All about Jess + Lifestyle

Need to Think Fast? Think Hydration

29 July 2015
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Look alive!

It’s a saying you might hear when you’re on the beach playing volleyball with friends, or during an office softball game – perhaps even from your boss in an important meeting.

Basically, you know you need to be alert. The problem is that so many people rely on caffeine, sugar and processed chemicals to rev up, both physically and mentally. What they don’t realize is that what they really need is hydration. If you’ve been part of the JSHealth community long enough, you know that’s not going to come by downing cup after cup of coffee.

True hydration comes from drinking enough water, and it’s absolutely critical for our brains to fire properly. Our bodies are made up of mostly water, so it’s important to replenish these levels throughout the day.

Have you ever heard of survival mechanisms? Think the signals your body sends your brain when it’s hungry, cold, or in pain. These are typically pretty easy to recognize, and because they’re uncomfortable, we listen quickly. Thirst is more challenging, because by the time we realize it? We’re probably already dehydrated.

A dehydrated brain burns up a lot of energy going after what it needs – water, of course. So if you’re not heeding that call, you’re going to have a very difficult time focusing on the task at hand. Not only does your performance level decrease, but your response time goes way down too. You don’t want that in the gym or the office – or worse yet, behind the wheel of your car.

Drinking a sufficient amount of water each day is a major priority for me. Now that I’m home again, I find myself using my Zip HydroTap every time I’m in the kitchen so that my glass is always full. I’ve got too many exciting things going on to risk dropping the ball due to dehydration.

To illustrate this point, Zip Water is performing some pretty unique experiments. I was blown away by this video, which shows exactly how much our response times are jeopardized when we’re dehydrated. Drinking water can make your responses 14% faster – and that’s huge when you’re dodging a bullet.

Heads up indeed. Or perhaps, in this case, bottoms up!

 

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