Dehydration Stresses the Brain

 How drinking water helps your brain and helps fight the stress and fatigue from COVID-19. Dehydration damages organs and create stress. Dehydration physically stresses all the organs in your body, causing emotional stress in your brain as it worries about your organs and your body's survival. This added stress can lead to anxiety, feeling moody, headaches and depression.

  Drinking water helps hydrate the body so all the organs are doing good which helps the brain to feel good. Drinking water is one of the easiest ways to reduce stress in your life.

  I've talked to people who've started drinking water and they love the results. When things happen like a computer crashing, spilling something in the kitchen, or just something bad happens, instead of getting angry, now their reaction is a short laugh and a smile. They find themselves being more relaxed and more confident.

  Reducing your overall stress level will have a positive effect on your relationships with your family, friends, coworkers, and new people that you meet. In addition to adults, studies show that children are often dehydrated, which can lead them to act out as well as feeling depressed.

  Drinking water to stay well hydrated can help children deal with things better. Parents need to take care of themselves and their children. Drinking water can help you feel better and have more patience with your children.

  Dehydration can also cause fatigue, and low energy. Dehydration causes a lower blood level so your brain may be getting less blood and oxygen, as well as having to ration the reduced blood level to the most important organs, which lowers their ability to function.

  Less blood, oxygen and nutrients to your brain can cause your body to feel tired, fatigue, and low energy. If you feel like you could use more energy, try drinking some water. It does make a difference.

  1% dehydration equals 5% loss of brain power. Even a mild amount of dehydration can affect your mood and brain. If you are 1% dehydrated, you lose 5% of your brains processing power. If you are 5% dehydrated, you lose 25% of your brain's processing power, hurting your ability to think and make decisions.

  It's harder to think when you are dehydrated. Studies show that when you feel thirsty, you may already be 2 to 3% dehydrated, which means your brain is working at a 10 to 15% reduction, inability to think as well as affecting your mood.

  If you work in a job that requires thinking, drinking water so you brain is functioning at its best processing power really helps.

  If you're an athlete, drinking water helps your brain calculate quickly. Calculating the distance and angle to the basket or goal, or your opponent's move and your response faster can help you win.

  If you're a coach who wants a winning season, keep your team hydrated even during practice. If you play video games, drinking water makes your brain faster with stronger processing power.

  If you're a student, drinking water helps increase your ability to concentrate and your memory. When I feel my brain getting a little fuzzy, I drink some water and it helps. 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated. A study shows that 75% of Americans don't drink enough water every day, which leaves their bodies in a constant state of stress. This constant stress from lack of water hurts your immune system and your body's ability to defend itself from disease.

  As a survival response to stress your adrenal glands produce cortisol. Chronic dehydration can create chronic stress, which can wear out your adrenal glands by making them continuously produce cortisol, which can lower your immune system and make you more susceptible to inflammation and disease. Stress also lowers your white blood cells, which your body needs to fight viruses like the COVID-19 virus.

  Let's take a look at three different types of stress. Baseline stress, daily stress, and dehydration stress. Baseline stress is stress from the past that you haven't let go of which could be from days, months, or even years ago. The amount of baseline stress will be different from person to person.

  Daily stress are things that happen during your day like your car not starting, having somebody be rude to you or getting into an argument. Baseline stress and daily stress can add up. The more bad things that happen, the more upset you can become.

  When we get really upset, it is often not just about what just happened, but everything that happened before it as well. For baseline stress there are psychological skills you can learn to help you go through your past to remove things you no longer want to be angry about.

It is kind of like moving and deciding what you want to take with you moving forward with your life and what you want to leave behind. Sometimes there are things you have kept through past moves, that you're finally ready to get rid of. Getting rid of anger from your past can feel really good.

  For daily stress there are also skills you can learn to help you deal with things during your day as they happen to help keep your stress level lower. Two of the best skills are learning how to let things go and looking for things to be thankful for.

  Dehydration stress happens when your body becomes dehydrated and all the fluids in your body are too low, which stresses your body and every organ in it. When you are dehydrated it stresses your heart, your lungs, your digestive system, your kidneys and liver and your brain.

  This physical stress on your body creates emotional stress which can lead to depression and anxiety as well as making you feel lethargic and low energy. Not drinking enough water adds dehydration stress to your baseline and daily stress. While your baseline and daily stress takes skills to handle, drinking water is an easy solution to dehydration stress.

  Drinking Water three times a day to replace water your body loses during the day is a great way to fight dehydration stress. With increased exercise activity or heat, you may be sweating more, so you may need to add some more water for that as well.

  Paying attention to your body's fluid levels and staying well hydrated will help keep your stress levels down and help you feel happier, more relaxed and confident. Drinking a glass of water in the morning, at noon, and in the late afternoon or evening will help hydrate your body and help keep your brain healthy and happy.