I've been actively working on several physical limitations of mine for the last several years. The progress has been gradual but steady and recently that gradual progression increased it's pace. It's these changes that have prompted some of my posts and that includes this one.
I was going to include everything in one post but, I have a tendency to go on way too long so I'm breaking it up into pieces and I'll devote a little more energy into each piece.
Our bodies are made to be in motion. This gift of motion can only be fully realized through one thing only and that is through health. In fact our health and our ability to move are intricately linked and you can't have real health without the ability to move under your own power.
I'm going to include a list of things that I believe that we must do to achieve and maintain our health and our ability to move:
- Drink lots of good clean water.
- Eat the right kind of foods
- Breath properly
- Quality Rest
- Plenty of movement
- Stretching
- Messaging
- Blinking
Water is essential to our life. We start out to be about 98% water at conception, 90% at birth, 75% at middle age and if we live long enough we'll be about 50% at death. Is there a link between dehydration, aging and degenerative disease? I think so. If we shortchange any part of the body of the water it needs to function we shortchange the whole body. I don't believe that there is any metabolic process in the body that doesn't somehow rely on water.
Many of us don't even like to drink water, instead we prefer flavored beverages, many of which are really harmful for us if we are dehydrated because those beverages have a diuretic action on the body and this only serves to exacerbate the existing dehydration.
Our ability to move as anything but a newborn infant is directly linked to our level of hydration. Newborns can't walk as their musculoskeletal systems are too fluid and water doesn't walk it flows. Our ability to move under our own power comes as the muscles and bones begin to solidify. Then after about the age of twenty five we begin the battle in earnest to keep ourselves properly hydrated.
Have you ever noticed how old people move about, that is those who are still ambulatory and not just getting around in their power chairs? Their stride is short and halting, most often being nothing more than a short shuffle. Their ability to balance is compromised by muscles that are no longer able to function properly. Why?
It's my firm conviction that they are suffering from a lifetime of dehydration. The bones are dry, the joints have dried up and rubbed away through friction, the muscles, ligaments and tendons have shortened and become inflexible just like leather that has dried out in the sun and every other vital system has been compromised due to this dehydration along with those mentioned above.
Can kidney stones form when there is an adequate amount of fluid to keep the kidneys properly flushed out? Will the skin dry up and become leathery if it is properly moisturized? Will the eyes continue to be "bright" if there is enough moisture to produce tears? Will toxins be able to build up in and under the skin if the circulatory system is able to carry them away? Will the sinuses and lungs be able to keep themselves clear and functioning properly if there is an adequate amount of water in the body? This is only a partial list of things that come to mind concerning water and the body.
There are several rules of thumb as to how much water to drink. Some say: eight glasses of water a day and others say one half ounce of water for every pound of body weight and there are even some who claim that we shouldn't have to drink any water at all as we should be able to get what we need from the food we eat. Which one is right?
In my opinion none of those are right. The closest one would be the one that says we need one half ounce of water per pound of body weight but this is only a guideline as the body will tell us the real amount we need. Our level of activity could increase the amount we need above what the guideline says. We have to learn to listen to what the body is telling us.
Our bodies don't have any way of talking to us except through comfort and pain. We are comfortable, that is without disease, when we are doing what the body asks and we experience pain, that is we have disease, when we fail to attended to the bodies needs. A dry mouth is not just a cry but a scream from our body to give it water. Stiff aching joints or the presence of kidney stones may be the body's anguished cries for water. Heat exhaustion and heat stroke are the body's last gasps for water. In fact it's astounding as how many ways the body has of asking us to drink water all of which would be unnecessary if we only drank what the body requires. Can the body cure all diseases by just providing it with enough water?
No it can't and that's why I created the list of things I believe to be necessary for real health but to a large degree I consider water to be one of the most neglected nutrients in our diet.
A better guideline for drinking water: We need to drink water when we first wake up even before we get out of bed. How much water? Until the mouth feels fully hydrated which can take a while to determine. We don't want to drown ourselves with water by drinking a half gallon at a time but drinking a quart or more over fifteen or twenty minutes won't hurt. Then we need to respond by drinking water every time we begin to feel like the mouth is drying out. Warning: the mouth should never be dry to the point where you can't make spit. There are times that we shouldn't drink water: we shouldn't drink any water one half hour before we eat, not while we're eating and nothing during the two hour period after we eat. It'll take time to learn to recognize our bodies requests for water.
Drinking water when we first wake up helps to create adequate amounts of fluids to help flush out the kidneys that have been holding urine all night and will help to give the lungs and sinuses the extra moisture they need to clear themselves and will also give the bowels an adequate amount so it can clear itself. We've been breathing all night long and the lungs, sinuses and kidneys are the major users of water during this time. The air we breath has to be moisturized with every breath we take and that moisture is lost to the atmosphere as we exhale. The point is that we lose so much water as we sleep that we need to break the water fast with enough water to put things back on track which includes giving the body enough water to make enough saliva to mix with the food and enough water so that the stomach will have enough digestive juices when the food gets there.
This
should be a good enough place to stop with this subject of water;
enough to get you started on the right track. There are is a good book
on this subject written by Fereydoon Batmanghelidj entitled "Your Body's
Many Cries for Water"
If we learn to listen to the body it'll respond and say thank you by being comfortable. More with the next post.Katrael.
