We all try to avoid dehydration, but what about overhydration?

Drinking a glass of water first thing in the morning, taking a bottle of water with you on the road and frequently refilling your glass at work. We all do it because we know drinking enough water is important. But did you know there’s also such a thing as overhydration?

The consequences aren’t pleasant.

Drinking water

There are plenty of people who have trouble drinking enough water every day. On the other hand, there are also fervent water drinkers who can knock back glass after glass. We’re told over and over again that we should make sure we drink enough water. Are you not part of the group of diligent water drinkers? Then it’s important to make sure you drink enough. Let’s start with a few tips for people who don’t drink enough water in a day before we get into overhydration:

• Begin your day with a glass of water.
• Use a mobile app to track your water intake.
• Give your water some flavour to make it more attractive to drink.
• Drink from a bottle and place it in your line of sight.
• Eat more types of fruit that contain water.

But, like we said, there’s also such a thing as drinking too much water. People who tend to overhydrate need the exact opposite advice.

Advice

In most cases the advice concerning water is that you should drink between two and three liters a day. This can also be tea or soda – it’s about your general intake of fluids. Do you drink too little? Then you can become dehydrated and you can experience bad skin, headaches and other nasty symptoms. Do you think you’re drinking more than three liters of water a day? That’s no biggie; your body can still handle it.

When you do drink too much water, though, you can experience some nasty symptoms and you might even get water intoxication! Go to the next page to read all about it.

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