Optimal Hydration

 Last year, a friend who's also a Breitenbush community alumni invited me to zoom calls with the Balneology group he's part of. Folks interested in the healing properties of springs and water gather monthly, with a different speaker each time. 

While all the calls I've attended are interesting, our recent speaker, Gina Bria, spoke my language of health and hydration!  An anthropologist trained at Columbia University, Gina has been studying better ways to hydrate for years!

She spoke of looking beyond the common injunction to "drink more water" for hydration. She suggest spending time outside to receive natural light. She talked of the viral role movement plays, of how plants structure water and make it more available, of external water (mud baths!) .... and I thought of how my time at Breitenbush Hot Springs had included all of these sources daily!

Quench - a better way to hydrate

And she spoke of the book she co-authored with Dr Dana Cohen, an integrative physician in Manhattan. 

With her busy health centered city practice, "almost no one came into Dana's office without talking about their inexplicable fatigue and low energy.  Could dehydration be behind so many pervasive complaints?" (x - Preface) 

When Dana and Gina met, they realized their interests dovetailed, and that they had a common wish to share the science, and simple, practical ways to achieve optimal hydration!

 

On page 12, they list a number of conditions and ailments linked to dehydration:

• Headaches, including migraines
• Weakness and fatigue (inc. that associated with fibromyalgia 
• Brain fog and lack of focus
• Urinary tract infections
• Constipation 
• Trouble sleeping
• Decreased immunity
• Heart disease
• Type 2 diabetes
• Acid reflux
• Dementia, including Altzheimer's

"Protecting yourself from chronic conditions is not about increasing intake but about how well your body absorbs water." (P. 13)

One of the keys to optimal hydration is remembering plants and their super-power, photosynthesis. Food from plants offers a wonderful source of water, bioavailable and readily absorbed! With a range from 80-98% water by volume, plants offer the perfect packaging! 

Bottle of water or cucumber? The cucumber packs a hydrating 96.7% water! (P 63)

Plus the liquid from plants is already, "purified, alkaline, PH perfect, minerals, full of nutrients, structured and energized to absorb into our cells." (P 14)

Rose and Tulsi basil tea

This is music to my heart! I've long felt that eating an abundance of fresh local and organic produce, with some preserved / from farther away, is ideal, and that vegetables and fruit play an important role in hydration! (In chapter 2 they write of recent research on the connection between seasonal eating, gut health, and our microbiome!)

Water rich food is also nutrient dense, with vitamins, minerals (again, especially when grown sustainably and nutrients returned to the soil; and perennial vegetables and fruit are included). And - fluids "are full of electrons, which run our electrical functions."  And "because of the fiber in plants, the water stays in our system longer because we absorb it more slowly." (P 63-64)

I loved seeing the sidebar about roses (141-42), and how the high pectin content in the petals contracts many dehydration symptoms, including headaches, dizziness and cognitive fog! (I have a tin of rose petals for making rose beads, and need to make some rose petal jam!)

So for this evening's tea, I simmered some licorice, and pulled out Tulsi & Sweet Rose - mmm! 

-- Did you know - in the original gov. hydration recommendations, nearly half the amount of fluid suggested - 45% - was to come from food? Time to reclaim that awareness! (P 61) 

The authors offer a "5 day Quench hydration plan," which includes micro-movement sessions sprinkled, throughout the day; morning smoothies (plant based - no protein powder!) and other beverages (including Afternoon Delight - with chia seeds band natural electrolytes). I'm on day 1! 

Gina was able to reverse her elderly mother's dehydration by grinding chia seeds in a small electric seed (coffee) mill, and had the caregivers add a spoonful to her mom's orange juice each morning! Her mother's dehydration abated, and she didn't suffer from UTIs again! 

Are you ready to 'increase your capabilities on every front, from health to sports to smarts' and include a few simple practices to increase hydration?