During my “Find Your Focus” talk I encourage my audiences to drink plenty of water. I go on to describe why it is so vital to our overall mental and physical health. But as with most things in life, too much of a good thing can be harmful, even deadly. Case in point:
A twenty-year-old army trainee guzzled twelve quarts of water, trying to make a clean urine specimen for a drug test. Shortly after that she endured fecal abandon, lost consciousness, and became confused; she died from swelling in the brain and lungs as a result of low blood sodium.
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A forty-nine-year-old man, who feared that all food and medicine were poison to his body, believed that only pure spring water could flush it out, and drank sixty-four eight-ounce glasses of water per day. He eventually went into a coma and died of water on the brain, or “water intoxication.”
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How Much Water Is Too Much?
Babies and athletes are most likely to suffer from water intoxication. If a baby drinks too much water either from diluted formula or from constantly sucking on a bottle with a high-water content drink they can flush out their electrolytes and put stress on their bodies.
Athletes who sweat heavily, can “wash out” the electrolytes in their body which are essential for all kinds of necessary functions. That’s why a variety of sports drinks are popular. However, a person who drinks a reasonable amount of water throughout the day and includes electrolytes in their diet (sodium, potassium, etc.) is going to be okay.
I’ve studied this subject for several years and have found a consensus among researchers and medical resources that most people in our modern culture do not drink enough water. Our bodies get water from the foods we eat, but if your diet consists of mostly bread, meat, and processed foods you don’t get that much. Coffee, soda, and booze don’t help, in fact; they can hurt depending on the amount of sugar, alcohol and caffeine they contain.
On the other hand, if you eat a colorful diet (not including candy!) with plenty of vegetables and fruits you’ve got a good head start on keeping yourself hydrated. You should still drink water. But how much? It depends on your lifestyle. Which means there’s no one answer to the number of ounces humans should drink, each person is different.
However, here’s a general rule from the Mayo Clinic that I follow: “If you drink enough fluid so that you rarely feel thirsty and produce 1.5 liters (6.3 cups) or more of colorless or slightly yellow urine a day, your fluid intake is probably adequate.”
The only part I find difficult to follow is figuring out if I’m producing at least 6.3 cups of colorless or slightly yellow urine each day![/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
