If you have been following our blog, by now you should know that maintaining water balance in your body is very important. When you keep your body hydrated, your body system functions properly and you will feel good and perform well.
When we come to the question of how much water you should drink a day, the very basic is water intake must balance water loss. Every day our body loses water through breathing, sweating, urination and bowel movements, that is why you need to refill what is lost.
Normally these are how we look at whether your water intake is enough:
- You don’t feel thirsty
- Your urine is almost colourless or light yellow
Actually thirst is the mechanism equipped in our body to maintain the water balance. When you feel the sensation of thirst, your body is telling you the water content is not enough, you need to increase your water intake. When your body has enough water content, thirst is suppressed. It’s advisable that you keep your body hydrated throughout the day because when you are thirsty, you could already be dehydrated.
So how much water should you drink a day? There are many different opinions in this matter but the widely acceptable rule is a person should drink 8 eight-ounce glasses of water every day, which equals to slightly less than 2 litres a day. This 8×8 rule is easy to remember and a reasonable goal to achieve. However, you should not drink all 8 glasses at one go but spread them throughout the day.
Last but not least, it’s equally important to know that you should not be drinking too much water. How much is too much? Our kidneys process about 800-1000ml of water an hour. Whatever the kidneys cannot remove ends up in our cells. When the excess water is too much, it may dilute the sodium content in the blood which may lead to water intoxication. Extreme overhydration may cause brain damage, coma and even death. Therefore, do not drink large amounts of water at once, but space out your water intake throughout the day to stay hydrated at all times.
