Be Watchful Of These Dehydrating Activities - By: ArticleSubmit Auto

Three things are essential to sustain human life. Without these, we'll be dead pretty quickly, although the absence of each one takes different amounts of time to kill us. Without air, we'll be dead in a matter of minutes. Without water, we'll drop dead in a matter of days. Without food, we can actually last a fairly long time, up to a month or more, depending on our emergency reserves. Because dehydration can sometimes be disguised as other feelings, it's important to know what kinds of things can make us dehydrated. In this article I'll go over a couple of them, so you'll know what to be careful of.

Without doing anything, you will naturally become dehydrated if you don't drink any water. Your body is constantly filtering out the chemicals in your blood that would cause harm if they grew beyond dangerous levels. So just sitting around can cause dehydration if you aren't drinking enough, or any water.

Another obvious activity that increases your need for water is exercise. This causes an increase in lactic acid in your muscles, which needs to be filtered out. Exercise also causes the body to heat up, causing excess perspiration, which uses plenty of water. Often times you can go through a rigorous workout and not feel thirsty. Keep in mind that thirst is a last minute warning signal, and be sure to drink plenty of water while exercising.

When you consume alcohol, you put a lot of stress on your body when it comes to digesting and metabolizing the alcohol. This requires plenty of water, which is why you feel so thirsty after a night of heavy drinking. Because thirst is a last ditch warning effort to drink some water, consider drinking plenty of water the night before, while you are drinking whatever else you happen to be drinking. This can also help avoiding that nasty hangover that has a habit of showing up the next morning.

Any drinks that contain caffeine also significantly dehydrate you, for a couple of reasons. Similar to alcohol, caffeine requires water to be broken down and metabolized. Also, caffeine is a diuretic, which increases your urinary output. This increased output naturally uses your valuable water supply, which makes you even more thirsty. For every cup of coffee or caffeine containing beverage you consume, consider drinking an extra glass of water to offset the effects.

These are some of the things which can cause dehydration, which can lead to other health problems like stress, excessive tiredness, and a weakened immune system. By making sure you offset these by drinking plenty of water, you'll be sure to stay healthy.

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