Studies show how much water you drink is critical to physical and cognitive health

(NaturalNews) It's probably not breaking news that water is good for you. However, you might not be aware of the many dramatic ways it affects your overall health. The advice of "drink several glasses of water per day" is something we all know, but many of us fail to realize the tremendous health benefits of doing so. Let's examine some of the ways drinking water can take your health to new heights of optimal performance.

Water and fighting obesity

When people fill up with sugary or non-water based drinks, it robs the body of essential nutrients, because doing so increases the probability that they will skip their veggies. Drinking water can help one reduce or avoid obesity because first of all, zero calories versus the high calories of a soda is a clear winning factor.

Secondly, when people drink water instead of sugary drinks, they are far more likely to seek caloric intake from foods. Water also helps to curb hunger, unlike sugary drinks, which leads to less calorie consumption overall. (1)

Physical performance

A review-based study titled Nutrition Review, Water, Hydration and Health demonstrated several important ways water plays a significant role in keeping the human body running at top performance. (2)
For example, the study echoed the well- documented positive role of water and hydration in physical activity. Even mild dehydration can cause many deleterious effects, such as poorer performance, increased fatigue, and reduced motivation.

Cognitive performance

The same study showed that a lack of water can have a negative impact on cognition.Even mild levels of dehydration have multiple mental consequences such as decreased mood, mood disruptions, and cognitive functioning deficits in short-term memory, alertness, and concentration. These negative effects were seen across a broad spectrum of ages, including the very young and very old.

Daily water recommendations

While the most oft heard advice is to drink 8 glasses of 8-ounces of water per day, there is actually a lot of debate about this.

According to the Mayo Clinic, many factors demand greater water consumption, such as: (3)

• How much exercise you do
• How hot and humid the weather is
• Whether or not you are ill

So, as in all things, your mileage may vary. But get in those 8 glasses if you can, just to be sure!

Sources:

https://www.naturalnews.com/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/

http://www.sciencedaily.com/

About the author:
Raw Michelle is a natural health blogger and researcher, sharing her passions with others, using the Internet as her medium. She discusses topics in a straight forward way in hopes to help people from all walks of life achieve optimal health and well-being. She has authored and published hundreds of articles on topics such as the raw food diet and green living in general. >>> Click here to see more by Michelle