of water every day, or about 8 cups.

For another easy way to calculate your hydration level, try this website that will calculate everything for you.

Step 2: getting yourself to actually drink the water.

Now that you know how much water you should drink a day, the hardest part is actually doing it. Here are some easy ways to start incorporating more water in your life to start building it as a healthy habit.

1. Start each morning with a glass of water. Place a water bottle or full glass of water by your bedside that way the first thing you do when you roll out of bed is consume water. You just spent the last 6-8 hrs sleeping and not consuming water, so starting the morning with water is a great way to get you going.
   • Bonus: add a teaspoon of mineral or celtic sea salt to your water in the morning to help balance your electrolytes and really hydrate you.
2. Make sure you drink a glass of water before any coffee. Coffee is a diuretic, meaning it will cause you to pee and expel fluids, rather than retain them.
3. If you are not a fan of the flavor of water, try pairing it with either cucumbers, strawberries, or lemons. Lemon water is also great to have in the morning because it helps to detoxify the liver. I use a couple of drops of my lemon essential oil when I don’t have fresh lemons on hand. 
4. Herbal teas are another great way to get hydrated and add a great flavor! Try a cup of your favorite herbal tea either hot or iced to help with hydration as well as its other herbal perks.
5. If you prefer soda or other sugary drinks, try the one to one ratio. If you have a glass of coke at lunch, pair it with a glass of water. Slowly try to increase the days where you only order water and not just a coke. 
6. Have an accountability partner! Either a friend or family member or another co-worker. Challenge each other to drinking a water bottle full before your lunch break, and again when you get back. This can help make it more of a game and competition, which drives your motivation to stay hydrated. (This works great for kids too for all you parents out there).

Step 3: The quality of water that you drink 

It would be difficult for me to write a post about the importance of staying hydrated if I didn’t at least mention the type of water that you consume. Is there really a difference between tap water, bottled, alkaline, or distilled? The short answer is yes. I won’t go down the deep rabbit hole of the type of water that you drink at this time. I will save that for another post. For the time being, and to keep it simple, yes you should be drinking some type of filtered water whenever possible. Whether it be something as simple as a Britta to a full in house filtration system, there are tiers and levels to water quality. It will also depend highly on the area that you live in. For example, growing up in Los Angeles County, it was highly recommended to not drink the tap water due to the amount of added chemicals put in the water. Whereas when I would go up to our family cabin deep in the Teton Mountains of Idaho, we drank fresh mineral water straight from our well– a much better source than the LA water. To get more information about the water in your local area, check out the EWG site where you simply type in your zip code and they will provide you with the most recent updates and facts about the water in your area. 

For now, try to stick to these guidelines when drinking water.

1. First things first, if you are not drinking enough water that should be your first priority, focusing on the quality next.
2. When financially allowable, try to drink bottled water from either a restaurant or grocery store. Bonus if you can purchase water that is stored in a glass bottle– this is both eco friendly but also helps prevent micro plastics seeping into your water. 
3. *General Rule of Thumb* avoid tap water as much as possible, unless you know you live in an area with a good source of freshwater.
4. Fridge or Britta filters do the bare minimum when it comes to filtering, so some is better than none. But if you’re looking to take the next step, consider buying an at home unit that can be installed into your house or tanks. Here are some of the companies I recommend, although there are several out there so make sure to do your own research as well.