I hope you know how important it is to drink enough water each day in order to stay properly hydrated. (And if you aren’t familiar with this, you can learn more in the guide I created titled Overcoming Overwhelm: 9 Key Areas to Find Balance and Bring You to the Life You Deserve, which you can get for free by following this link). Our bodies are made of so much fluid, and keeping hydrated with the proper substances (mainly water as the number one best choice!) is vital to our health and well-being. But it can be so hard to get enough water in each day. We get busy, our bodies get full with other food or drinks, or we simply forget. And especially for us moms when we are pregnant, we really just don’t physically have the space to take in fluids (even though it is so critical when you are growing a baby!). However, even if we don’t take fluids in, we are constantly excreting them – through sweat, respiration, urine, milk production (if you are nursing), etc. And the ultimate result can be dehydration and all the negative side effects that come along with that.
During the day, one of the most critical times to get water in is first thing in the morning when you wake up. After you’ve been asleep for (hopefully) eight hours, you’ve lost a lot of fluid in respiration and the other various cleansing and repair activities which our bodies do at night. And since you haven’t been replenishing liquids while asleep, people can be at their most dehydrated first thing in the morning. Previously I was horrible at drinking water in the first part of the day, and I could always feel the dehydration, sluggishness, and mental fog catch up with me later on. This unfortunately always led to me playing catch up with my water intake, and it wasn’t easy to get what I needed. By the time I did, it was time to go back to sleep where the cycle would start all over again.
But then I heard a tip from Bob Harper, one of the trainers made famous by the show “The Biggest Loser”. He said that the first thing he does every morning when he wakes up is to drink an 8+ ounce glass of water. He just guzzles it down. Doing so jump starts his hydration levels, his alertness, his metabolism, and gets him moving.
So I figured, hey, let’s give this a try. It’s such an elementary thing, but something I had never tried before. I was game to test it out.
And honestly, at first I really didn’t like it. Since my body wasn’t accustomed to consuming so much fluid all at once at the beginning of the day, initially I actually felt a bit sick and nauseated. But I figured, that like with anything in life, maybe I just needed to give myself some time to adjust. However after trying it for a few weeks, (even though the fact that I was taking in more fluids in the morning did make the rest of my day feel better), I continued to have that initial nauseated feeling from the large intake all at once on an empty stomach.
Since I did see noticeable benefits of the increased water intake in the morning, I was determined to make it work for me. And I found a long-term solution that works great!
Before bed at night, I fill a drinking glass completely full with water and set it on the bathroom counter next to my clothes and everything else that I have set out for when I get ready in the morning. (Our glasses range from 10-16-ounce capacity, and I honestly just grab whichever is front and center, regardless of size!). And then I make sure that entire glass of water gets consumed between the time I go to bed and when I’m out of the shower and ready for my day the next morning. If I happen to wake up in the middle of the night and need to go to the bathroom (which happens a lot now that I’m 9 months pregnant!), I make sure to take a sip or two before going back to bed. And then once I’m up in the morning, I’m taking another few sips or two in between everything I’m doing to get ready for the day – some before my shower, some when I get out, once again after I’m dressed with teeth brushed, some while doing my makeup, and some while doing my hair. My whole shower and getting ready routine takes about 45 minutes, so instead of guzzling the whole glass at once and making my stomach upset, I’m instead slowly sipping it over a 45-minute period of time (minus whatever I drank when I was up during the night). This gradual intake is much easier on my system, and I’m guaranteed to get a jump start on my daily hydration this way.
And I have to say that I love the results! Previously, I would choke down the glass of water in the morning, knowing it was good for me, but not liking the process one bit. Now I miss it if I accidentally forget to get my glass ready the night before. I’ll feel parched when I wake up, and I can feel my body craving that extra fluid. I’ve also gotten rid of a lot of early morning headaches that I used to suffer from, and I’m convinced that the jumpstart on my daily hydration through the night and in the morning has had a significant effect on that improvement in my quality of life.
So the 30 Second Tip that you can implement right away: Make sure you drink a full glass of water while you are getting ready for your day first thing in the morning. Make it a priority to drink it all before you exit the bathroom, or wherever you spend your time getting ready. It may take you a few weeks to get used to the fluid in your system on an empty stomach like it did for me, but keep trying until you find what works for you. You’ll discover so many amazing benefits once you can get in the habit of jumpstarting your hydration levels for the day!
All the best,
Lesley
(Since everything now requires a disclaimer, you can find my health disclaimer by following the link.)
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