Water, Is It THAT Important?

Why your body requires healthy water? Your body depends on clean water to perform its daily functions, such as digestion, temperature and blood regulation, respiration, and detoxification. In particular, your body's ability to flush out toxins and properly assimilate nutrients depends heavily on an abundant intake of clean, chemical free water. The more stress, toxins, and pollutants your body battles with each day, the more water it needs. The quantity and quality of the water you use largely determines your body's ability to shed excess fat and properly maintain your body's largest organ, your skin. While your entire body is 72 percent water, your skin is 80 percent water. Plentiful water is needed to maintain your skin's elasticity and moisture barrier. Your blood is over 90 percent water and uses water to transport oxygen, nutrients, and antibodies throughout your body. How do you know if you are dehydrated? Three reliable indicators are: 1) Feeling tired when you haven't done a good day's work. 2) When you wake up first thing in the morning and you don't feel like getting out of the bed. 3) When you wake up your joints and muscles are sore. What is the recommendation of water intake? First thing in the morning when you wake up, two glasses of water to offset the dehydration of overnight. One glass of water half an hour before food to aid in the digestive process to come. Then one glass of water two-and-a-half hours after food, to wrap up the process of digestion, and hydrate the areas that lost water to the circulation. DO NOT over-hydrate, this can be very damaging to the body. What is the best water source? The best water source is if you have access to a natural occurring spring or well water. However, very few people do have that access so the next best water source in my opinion and what I use for my family is Reversed Osmosis(RO) with a Granular Carbon filtration. I go to the local water store here in West Jordan to get what I believe is the best water available in the Salt Lake Valley. The reason I prefer RO water because they generally remove more impurities, including hard-to-remove fluoride. However, they also remove natural minerals in the water. I add the essential minerals back into my water, but it's an extra step you MUST remember to do for naturally healthy water. What role does water play in regards to your spine? As a chiropractor that focuses on correcting Neuro-Spinal Dysfunction, I stress the importance of proper hydration because of the role it plays in repairing and then maintaining a well functioning spinal column. Most patients when they first come into our office, they already have developed mild to moderate degeneration in their spine. Spinal degeneration is due to abnormal spinal alignment. When a vertebra is not in its correct position, it causes a decrease in capillary circulation to the inter-vertebral disc which leads to an inflammation process in the joint capsule thus causing vertebral degeneration. The key point is that even if you hydrated yourself adequately the damaged vertebrae will not be able to receive the proper hydration because of the decreased blood circulation within the joint. When a patient is going through their Neuro-Spinal Corrective Chiropractic care, we are reversing the process of Neuro-Spinal Dysfunction. As correction and healing is taking place it is extremely important that the patient is doing their part in the healing process which does include proper hydration so that the desired long-term results are achieved.