Why Drinking More Water Is Good for You and the Planet
Water: an essential building block of life that makes up 60% of the human body and about 71% of the earth’s surface. And yet, we often take for granted that water is one of the healthiest and cheapest sources of hydration. Not to mention, when compared to other hydration options such as sodas, plain tap water has a significantly smaller carbon footprint.
Water supports your health in numerous ways, from lubricating joints to keeping things moving, and more. Not only are you doing your body a favor by drinking more water, but the environment stands to benefit, too. Tap water requires fewer resources, reduces pollution, and has fewer transportation costs than bottled liquids.
While you don’t have to give up the occasional coffee, soda, or alcoholic beverage, it’s safe to say that increasing your water uptake is good for you and the environment. Keep reading to learn more!
Note: we recognize that not everyone has access to safe and affordable drinking water. If your tap water is unsafe, click here to check out the CDC’s official water resources, and do the best you can with what you have available to you.
Photo by LuAnn Hunt
The health benefits of drinking more water
Without enough water, your body can quickly become dehydrated and start to malfunction. Symptoms of dehydration can begin with just 2% water deficit, including fatigue, headaches, short term memory loss, and irritability. In the long run, dehydration increases the risk of urinary tract infections (UTIs), kidney stones, constipation, and more.
Besides preventing dehydration, drinking more water is simply a net positive that can have a lot of benefits for your health:
Maintains normal body temperature
Water in the body acts as a thermoregulator, maintaining a steady body temperature through heat dissipation. If the body starts to overheat, such as when exercising, it expels water through sweat, which has an evaporative cooling effect on the skin.
Conversely, water helps your body maintain a high core temperature even in cold environments by constricting blood vessels and reducing blood flow to the skin.
Lubricates joints, muscles, and the spinal cord
Water is an essential lubricant for joints, muscles, and the spinal cord. Approximately 76% of muscle tissue is made up of water, which helps keep them functioning properly. Additionally, the synovial fluid in joints and cartilage in the spinal cord are made up largely of water, preventing friction and increasing the ability to absorb shocks.
Promotes bowel movement, urination, and perspiration
Our bodies require regular removal of the byproducts of digestion and metabolism through bowel movements and urination. Additionally, perspiration is a function that not only helps the body cool off, but it also helps eliminate toxins from the body.
Staying hydrated helps support all of these functions and prevents constipation, inflammation, and gut irritation.
Improves your mood
The brain contains around 73% water, so it’s no surprise that good hydration is critical for a healthy mind. In addition to supporting all of the body’s day-to-day functions, the brain is at the center of our mental well-being. Even mild dehydration can impact your mood and ability to pay attention, so drinking more water is a good way to promote mental health.
Supports physical performance
Drinking more water supports higher physical performance in a few ways. First, it’s important to replenish fluids lost through exercise and perspiration. Additionally, increasing your water intake helps muscles perform at their peak.
Improves complexion
The skin is the body’s largest organ. It not only protects against pathogens and allergens, but also acts as a barrier to most of the sun’s powerful (and potentially harmful) UV rays. Good hydration helps maintain skin elasticity, softness, and coloring, which in turn leads to better, healthier-looking complexion.
Photo by Nick Fewings
The environmental benefits of drinking more water
One of the easiest ways to reduce your environmental impact on a daily basis is by drinking more water (from the tap, not from a plastic bottle).
If your tap water isn’t safe to drink, instead of turning to bottled water, consider installing a water filter or signing up for a 5-gallon water jug delivery service. Check with your county services for additional guidance and resources.
Less waste
Drinking more water means less waste in two key ways:
It reduces the amount of plastic, aluminum, and glass bottles/cans produced.
It reduces the amount of resources required to bottle drinks.
Let’s break this down further. Bottled beverages usually come in one of four types of packaging: plastic bottles, aluminum cans, glass bottles, or cartons.
Of these types of packaging, not all are equally recyclable. While glass bottles are technically 100% recyclable, the economics of glass recycling in the US means only about 33% of waste glass gets recycled, compared to 90% in certain European countries.
