A NEW YEAR OF HEALTH
By Eve Prang Plews, L.N.C.

Reprinted from Natural Awakenings Magazine
Sarasota, FL                                January 2008

Will 2008 be the year for you to finally realize that you alone can change your health habits? Here's your chance to commit to simple changes, life-long changes that really are easy to accomplish and make a HUGE difference in your well being. What better way to start the year than to improve your health?

Our annual habit of making New Year's Resolutions was begun by the Babylonians 4,000 years ago. They did not seek to lose weight or quit smoking, but to return borrowed farm implements.  Well, get on it! Return those borrowed rakes, hoes and shovels right now! Today it's more common to resolve to "get fit" or "get out of debt" than to look around the garage for someone else's yard tools. I say that the most important New Year's resolution is simply to do a better job taking care of yourself this year than you have done in the past. Target easy goals and you will succeed.
 
Drinking more quality water is such an attainable goal with big health benefits, yet it requires a plan.  Start by putting a carafe and glass on your nightstand.  Waking in the night thirsty will no longer mean you have to turn on lights (Our sleep hormone, Melatonin, can be turned off with only a tiny bit of light exposure in the night. This lessens our chance to get back to sound sleep and increases our risk for cancers) and head for the kitchen.  The water will be right next to you ready for your hydration needs. Develop the habit of having a full glass of water when you put your feet on the floor upon arising.  We sweat in the night, often losing a pint to a quart of water without realizing the volume of fluid loss.  Trying to quench that morning thirst with juice or coffee does not answer the call from the body for water, water, water.
 
In Dr. F. Batmanghelidj's book, "Your Body's Many Cries for Water," acknowledgement is made that many diseases are nothing more than dehydration. While that may seem to be a bit of a stretch, his proof and evidence are based on very solid science. It is the 65%-75% of our body's water content - the solvent - that regulates all functions of the body including the activity of the solids dissolved in the water.  EVERY function of the body is dependent on adequate water to perform properly.  From headaches to joint pain, from high blood pressure to digestive discomfort all can be improved with water alone.
 
So here's your formula: divide your body weight in half, express that number as ounces. Example: if you weigh 150 pounds, half that number is 75.  You need 75 ounces of water per day - not coffee, tea, juice, soup, beer, wine, soda or cocktails - just pure water.  That's what the human body evolved on as the ONLY beverage for many millennia. The idea that 6 or 8 full 8 oz. glasses of water per day are sufficient is true only if you weigh 96-128 pounds! Commonly dietitians speak of "fluids," as if they all act the same on the body tissue; nothing could be further from the truth.  Caffeine containing drinks like cola, coffee and tea are actually diuretics; they remove water from the system. Juice and soup are foods in a liquid form. They are not fluids to be counted like water even though they contain water.  Meat contains water.  We don't count a slice of roast as fluids so don't count soup or juice as water, it's not.
 
Always be in front of your thirst, try to drink enough water so that you never get thirsty.  You'll have more energy.  You'll sleep better. Digestion will be more efficient. Joints move smoothly, skin is clearer. Thinking improves.  Sounds like Mother Fletcher's Snake Oil, doesn't it?  Water fixes everything; well not quite, but it goes a long way toward helping a lot of health complaints. Even the oft mentioned response of frequent calls to toilet stop within days as the body gets used to not having to ration water between the various compartments of the body from the brain to the gut and from blood to muscles.  It truly is amazing how this simple compound improves health.
 
Suffice it to say that if you are using water from the tap, it is best filtered through a solid or compressed carbon filter.  Reverse osmosis may give clean - albeit de-mineralized water - but it is ecologically unsound to have to throw away more than a gallon of water for each gallon that is used. If you're buying bottled water, consider these precautions, water that is bottled in another state or country and thus crosses state lines must be tested annually for the presence of over 400 toxic contaminants. If the water has NOT crossed state lines then it should have the word "spring" in the water's title. "Spring Water" is a protected title in the State of Florida; it really has to come from a spring. Avoid distilled or "purified" or "drinking" water, none of which have standards recognized nationally and are typically tap water. Also, water delivered out of machines where you fill up your own bottle for a price is not regulated either by the state or nationally. It doesn't imply that it is bad, just not regulated by any government agency for quality. Who actually changes those filters and how often are they changed?
 
It's a little resolution with a big purpose. Sounds so simple doesn't it? Drink more water, more good water. Develop a strategy to give your body enough.  A glass upon arising, always a glass before a meal, drink a glass just before leaving the house to run an errand, have another when you return from a venture out.  Habituate your water drinking. What a great way to serve your body this year and every year in the future. You'll discover like many who have done it, that adequate water drinking is a most important health resolution.