Body hydration and tips from the wildlife

This article is based on my observation, so please just use it as an invitation to discussion, if not with me, then with your friends for example 🙂

When I was little I spent most of the time outdoors, picking fruit from the trees and playing with other kids. None of us carried a bottle of water with us like our life depended on it. I vaguely recall drinking some cold black tea or lemonade when I got home for few minutes at a time during my busy day (filled with playing games nothing else of course!). No one told us about body hydration and no one seemed to worry, we were growing up healthy and happy.

Around college and university time body hydration subject got more popular, we were advised here and there that drinking water is so important

Food for thought, consider the below:

• Assuming original people (say cave people) were designed in the most efficient way, and as there was no production back then, everything they did was most natural to humans. How did they drink back then? Did they spend time on counting how many liters of water they need to still drink that day? Checking the colour of their pee? Did they have time to sit by the stream and sip regularly every hour? Environment was not polluted, water had minerals, and it probably came from the streams (with minerals from the rocks and soil) or from plants.
• Nowadays we are advised to drink 2-3 liters of water a day, this is in addition to food we consume during the day. Drinking a lot of water means you are on the toilet quite often, and is this actually good for you, are you not flushing out with water whatever is in your body too quickly?
• If you put 1 fresh cucumber into the juicer you will get 1 glass of juice, that also counts as fluid that hydrates you. In fact any food you eat has some element of water, otherwise it would be difficult to chew and swallow (think coconut sprinkles or over baked chicken). I believe that food in its natural form allows you to slowly break it and absorb water when needed, so fresh cucumber would be better that cucumber juice. The structure of food (say vegetable or fruit) is broken down slowly during the digestion and gives body time to hydrate what’s needed.
• Does forcing yourself to drink water feel natural? Perhaps we wouldn’t have to do this as much if we ate nutritious real and not over processed food.
• How do animals that we keep at home drink, for example dog? From what I noticed from my German Shepherd Indi, she never drinks if she knows meal is coming, however she will drink a lot after the meal. She has small sips between the meals. She drinks a lot if she went out running or if it’s hot, but again this is done in one or two goes. But she doesn’t force water unnecessarily.
• How do animals in  the wild drink water? This depends on species, but varies from absorbing water through the skin, through the food or through drinking actual water.
• Of course babies are the coolest and they definitely hydrate through the water, i.e. milk 😀

(By the way, the unicorn flew with us from UK to Santorini 😀 #mood)

Interesting fact no 1. Issues with body hydration can cause various illnesses (less serious and more serious), there are doctors researching dehydration connection to some of the cancers, the symptoms of cancer are believed to disappear after some form of oral re-hydration therapy, mostly based on drinking mineral water with good quality of rock salt (back to those cave people and they mineral streams?).

Interesting fact no 2. During my 4 day dry fast (i.e. no food and no water) I was advised not to have a bath or shower or have as little of contact with water as possible. That would indicate that body in the need of hydration uses skin to absorb tiny amounts of water (and animals who live in a fresh water do just that, absorb water steadily through the skin by osmosis).

The views of magical Santorini!

I look concerned because this is an infinity pool and it was windy, general vibe was that there was a ‘finity’ to this pool.

Again, thanks for stopping by, let me know your thoughts and of course say hi on Instagram at AlessandraMinko xx