how to hydrate yourself

A Simple But Crucial Trick to Properly Hydrate Yourself

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Most people walk around dehydrated.

This shows up in different parts of the body like in the muscles with cramping, in the blood with lack of circulation and blood flow, and in the skin with dry, flaky skin.

What caught my attention is how stubbornly dry my skin has been the past several years. It doesn’t really matter what the season is or what the weather is like, as many people assume it’s environmental factors first.

Those factors do play a role. But I’ve found it to be minimal overall. If you are well hydrated, environmental factors will barely even phase you. 

In order to properly hydrate yourself, we must come back to first principles, the most basic stuff. For us, that means drinking more water and retaining it. Beyond that, the trick is to add salt to your water. 

But don’t stop there. There are many things to be aware of. 

This trick carries a lot of weight and you need to understand why you need to do this in order to do it well because it’s easy to make mistakes.

First of all, why would we even want to do this?

The short answer is because neither our water nor our salt is good enough for us anymore. That is a large part of why we are so dehydrated in the first place.

Our drinking water, whether it is from the tap or bottled, is most likely devoid of any electrolyte or mineral content. Some bottled waters will take a water that has been stripped of minerals and then add artificial ones back in. This doesn’t make much sense to me.

So with water that has no mineral content, this becomes a problem because our bodies have a very hard time absorbing it. If you’ve ever noticed the issue of taking water in and having it come out the other end shortly after, this is most likely why.

As for the salt issue, please don’t add regular, iodized table salt to your water. That would still miss the point and leave you with the same problem.

Our standard salt today that we buy from the grocery store has the same problem as our water, it is entirely devoid of natural mineral content. This is quite a shame because that is literally the point of us eating salt, other than flavor of course.

Salt is an essential mineral that provides vital nutritional value to us. It helps us absorb and retain the other minerals we eat and drink by way of the electrolytes it provides.

What most salt producers do is remove any trace minerals naturally found in their salt, and then artificially add iodine back in to qualify it as “iodized.” But again, this misses the point.

Natural salt contains minerals and electrolytes that we need to absorb things like water properly. Electrolytes like sodium, potassium, and chloride are all lost in this process of natural water and salt being stripped down to their bare states and artificially supplemented.

Because of these two issues, I would encourage you to take up the habit of salting your water. The salt you should use would be a natural salt that doesn’t get the naturally-occurring trace minerals stripped from it.

The best choice I have found is Redmond Real Salt.

It’s special because it’s 98% sodium chloride and 2% trace minerals. Sodium, potassium, and chloride (the 3 major electrolytes) all occur naturally in this salt along with 60+ other trace minerals.

The best part is that none of them are removed or tampered with. The salt is sold exactly as it was mined. 

This is not to say that other high quality salts like Himalayan pink salt or Celtic sea salt would not suffice. They would be great choices, especially when compared to what is typically given to us at restaurants or added to our pre-made foods.

These two also contain high mineral contents typically, as long as they are sourced well. However, I still choose to use Redmond Real Salt.

Other than these 3 options, I would not recommend using any other kind of salt. Every other kind is overly processed: stripped down, nutrient-devoid, artificially supplemented, etc.

You can even read about why these salts are head and shoulders above the rest and even how they compare to each other on the Redmond website.

That’s it, in a nutshell. Drink lots of water, especially in the morning after you wake up, and salt your water.

Some people in my personal life think it’s gross that I do this but I can assure you, it’s not at all. I think they imagine swallowing a big gulp of ocean water when in reality, it’s lightly salted water.

I, as well as one other person I know of, actually prefer the slightly salty taste in the water. I’m not exactly sure why but I can tell you one thing, it sure does work!


Comments

2 responses to “A Simple But Crucial Trick to Properly Hydrate Yourself”

  1. How much salt would you recommend per 8oz of water?
    What about potassium chloride? We do need to get about 3500mg/day which the Redmond and other mineral rich salts do not provide other than in trace amounts.
    Thanks.

    1. To be honest, I don’t pay attention to specific amounts. I do a few sprinkles of salt in my water when I know I’m going to be sweating.

      As for potassium chloride, yes it would be important but you should be getting it through other foods and beverages too considering it’s a crucial electrolyte. Not just from your salt.

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