To ask for top water drinking tips?

[GonnaDrinkWater]

I'm always telling myself I need to drink more water and I'm sure I'm not alone. Some of you may have cracked it, some of you may not.

So please share your top tips on getting through your daily water quota!

When we first emigrated it was a very hot summer (40C+ having come from snow in the U.K.) and the kids weren't used to drinking much so we told them 1 glass of water/weak squash every hour.

For them they werent in the habit of drinking enough.

DD2 is the only one still in school and she drinks half a bottle of water with every lesson change, so 300ml. It's made a huge difference to her fluid intake and the older two still drink a glass/mug/half a water bottle every hour on the hour.

You had a bad day EastMidsMummy?

Looks like EastMidsMummy just needs to drink more water

EastMidsMummy is a refreshing voice of reason on this thread (and very funny). Honestly folks, you've got to stop taking womens' mags and "wellbeing" websites as gospel.

Here are the symptom of dehydration:

www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Dehydration/Pages/Symptoms.aspx

I have a BPA free botrle at my desk that holds about 700ml and try to drink two of them a day. Then more at home... but honestly the more you do it the more habit it becomes. I used to hate drinking water but now I feel weird if Im not drinking it!
Plus I don't tend to drink much else during the day other than one or two cups of coffee and the occasional herbal tea.

so I should also ignore the advice of several doctors about drinking more water, LadyLoveYourWhat, should I? Because of 2 random posters on an anonymous forum?

Coddiwomple advice given to you for your specific situation does not extrapolate to the general population.

I personally trust that people who find drinking plenty of water helps them know their own bodies well enough that they know this to be true for them and aren't just blindly doing it because women's magazines etc tell them to. I notice an increase in headaches and even wrinkles stand out more after a few days of not drinking enough.

Not to mention the many medical conditions that necessitate the intake of more water. I have a severe chronic pelvic pain syndrome localised in my bladder/urethra and if I don't drink 2-3+ litres per day my urine is so concentrated it is agony to hold and to pass. The more dilute it is the less painful it is and the less damage it does to the walls of my bladder.

Water is amazing. I think regularly how lucky we all are to have access to clean running water and ponder its many uses (drinking it, cooking with it, washing ourselves with it). It's a beautiful thing.

Slices of lemon, mint leaves, cucumber, etc to make it more palatable. Also frozen berries, grapes, etc - whatever floats your boat - and you can change it up. Just make sure to chuck the fruit out at the end of the day and wash bottle carefully so you don't end up with a slimy mess.
Slices of blood orange (Or whatever) frozen into ice cubes.

EastMidsMummy you are funny and a voice of reason. Bad day my arse.

advice given to you for your specific situation does not extrapolate to the general population.

advice given about a group of people... You are free to disagree with the doctors I have met, but don't try rewrite my own experience.

If you don't want to be bothered about the subject, move on. At least there are plenty of sensible and practical advice on this thread for people who are interested.

My Mum has a medical condition making her salivary glands inefficient. She's been advised to stop drinking coffee all day long to help increase her mild dehydration/dry mouth, and guess what? It's actually helped.

So you can spout all the so called studies you like about caffeine having no effect on being dry or not; it's made a difference to my Mum who has a medical problem and is following sage advice to deal with it.

Of course more water and less caffeinated drinks may be appropriate and necessary for people with actual diagnosed medical problems. But you cant extrapolate from that that more water is appropriate and necessary for everyone. I'm pretty sure additional insulin is beneficial for diabetics but not the general population. Ditto iron supplements or vitamins for malnourished or deficient people....

Yes you can!

If it's drying for a medical problem why wouldn't it be drying for a non-medical problem?

The same mechanism works - or not?

The point the clinician made was that she needed to increase the body's ability to retain water, not that an absence of caffeine would somehow miraculously heal the salivary gland!

So you can spout all the so called studies you like about caffeine having no effect on being dry or not;

Caffeine has a direct effect on the salivary gland via the autonomic nervous system. So your mum would indeed have seen more salivary flow if she cut her caffeine. The mechanism isn’t via ‘being dry’ it’s via the effect caffeine has on the gland itself.

Wee in a glass? I've got really puffy bags under my eyes

Definitely. And use some to dab on your eyebags or better still, get a friend to tinkle on them. Is that what you're looking for OP?

And yes OP pee in a glass if you want to see the colour of your urine :)

Headaches can be dehydration of course. In today’s modern office drone (sigh, which I am these days) culprits can also be screens, posture, jaw tension (TMJ) eyesight etc etc. And tiredness. And, eeeep... too much water ;)

Too much water is quite bad for you, so dont overdo it. A couple of l a day isn’t going to harm you but downing several litres in a short time can kill you.

Tea and coffee do count as fluid intake. Both are mild diuretics but neither is strong enough a diruetic to negate the effect of the fluid in the drink. Maybe if your only fluid intake was espressos so thick you could stand a spoon in, but not for your average brew.

Of course for certain medical issues people may be advised to drink more, or indeed less, and those people should follow the advice of their doctor. Urine infections, kidney stones etc all have their own rules.

For most of us, we are ok. If your pee is darker than pale straw colour, have a drink.

Skål!

Wee in a glass? *

Definitely. And use some to dab on your eyebags or better still, get a friend to tinkle on them. Is that what you're looking for OP?*

WTF? No

EastMidsMummy. Agree 100%. What a fucking faff. How we've managed to reach adulthood I shall never know.

Fill up water bottles to your daily quota and make sure that they are empty by the end of your day.

Fill up water bottles to your daily quota and make sure that they are empty by the end of your day.

this is an utterly filthy habit. Have you any idea how fast bacteria are reproducing in that bottle on your desk that you have inoculated with your saliva? its no coincidence that the children in my class who keep on sucking from their water bottles all day are the ones off with stomach bugs the most often.

Why this obsession with water anyway? more people in the UK dies from water over doses than die from dehydration.

This whole mythology is just a marketing ploy by bottled water companies, and I can't beleive any intelligent people seriously fall for it.

Eastmidsmummy is spot on

this is an utterly filthy habit.

I wouldn't go that far, but no, it is not a good idea to keep refilling old water bottles.

Plus the fact that it is really fucking annoying in the morning to stand in a queue of people holding 2 litre bottles and wittering about their water consumption and shade of urine yellow when you only want a 125ml glass because they can't be arsed throughout the day to walk a few metres to get another drink.

Maybe they'll all get salmonella or worse nasties from a decrepit plastic bottle on their desk.

rinsing and refilling it is better than leaving your old saliva sitting in there fermenting.

would you take a boiled sweet out of your mouth and leave it on your desk for 8 hours, having the occasional suck?

I know ideally you should sip frequently throughout the day...but I can't, I completely forget.

I don't generally feel thirsty until I realise I have a banging headache and my wee is brown which is far too late.

I down pints at a time. First thing I do in the morning is down two pints of water. Lunch time I down a couple of pints of water and the same with dinner. Plus if I remember at any random time throughout the day I'll have a smaller drink.

Not ideal but better to be getting liquid in in big bursts than not at all, I reckon.