Likewise, cartons (the plastic-coated cardboard containers that often store milk), are not always accepted by recycling programs. Plastic bottles are almost always recyclable, but require an immense amount of energy and water to be kept in the cycle, with reduction in quality. Not to mention that many of them end up in the landfill or even in the ocean.
Aluminum cans, on the other hand, are infinitely recyclable. Of the four kinds of packaging, they’re most likely to have the smallest environmental impact, especially as consumer education around recycling improves.
However, recycling bottles and cans is not a net-zero process, no matter the type of material. The recycling process releases carbon emissions, uses plenty of water, and results in unusable waste/byproducts.
Drinking more water from the tap, and fewer bottled beverages, means fewer bottles are involved at all. Even a 5-gallon water cooler can supply safe drinking water with minimal waste; the jug simply gets returned and refilled with more water!
Finally, it’s important to realize that it’s not just the production of bottles and cans that has an environmental impact; the production of the beverages themselves consumes resources, too.
Less transport miles
There’s a reason that shopping locally is a big part of a sustainable lifestyle; the more transport miles an item has, the larger its carbon footprint. Bottled beverages, no matter what kind, come from a factory somewhere. Those drinks are often transported hundreds or thousands of miles just to get to your local grocery store or vending machine.
By drinking more water, you’re reducing the amount of transport miles that you’re ‘consuming’ on a daily basis.
Drinking more water supports a healthy, eco-friendly diet
Another surprising benefit of drinking more water comes by the way in which it supports a healthy diet.
Let me explain. First, drinking more water can reduce your appetite. Consuming less food, but especially consuming more fruits and vegetables, supports healthy weight loss and has a smaller overall environmental impact.
The second factor is evidenced in the long term: good hydration and a healthy diet, especially in tandem, can improve your overall health and reduce strain on the medical system. In fact, studies have found that ending up in the hospital for even a day can significantly increase one’s environmental footprint.
How much water should I drink per day?
A common recommendation is that a standard adult should drink eight 8-ounce glasses of water a day (or 64 ounces). While this is a useful metric, everyone’s body is different. Some people might require even more water to remain sufficiently hydrated; especially athletes and pregnant women.
Additionally, the metric doesn’t include the amount of water taken in by foods such as leafy greens and other vegetables (which account for roughly 20% of our total water intake).
However, chances are, if you’re not sure whether you’re properly hydrated or not, you could probably drink more water.
3 ways to drink more water
Luckily, it’s easy to build a habit around regular water drinking. Use these tips to stay properly hydrated throughout the day:
Keep a water bottle with you
Whether at your desk or in the car on a long drive, keeping a reusable water bottle with you is a good way to make sure you have access to water at all times. Many places now even offer water refill stations, including airports and shopping malls.
Take small sips throughout the day, and especially when you wake up and before you go to bed. Additionally, keeping a water bottle with you is a good way to keep track of how much water you’ve been drinking throughout the day.
Eat more fruits and vegetables
Roughly 20% of our daily water intake comes from our food, particularly fruits and vegetables. If you want to consume more water, simply eat more fruits and vegetables throughout the day, especially leafy greens and citrus fruits.
An additional benefit is that fruits and vegetables are great for your health, too!
Add flavors to your water
If you’re used to drinking plenty of flavored drinks or sodas, you might think that water is boring by comparison. You can change that by adding fun flavors to your water. Simply squeeze some lemon or lime juice in your glass of water, add slices of cucumber or other fruits, vegetables, and even herbs.
Sparkling water, in moderation, can also be a fun way to jazz up your water consumption. You can make your own with a Soda Stream, or buy canned soda water at the store. Unlike bottled sodas, the aluminum cans are easily recyclable.
Above all, plain tap water, when safe for drinking, will always be the cheapest and healthiest form of hydration.
How do you make sure you drink enough water each day? What’s your favorite non-water beverage to indulge in? Let us know below!
