Why Hydration Or Dehydration Is So Important To Identify
Are you hydrated or dehydrated? Hydration is a vital state for the body to be in at all times because fifty-five to sixty per cent of the human body is comprised of water. Water is essential to the function of every organ and chemical process that takes place in the body. We use it in our eyes to flush out impurities, and in our saliva to chew and swallow food.
We need water for our blood to carry out the oxygen exchange between cells, for digestion, for absorbing nutrients, to assist with movement and mobility, to eliminate waste products and toxins, to conduct and transmit electrical impulses, and to regulate the temperature of the body.
Hydration means the body has the optimal amount of water to do everything it needs to do.
When you have optimal hydration, you are called hydrated. When you don’t have the optimal amount of water, you enter a state of dehydration.
The first sign of dehydration is thirst. You feel thirsty and need something to drink. When the brain and body are dehydrated, the cognitive process becomes clouded and does not function correctly, becoming impaired. You might find yourself drifting and unable to focus on a task.
Are you dehydrated test video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dO4RPYGzHg
People who don’t drink enough water daily are at greater risk of developing kidney stones and other health complications. Mild dehydration can have a significant impact on physical performance and cognitive ability. Dehydration occurs when we lose more bodily fluids than we consume. The fluid deficit occurs when bodily functions and processes cause the loss of fluids and electrolytes, leaving the system dehydrated.
Causes of dehydration:
- Diarrhoea
- Vomiting
- Sweating
- Blood loss
When you are ill, fever, diarrhoea, vomiting and loss of appetite all lead to dehydration. A lack of fluid means your body may struggle to regulate and maintain the correct temperature. Even small fluid losses contribute to increased body temperature and impair cognitive activity. Proper hydration is vital for your body processes to function in the following:
- Providing clear and concise cognitive function
- Digesting food in the intestines
- Regulating body temperature
- Maintaining healthy skin and joints
- Producing necessary bodily fluids, such as tears, saliva, arousal lubricants and sperm
- Remove waste chemicals and toxins through sweat, urination, and scat
Proper hydration can assist the skin and mucous cell membrane to prevent bacteria from entering the body. Drinking water is also essential for your oral health. Drinking water in Australia contains fluoride, which effectively protects against tooth decay.
Water is also needed for the body to make saliva. Saliva is used to masticate your food into a pulp you can easily swallow. After consuming the food, saliva washes the remnants of food away from the teeth making it more difficult for the bacteria to bond to the enamel and form plaque.
How Much Water Should I Drink
There is no exact amount of water a person needs to consume. However, there are average guidelines for infants, children, adults, and the elderly. The problem arises in the significant difference between countries and medical bodies, so it is best to use your own judgement. Over the course of the day, try to consume eight cups per day as a loose guide and adjust as required.
What Is The Fast Way To Cure Dehydration
Drink water or electrolyte drinks like Gatorade and Hydrolyte. Water consumption needs vary greatly from person to person and the environmental factors surrounding you at the time. People exercising, lactating women, people in hot environments that cause excess sweating, and people who are unwell all require a larger amount of water than people not in those situations.
It is especially important for children and the elderly to drink enough water to remain hydrated but not so much that they cause harm. The surest rule of thumb to gauge if your body is dehydrated will be thirst or hunger. Often, and somewhat ironically, when you feel hungry, your body doesn’t require food for the sake of eating to fill an empty stomach.
It wants the food to extract any liquids and nutrients to resupply the lowered water levels. Instead of eating, drink a cup of water and give it five minutes before you eat anything. You will find most of the time that your hunger is phantom in nature.
Our bodies receive approximately one-fifth of the water we need from food and the rest from drinking fluids. The body releases stored water throughout the day via breathing, sweating, and going to the toilet.
You can get water from anything containing fluids:
- Tea and coffee
- Fruit juices
- Soft drinks
- Fruit
- Sports drinks
- Milk
- Water from the tap and from a bottle
- Alcohol
Carefully monitor your consumption of products that are not stand-alone water. These products usually contain large quantities of sugar that lead to weight gain, create tooth decay, or contain stimulants that, in excess quantities, lead to other adverse medical conditions.
In Australia, tap water is always the cheapest and healthiest choice, with the added benefit of fluoride.
Australian water fluoridation: https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/fluoridation
How Can I Tell If I Am Dehydrated
Your level of hydration or dehydration can be determined easily by the colour of your urine. If it is a pale yellow to straw-coloured, you are hydrated. If it’s darker than dry straw, you are dehydrated and need to drink approximately one litre of water to correct the imbalance. Urine with no colour means you have gone too far in hydrating your body and entered the overhydration stage.
Constant overhydration can have severe consequences and, in rare cases, cause death. Most people rarely overhydrate, and even if they do, the body quickly corrects the imbalance when they stop consuming fluids while sleeping.
First Aid Certification
You might be reading this and thinking everything above is perfectly logical and who doesn’t know when they are dehydrated. The answer is a large majority of people have little to no First Aid training and lack the ability to tell when something is wrong or how to correct it easily by applying First Aid treatment.
In the case of hydration, the First Aid treatment is to give water with electrolytes to rehydrate. But what if you happened across someone out in the desert suffering from heat stroke and severe sunburn?
Suddenly providing the right First Aid isn’t as easy as one presumes. With that said, now is the perfect time to book yourself onto a First Aid Course with an accredited training organisation and earn your nationally recognised First Aid certificate. For less than $100, you can become proficient in CPR and basic First Aid. The peace of mind in knowing how to save a life or simply knowing how to treat something minor at home correctly makes all the difference.
Do yourself and your family a favour and peruse our vast range of First Aid-related topics conveniently located on the FACE Blog page.
