Water water everywhere, not much goes in!

Well, if air is like the very essential element to sustain life, water is the maintenance element! In the world where soft beverages rule, we have almost ignored water and forgotten that it is a drinking element. When i was in mauritius, i was invited by a family friend for dinner, chicken was served with coke. Not satisfied with coke, i reached out to drink some water. When they asked me why i wanted water to drink, i replied that usually we drink water with food back home and that is when they got shocked to death, retorting "are you kidding?"

Guys, we don't watch some random movie in the theater easily unless someone certifies it as a good one. Similarly, to reinforce our water drinking habits, i would like to share some benefits of the holy element. Apart from the best bet to quench your thirst, it has a lot of other actions. The best treatment for a sore throat would be to gargle warm salt water, the salt draws water from the throat mucosa and alters the pH making it hostile for the bacteria camping there. Even otherwise, gargling just lukewarm water normally before retiring to bed may prevent a sore throat next morning. People have tested and advised to drink water with honey first thing in the morning if you intend to lose some pounds. We easily get tempted by ice-creams, gulp in some before we recall that we are on diet! In that case, try a big glass of warm water down the throat,that may prevent the extra calories to deposit, also may keep your throat from getting an attack. Suddenly one wakes up in the middle of the night with pain in the back, rushes to the hospital, it turns out to be a kidney stone. The first treatment, drink a lot of water, what we call fluid therapy! It involves drinking huge amount of water in a little time, so that it flushes the stone out of the kidney. Then the patient is advised to drink a lot of water everyday to prevent stones in future. One should drink a lot of water especially in summer season, due to lot of sweating, to avoid dehydration.We may not be able to sense initial stages of dehydration, also the amount of water we take in is often not proportional to the loss due to the fact that we often take cold water which quenches thirst early or we just don't like the idea of filling up a whole glass of water to quench thirst. If we consume less water, lesser we would urinate and just like the plants get dried up when deprived of water, our urinary tract dries up inviting bacteria to camp and create infection, which causes burning sensation often. Just like the car engine needs oil, stomach when eating food secrets acid to digest and need water along for proper digestion. But the timing is more important here, some say drink water half an hour prior, a popular healer says drink water only after finishing the food. So the point is to avoid drinking while taking the food. While preparing bottle milk for the baby, we need to dilute the powder with proper amount, this is very crucial as thick milk may lead to indigestion whereas over diluted milk will not serve the purpose. With proper amount of water after every episode of vomiting, we can compensate for the water loss. This we just ignore because we think it's just the food which came out but what we fail to understand is that the water has come along too. Children suffering from diarrhea will need oral rehydration salt solution to compensate for the loss of water and salts. We shall imagine the human body as a blender which functions right with only optimum amount of water in it. Warm water enema is a good treatment which cleans our intestines and washes away some infectious bacteria. Anyone can take enema just like that. It is simple but ignored because of the obvious fact that it has to go through the rear. For people who are on diet but could not control their hunger can try drinking lot of water before food and wait for a few minutes. I said wait for a few minutes because our brain takes sometime to sense that our stomach is getting filled, if we do not give this time, then we would eat more than required before the brain realises we are full and end up with a non movable body and a bloated stomach, then we wonder how come we ate more than its capacity making it bulge ! Our brain need atleast 15 minutes to sense the fullness, so why not respect it's protocol ? Water even comes to rescue for cough and hiccoughs, though mild hiccoughs can be managed by looking up and holding breath for a while.

Even externally , water has its own benefits. If you take bath in hot water during summer, one can prevent heat rash which are common in the season. But a note of caution here, too much cold or hot water bath may lead to itching sometimes. Hot water bag is a very good therapy for joint pains, muscle aches and sprains. Guess what is the first thing to do when a foreign body hits your eye, start splashing tap water in the eyes for the next few minutes. The same is done for a dirty wound before doing a dressing. When a burn injury, better to put off fire by water than a blanket. As a matter of fact, when we open up the infected abdomen to operate, we always do a saline water wash inside ! Splashes of cold water regularly on the face would keep your skin dirt free. Of course, always keep in mind the scarcity of water in India, use it judiciously and beware of contaminated water, avoid using it both internally and externally. Also do not store water in those plastic bottles which are meant to be disposed after single use, you might end up with cancer! On a final note, remember the more water goes in, the more beneficial it is. Though water intoxication is caused rarely by a excessive drinking disorder, we need not worry about it. Optimum water is balanced with salts in the body, if the balance is disturbed, salt levels go high and cause brain damage. Bottles of soft beverages can get you diabetes but tons of water would only make you feel at ease.