Personally, my favourite drink is coffee. My husband, on the other hand, doesn’t care for the brew at all.
Last Sunday evening, on a whim, I asked him what his favourite drink is. Without hesitation, he replied, “Hot chocolate!”
My son always stops in for tea. Some people like pop or orange juice. But how many friends do you have that would name water as their #1 drink?
Yet we’re told by health professionals that drinking lots of water is good for us. They actually say it is an anti-aging drink.
One of the benefits of drinking plenty of water as you age is softer and younger-looking skin, including fewer wrinkles. But that’s only the beginning.
In the first place, we can’t live without water. It feeds our cells and flushes the toxins out of our bodies. And keeps us in better condition for life.
Yes, water is the perfect drink!
So how much water should you drink every day? “A simple question with no easy answer,” says the Mayo Clinic website. According to Mayo, studies have produced varying recommendations over the years.
At least make sure you drink whenever you feel at all thirsty. And make sure you sip all day.
Any time you have a leg cramp, just drink a whole glass of water as a remedy.
Lack of water can lead to dehydration—a condition that occurs when you don’t have enough water in your body to carry out normal functions. Dehydration, if severe enough, even can lead to hospitalization.
Now there’s another important reason to drink plenty of water. Researchers say it will make you a safer driver.
A recent study reports that driving while dehydrated can be just as dangerous as driving under the influence of alcohol. Amazing!
Researchers from Loughborough University in England found that drivers who had not been drinking enough water had reduced concentration and alertness. These dehydrated drivers made the same number of mistakes as those who had been drinking alcohol.
The study was carried out with a range of tests on male drivers, using a lab-based driving simulator.
During the normal hydration test, there were 47 driving errors. But when the drivers even were mildly dehydrated, that number grew to 101–more than double.
A number that you would expect of someone driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol, says Prof. Ron Maughan. These mistakes included lane drifting, late braking, and crossing the yellow line.
Maughan says we all deplore drunk driving, but we don’t usually think about the effects of other things that change our driving skills. And one of those is dehydration.
“To put our results into perspective, the levels of driver errors we found are of a similar magnitude to those found in people with a blood alcohol content of 0.08 percent,” he noted.
So, drink when you drive–water–and lots of it. Especially when it is hot outside.
In fact, no matter what you are doing this summer, drink plenty of water. Then, with your mind alert and your body feeling healthy, you truly can enjoy the beautiful summer days ahead.
Marie Snider is an award-winning health writer and syndicated columnist. Write her at thisside60@cox.net
