I'm sure you don't need one more person telling you why you should be drinking more water — but seriously, drinking more water may be the easiest and cheapest way to get healthier. Drinking enough water affects everything from our skin to our mood to our poop — and since our bodies are about 60 percent water, failing to stay hydrated can really mess us up. We should all make drinking lots of water part of our daily routine, because drinking water changes our bodies for the better.
The benefits of drinking water have been widely researched and reported — often times with eye-catching headlines about how drinking water will magically give you the skin of a baby angel — but what's more important than the potential beauty benefits of drinking water are the many ways water consumption can keep your insides in good shape. Drinking water helps our kidneys flush toxins out of our blood, it can prevent urinary tract infections and constipation, and it prevents your muscles from shrinking, too. (Yes, dehydration can literally shrink your muscles. Freaky, right?)
So, if you don't already drink lots of water, you really should start — because drinking water changes your body in the best ways. Here are five ways your body changes when you drink water.
1. Your Bowels Become More Regulated
As much as we try to avoid the topic in polite conversation, the fact is, everybody poops. Because of this, everybody also knows how freaking horrible it is when you just can't go. Constipation is literally a pain in the butt. Fortunately, though, drinking plenty of water can help regulate your bowels and prevent constipation from happening.
When our bodies don't get enough water, our colon ends up taking it's hydration from our stool, and this is ultimately why it's impossible to drop a deuce sometimes. So if you wan't to avoid the horrors of constipation, drink more water.
2. Your Kidneys Don't Have To Work As Hard To Clean Your Blood
The main toxin in the human body is blood urea nitrogen (BUN) and it just so happens to be a water-soluble waste. It's our kidneys' job to process this toxin out of our blood and then get rid of it through urination, but it's much harder for them to do this if we don't keep our fluid intake up. So drinking plenty of water keeps your kidneys from having to work as hard to clean your blood, while simultaneously allowing for maximum toxin flushing.
3. Your Muscles Feel Less Fatigued
Maintaining the right balance of electrolytes and liquids is crucial for the cells that make up our muscles — because when our muscles don't get enough fluids, they shrivel, and this causes muscle fatigue. Plus, it's just kind of terrifying.
Drinking an adequate amount of water energizes our muscles and helps them to perform at their highest level — so it's even more important to guzzle the stuff if you're working out or doing any kind of strenuous activity, such as hiking or having sex.
4. You Look Even Better
Although every female celebrity ever claims that drinking water can heal all manor of skin woes, the truth is, drinking water won't necessarily heal your acne or make your wrinkles disappear. That said, dehydration will make your skin look and feel dryer, because when you're dehydrated, your body takes moisture from your skin to hydrate your organs. This ends up making your wrinkles look deeper — and it can even make your eyes look sunken in.
So, if you're going from barely drinking any water to drinking plenty of it, you're definitely going to notice positive changes in your appearance. Regardless, you should go ahead and drink up so your organs don't have to result to pulling moisture from your face.
5. You Get Hungry Less Frequently
Let me start by saying you should definitely eat plenty of food and not feel guilty about it. That said, sometimes our bodies mistake thirst for hunger, and we end up eating when we're not really hungry. Drinking plenty of water (and eating foods with high water contents) helps us feel hungry less often, and since water is such a high volume liquid, it also helps keep our stomachs full longer than other drinks do. So, again, don't start drinking tons of water instead of feeding yourself — but do keep in mind that drinking water can keep you from lashing out in hangriness while you're waiting for your pizza to show up.
